speleo1 Posted February 10, 2013 Share Posted February 10, 2013 I thought the reduction in housing benefits was going to apply whether underoccupying claimants rented or bought their home? dont think its for people that bought there houses as they dont get housing benifit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
francypants Posted February 10, 2013 Share Posted February 10, 2013 that's called Support for Mortgage Interest, not housing benefit Yes you're right. ---------- Post added 10-02-2013 at 12:56 ---------- I thought the reduction in housing benefits was going to apply whether underoccupying claimants rented or bought their home? As I understand it, it will only affect people under a certain age on housing benefit if they rent either council or private properties. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I1L2T3 Posted February 10, 2013 Share Posted February 10, 2013 But it isn't costing the government anything when a homeowner has extra bedrooms is it? There is an economic cost. If a single person lives in a 3 or 4 bedroom house that's one less house that a family with children could be using. To house the family another house has to be supplied. And that costs money. It's part of the problem we have now with an aging population. There isn't necessarily a problem with older people remaining in houses that are way too big for their needs as long as a replacement supply of houses is brought on stream to meet the needs of younger generations. The replacement supply of houses isn't happening. A window/under-utilisation tax could be enough to increase the numbers of older people downsizing into smaller housing units, freeing houses designed to be used by families for use by families. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyclone Posted February 10, 2013 Share Posted February 10, 2013 the condems in their wisdom think its ok to reduce benefit for people underoccupying:suspect:.should they also bring in a policy of charging homeowners who underoccupy a spare bedroom window tax just to even the score ? what do others think Not unless the home owner is having their house purchase subsidised by the state. ---------- Post added 10-02-2013 at 13:15 ---------- There is an economic cost. If a single person lives in a 3 or 4 bedroom house that's one less house that a family with children could be using. To house the family another house has to be supplied. And that costs money. It's part of the problem we have now with an aging population. There isn't necessarily a problem with older people remaining in houses that are way too big for their needs as long as a replacement supply of houses is brought on stream to meet the needs of younger generations. The replacement supply of houses isn't happening. A window/under-utilisation tax could be enough to increase the numbers of older people downsizing into smaller housing units, freeing houses designed to be used by families for use by families. The argument for it is less strong than the argument for charging people who live in social housing extra for spare capacity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted February 10, 2013 Share Posted February 10, 2013 Will be interesting if its implemented, in theory people in these properties have not broke any of the conditional contract rules they would have originally signed on renting the property. I could see it happening with new tenancies with it written into the original contract, or if someone defaults on their rent then a new contract could be signed with new conditions etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Funky_Gibbon Posted February 10, 2013 Share Posted February 10, 2013 how many homeowners receive benefits Quite a lot of them actually. But an specific example of a benefit a homeowner can get is to be totally exempt from council tax for half a year on any 2nd home they own that is unoccupied. According to Shelter there are currently 279,000 privately owned homes lying empty. http://england.shelter.org.uk/campaigns/why_we_campaign/building_more_homes/empty_homes So if council house tenents are to be punished for the crime of not having every room of their home filled with people 365 days of the year then shouldn't at the very least private homeowners not receive this benefit when there are hundreds of thousands of people who need housing? Or better yet the government could just stop farting about and start building more social housing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaliRichard Posted February 10, 2013 Share Posted February 10, 2013 the condems in their wisdom think its ok to reduce benefit for people underoccupying:suspect:.should they also bring in a policy of charging homeowners who underoccupy a spare bedroom window tax just to even the score ? what do others think We already do according to Yorkshire water. When we moved from Walkley to Parson Cross our water rates went up. when we queried this we were told it was because properties in Parson Cross on average had more windows. No I still don't understand it either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I1L2T3 Posted February 10, 2013 Share Posted February 10, 2013 The argument for it is less strong than the argument for charging people who live in social housing extra for spare capacity. I'm just making the point that there is an obvious economic cost if any economic asset is not utilised efficiently or not utilised as originally intended. And that if a certain type of housing unit is increasingly in short supply then in the face of sustained demand the price will increase. Would be interesting to know how many houses are under-utilised in this way. I don't expect there's any research on it yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricgem2002 Posted February 10, 2013 Author Share Posted February 10, 2013 plenty - they just don't get housing benefit so its ok to just pick on people claiming hb and "tax" them but any other kinds of benefits and its ok Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southcoast Posted February 10, 2013 Share Posted February 10, 2013 Can see one bedroom proerties becoming much sought after soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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