I’ve added a couple of new bedroom tax First Tier Tribunal decisions to the FTT page.
There is a Newcastle decision (Reasons here. Known as the Isos decision after the landlord who supported the appeal) which is a separated family decision. The appellant’s son stayed some 4 nights a week with him, but the mother was the one in receipt of child benefit. The Tribunal decided, despite the Council pointing out that the guidance they had received was that only the parent with child benefit should be the one not to face the bedroom tax, that the bedroom was clearly the son’s bedroom and that the appellant’s article 8 rights were engaged, as were the mother’s and the child’s.
It does not appear that there was any argument on the Upper Tribunal case of TD v Richmond, or Marchant v Swale, as was also absent in the Liverpool decision. While this is undoubtedly a good result for the appellant, I think that like the Liverpool decision it resembles, it would be unlikely to survive an appeal.
Then there is a Camden decision which saw a 5 bed reduced to 2 bed with no bedroom tax. The reasons (here) seem to have been that one bedroom was occupied by an overnight carer. What was described by the landlord as a bedroom in the attic contained an exposed water tank and wiring so cannot be designated/used as a bedroom in the ordinary meaning of the word. The attic space adjacent to this had no natural light and had damp in the ceiling, it was not referred to as a bedroom by the landlord, though where the fifth bedroom asserted was is a mystery. On the first floor there were 3 bedrooms but alterations had been carried out, and no evidence that the appellant had done them, knocking together 2 of the rooms. (The decision is seriously unclear on this point).