More results...
[Update 6/10/14 - got the judgments now. Detailed comment here] This is frustrating! A DWP circular HB U4/2014 contains an annex with notes on four Scottish Upper Tribunal bedroom tax decisions. Two of them I have already addressed here, but the first and...
Here are couple of new First Tier Tribunal decisions (also on the FTT decisions page). A room use decision from St Helens - a room which had been used since the start of the tenancy as a dressing room/home office, and where a sewing machine was kept and...
I did a talk at a conference on the topic of legal issues about the bedroom tax, it was basically a critical overview of the higher courts and tribunal (FTT and UT) cases. In case they are useful or vaguely interesting, my notes are here. (No jokes though....
A busy Thursday for housing law, not yet law, housing benefits and housing misc. Item one. A Scottish Upper Tribunal is to hear a room size appeal on 18 September. This is one of the first Fife decisions. It is not the lead case in the English Upper...
I haven't written about the Affordable Homes Bill, partly because time, and partly because I was deeply cynical about the Bill's prospects of getting anywhere pre-election, and the omissions it contained. (In fact for many of the same reasons contained in...
I've got two Upper Tribunal decisions on bedroom tax appeals, both from Scotland. Both concern human rights related cases. One concerns what sounds like a fairly hopeless and sadly not well argued case based on disability. The other is considerably more...
No less than four FTT bedroom tax appeal decision have come my way lately. Three of them concern successful appeals on human rights Article 14 discrimination or Article 8 family life grounds. One is a clear room size decision with an interesting footnote on...
We've received an interesting First Tier Tribunal (so not binding) appeal decision from Wakefield, thanks to Kirklees Law Centre. A copy of the statement of reasons is here (not anonymised as the appellants consented to it being used largely unredacted). Mr...
We have the first (to the best of my knowledge) Upper Tribunal decision on a bedroom tax appeal, and therefore one binding on First Tier Tribunals. While it is not on one of the large scale issues, such as room size, it is nonetheless potentially important...
Some bits on the bedroom tax and room size First, a new FTT decision from Rochdale (Reasons here ). A room of 64 square feet was too small for a lodger and had not been used as a bedroom since the appellant’s son moved out in 2010. The room was instead...
Just what did Sandwell think they were doing? They set a minimum residence requirement of two years (why two you might ask) for their local council tax reduction scheme and thought that would be acceptable. They did so on the basis that they were concerned...
The DWP has very belatedly issued the interim review of the bedroom tax (under occupation penalty, removal of the spare room subsidy, whatever). The document can be found here, based on a survey for the period to April/Nov 2013. And the results are......