Bedroom Tax Appeal

Hello everyone,

My name is Liam and I'm a First time post, long time subscriber. I'm trying to find information on the Bedroom Tax Appeals process and people's experience's as I'm going through my own appeal now and only have so much information.

So far, I've filled in the GL24 form, handed it in to my local council and was visited on Friday by two council workers who measured the room (one of the grounds I'm appealing on is room size). They told it would referred on to a housing manager or something like that and they'd make a decision and get back to me. I told them that I knew that the council has to refer my appeal to the tribunal and that it doesn't matter if the council reject my appeal.

I feel like the council are just trying to delay my appeal so it doesn't go into the tribunal system before the 5th of April deadline. I'm interested to hear about other people experience's at all stages of process. What's has been your experiences with landlords, local councils and the tribunal itself?

Thank you

Liam

Liam Flanagan wrote: Hello everyone,

My name is Liam and I'm a First time post, long time subscriber. I'm trying to find information on the Bedroom Tax Appeals process and people's experience's as I'm going through my own appeal now and only have so much information.

So far, I've filled in the GL24 form, handed it in to my local council and was visited on Friday by two council workers who measured the room (one of the grounds I'm appealing on is room size). They told it would referred on to a housing manager or something like that and they'd make a decision and get back to me. I told them that I knew that the council has to refer my appeal to the tribunal and that it doesn't matter if the council reject my appeal.

I feel like the council are just trying to delay my appeal so it doesn't go into the tribunal system before the 5th of April deadline. I'm interested to hear about other people experience's at all stages of process. What's has been your experiences with landlords, local councils and the tribunal itself?

Thank you

Liam

See this link How to challenge and appeal against the bedroom tax decision

Hello, although the deadline for appealing will have passed now, you may find my comments helpful still.

Firstly, as you can only make your appeal directly to your local council (as they administer the Housing Benefit) I should think that the date your appeal would be taken from would be the date it was received in their office. I submitted a formal appeal using the following form:

www.govanlc.com/GLCtoolkitupdated.pdf

This was received by my local council in November 2013. I had good medical and mental health grounds for a late submission. Firstly I asked for the following:


(i) A statement of reasons.

(ii) For this decision to be looked at again under review and appeal (the reasons for this appeal being late have been given above).

(iii) And, failing the above, a supersession of your decision based upon your error(s) of law and/or material fact, which are set out below.

I then split my appeal into 2 sections (as I have 2 extra bedrooms) which dealt with a request for a bedroom for an overnight carer (I wasn't currently in receipt of PIP but had lots of medical evidence and had applied for the award), and then separately a section on the evidence submitting that my house was only a 2 bedroom for the purpose of the bedroom tax legislation (at this point some first tier tribunals had been won, so I also quoted from these judgments).

However, my house is very small and I thought it may be possible to convince my local council to reclassify it (I worked out it would make only about £1 in difference to the rent they could charge). Neither of the main bedrooms actually meet the size criteria for 2 adults sharing (they are less than 109 square feet, so are 1.5 persons, and the boxroom is about 60 square feet. Also it's old shuttered and poured concrete construction, no damp proof (built in the 1930's) so subject to damp (hence not very suitable for a larger family due to condensation build up). Also rural, nearest bus stop 3 miles, no post 16 college transport from the village etc. So I put a separate letter in with my formal appeal suggesting the Benefits Department liaise with Housing first to see it they would be amenable to reclassifying my house to a 2 bedroom (thus saving the council the need to send my appeal to the Tribunal Service unnecessarily, which could be costly for them).

Anyway, the council came and measured all the bedrooms in early December and then I didn't hear from them again. However, the Benefits team did write to me in January stating they would allow me one bedroom for a carer, and backdated this to April 2013, meaning I was only 1 bedroom over my allowance. They said they were still waiting to hear back from Housing about the boxroom. But 2 months on and still nothing from Housing about the boxroom, and a new financial year looming. Due to the PIP process I was too ill to chase anything up until last week. Now after endless emails and telephone calls (with support from my Rethink Mental Illness worker) I finally heard today the Housing Department have agreed to re-classify my house as a 2 bedroom (although I still have to wait a week apparently before they 'can do this' (perhaps due to the new financial year, but no reason given).

So, if your house is a council house you may strike lucky! I guess it depends on your individual council and perhaps how you have been as a tenant (I got the feel from my Housing Officer they have been reclassifying houses for good, long standing tenants, but obviously cannot say this as a fact).

Best of luck anyway,

Sarah

P.S.

I'm not sure about this legally, but maybe tenants can still ask for a 'supersession' even though the 13 month limit will have elapsed, as their are now a number of successful first tier tribunal decisions that state a room under 70 square foot can only be used by a child under ten and is therefore not a bedroom for bedroom tax purposes (or legal words to this effect). If a higher level tribunal also makes this ruling I assume the floodgates will be open for 'supersession' requests?