MP's Foul Up- Bedroom tax advice.

Now this information may grab your attention if you are paying the bedroom tax!

Its advice that is being offered by City Council officials to members. In short the Government MP's have fouled up and this advice is now being offered.

Since April 2013 changes to housing benefit rules meant that council and housing association tenants who were under pension age and occupying properties that had more bedrooms than they needed were subject to a 14% reduction in benefit if they had one spare bedroom and a 25% reduction if they had two or more spare bedrooms.

In January 2014 the DWP accepted that the new rules had not been properly drawn up, and that a loophole existed which meant that some people who had been subject to a reduction in their benefit should not have been liable to pay the extra rent due as a result.

To qualify for an exemption to this charge a person must have been:

- Continuously resident at the same address since 1 January 1996
- Continuously in receipt of housing benefit since that date (any gap of less than 4 weeks will not be counted as a break in entitlement)
- A person who succeeded to a tenancy after 1996 and there was continuous entitlement to housing benefit for both the current tenant and the person they succeeded from 1 January 1996.

The Revenues and Benefits division in conjunction with Wolverhampton Homes and local Housing Associations are taking steps to identify all claimants who may be affected. We estimate it could be between two and three hundred households.

Any constituent who wants to find out if they might be affected should be signposted to City Direct.

The DWP has indicated that it intends to remove this exemption as soon as possible by laying new regulations. The current timetable anticipates that this loophole will close on 3 March 2014. Just to be clear, anybody who qualifies for an exemption to the charge will still get the additional benefit paid even if they are not identified until after the rules are changed again.