Any concerns about the Governments ‘concessions’

I am surprised that last weeks events in the Lords has not resulted in some discussion.  We had to amend our impact assessment to reflect the change from 13 to 14% and 23 to 25% if under-occupying. Not very confident that the Lords amendment to allow one spare bedroom will not be overturned, but you never know. The decision to address the concerns for tenants in adapted properties and for foster carers and put more money into the DHP budget is hardly offering security for those individuals and the list of cases we will be putting forward will grow in the run up to April 2013.

UC draft regs on Housing Credit for mortgage costs seemed to provide stability to some home owners, but now the Government is considering putting a charge on property to recover any help they give. 

Seems things can only get worse and the challenges for those who advise should not be under estimated, but with all the cutbacks, it may be difficult to access that help.

The consensus seems to be that they’ll overturn the decision in the Commons during consideration of amendments.

As to the impact, particularly on affordability of housing, while this has a potentially large effect on those with extra rooms, our model shows that other recent changes, particularly the earnings disregards increases, cut in CTC increase, avoidance of capping for those with childcare support, and the now more quantifiable effect of CT support (which we’re still refining in the model) have a much more general and substantial effect.

Let me know if you’d like us to look at your tenant impact a bit in our modelling.