UT authority on “current use” issue

This is an interesting case from the Upper Tribunal:

http://www.osscsc.gov.uk/Aspx/view.aspx?id=3919

Although the appellant lost here, I can see this decision being turned to useful advantage in bedroom tax appeals where the issue of how a room is used in practice is raised in relation to the question whether that room is in fact a bedroom.

In this UT case, three disabled adults shared a house with a “wakeful” support worker present overnight.  They argued that they should be entitled to an additional bedroom as a “person who requires overnight care” (PWROC).  In order to meet the definition of a PWROC it is a requirement that the claimant has in the dwelling a “bedroom” for the use of the carer. In this case the room was described as, used as and set up as an office - no-one slept in there.  For this reason the Judge concludes it was not a bedroom so the appellant was not entitled to an additional room under the PWROC rule:

The argument on behalf of the claimant put forward by the company (which is effectively the appellant in this case) requires the word ‘bedroom’ in the amendment to the 2006 Regulations to be read as extending to any room occupied by a carer providing night time care to a recipient of housing benefit, or the partner of such a person, whether or not the room contains a bed or is used for sleeping in.  Such a departure from the plain and ordinary meaning of the word ‘bedroom’, if it were ever permissible, could only be justified if it was necessary to give effect to legislation implementing a provision of EU law, or to achieve compatibility with a right conferred by the European Convention on Human Rights.

As to the final sentence in that extract, the Judge does not find any breach of the claimant’s human rights on the facts of this case - largely because they did not seem to need much overnight care and the waking support workers spent their time catching up on admin.

But more importantly, I take the first part of the cited comments above to mean in simple terms that the “plain and ordinary meaning” of the word “bedroom” is a room with a bed in it where someone sleeps.  So claimants who for a variety of compelling reasons have a room set up for other purposes should not be regarded as having that room available to use as a bedroom.

This is an Upper Tribunal decision - yippee!