One social housing landlord has come up with an innovative idea to help their tenants beat the ‘bedroom tax’. In properties with rundown bathrooms and surplus bedrooms, the bathrooms are being moved into the main house to replace a spare bedroom and subsequently renovated. The tenant can then enjoy a nice new bathroom, as well as a sense of relief because they won’t fall foul of the government’s bedroom tax any longer.
Bathroom Renovations
A lot of older properties did not have indoor bathrooms when they were first built. Many only had outside lavatories and when the properties were later modernised, bathrooms were built as an extension at the back of the house, which meant that the quality of the fixtures and fittings is no longer as good as it might be.
Magenta Living, a leading social landlord in the Wirral area of Merseyside, is looking into the prospect of refurbishing many of these dilapidated bathrooms and replacing spare bedrooms with a brand new, modern bathroom. The scheme will only benefit around 200 properties in the area, but it will help a large number of tenants affected by the bedroom tax and has attracted praise from at least one Labour MP.
Much Maligned Bedroom Tax
The so-called ‘bedroom tax’ has proven to be deeply unpopular with tenants in the social housing sector. Many tenants have seen their housing benefit payments cut as a result of living in properties with a spare bedroom. However, if a tenant feels that a bedroom is not a bedroom, they can ask their landlord to redefine the tenancy agreement to reflect this change.
