Legal News

To create space for new tenants who are waiting in the queue for welfare housing councils have been coming with different schemes some punitive some rewarding.
Aberdeenshire councillors have announced a new scheme aimed at tackling the shire’s shortage of council housing, by coxing tenants to move in smaller homes by making payments.
The £190,000 scheme, announced on Friday, would involve tenants being offered between £3000 and £5000, and help moving, to take a smaller home, in an attempt to free up larger council houses for those with young families.
Chair of Social Work and Housing Committee, Cllr Karen Clark said that the grant was meant to create a movement in council housing with the potential to free up around 200 three and four bedroom homes each year. He urged the tenants to take advantage of the downsizing grant which offered a winning solution for everyone.
Additionally the problems with future changes which would affect Benefits of people who are living in homes that are too big for their needs could also be tackled.
The grant provides people with an opportunity to move now, and get assistance to do so, rather than later, when the benefit changes take effect and impact those under-occupying homes.
Vice chair Alisan Norrie added that the scheme made the best use of the homes available with the council and encourages people to live in housing that matched their needs. It was the next best solution for lack of new housing and had the potential to provide opportunities for people on waiting lists for larger homes.
A spokeswoman added that the money would come from the rental generated by council house lets in the shire.
She clarified that alternative options included providing additional points for under occupancy through the councils transfer scheme, to encourage people to downsize and thus benefit from reduced rent and heating costs. The attraction of reduced rents is less of an incentive to tenants in receipt of housing benefit.
The proposed reform of welfare benefits would mean that from April 2013 those tenants under the age of 62 would not receive benefits for any additional capacity in their homes. For every bedroom that is not needed by the tenant £13 will have to be paid by the tenant which would add as incentive to downsize or could be described as a penalty for under occupancy which could affect around 1,000 council tenancies.