'Bedroom tax' snoops to check if couples sharing rooms
Benefits claimants affected by controversial so-called "bedroom" tax will face investigation if they use excuses to get out of it, it has emerged.
Councils will be checking up to see if couples are living as man and wife if they claim to be living in separate rooms as a way of avoiding the charge. From next month anyone in council or housing association properties with spare bedrooms face a cut of 14 or 25 per cent in their housing benefit.
But the policy will put extra pressure on cash-strapped councils with the costs of any investigations.
Couples may claim they are not living as man and wife but are still living under the same roof, just in separate rooms.
The bedroom tax: What will it mean?
But Sue Martin, Wolverhampton City Council's head of revenue and benefits, said: "Benefit assessors are used to employing a range of tactics to establish and verify the facts behind an application.
"We would not simply accept someone reporting that they were no longer living together as a couple and if we suspect there had been a deliberate attempt to falsify the situation we could begin a formal fraud investigation.
"It should also be noted that many housing benefit cases follow the decision made for a lead benefit such as Income Support or Jobseekers Allowance.
"Therefore if a couple were to declare they were no longer a couple, they would also have to convince the Department for Work and Pensions." Councillor Roger Lawrence, leader of
Wolverhampton City Council, said: "There's no way around this. Councillors are going to be getting a lot of people coming to their surgeries for advice and a lot of tenants are very angry."
Tenants have also been warned they cannot escape the charge if they consider their spare room too small. There is no definition of what a bedroom is and if their landlord has been charging rent based on a three bedroom property, but only two parents and one child live there, they will be hit by the charge.
People are also warned that children will have to share rooms, even if they are not blood relatives. Under the rules under 16s of the same gender will be expected to share as will under 10s of either gender. The rule applies even if they are children from their respective parents' previous relationships.
