At the time of writing there is a great deal of concern about the impact of bedroom limits on social tenants. In April an under-occupancy penalty, the ‘bedroom tax’, will be imposed on about a third of all working age social tenants. This will reduce the amount of eligible rent used as the basis for Housing Benefit by 14% for one excess bedroom and 25% for two or more, with a consequent reduction in benefit.

Private tenants have seen a limitation in support for their rent, because of bedroom needs, since the introduction of Local Housing Allowance (LHA) in 2003.

In a new limitation of affordability, as well as the market and household composition limits, an overall cap on the benefits which may be paid to many claimants is being introduced in April.

I thought that it might be useful to look, in detail, at affordability in the private sector post April. I’ve put together the possible household composition for each bedroom linked LHA figure for each Broad Rental Market Area (BRMA) in Britain and then looked at how much people will have available to pay rent in those areas, taking account of the overall benefits cap being introduced in April. I’ve modelled the Housing Benefit only cap and also the cap that will operate in Universal Credit as well.

You can download the, rather large, paper from this link.