Govan Law Centre has launched a free ‘toolkit guide’ to help tenants challenge cuts to their housing benefit with the introduction of the bedroom tax from this month.  Tenants issued with a ‘bedroom tax’ decision by their local council only have one month to challenge it. They can only appeal later than this if they have a good reason for the delay, such as illness.

GLC’s toolkit contains a number of untested legal arguments which tenants can select and insert into a pro forma ‘Dispute Form’. Some of these relate to court challenges taking place in England and Wales, and if these are successful tenants can only benefit from them for past deductions if they have lodged a ‘Dispute Form’ with their council because of the ‘anti-test case rules’.

GLC’s toolkit provides step by step guidance and illustrations on how to complete a ‘Dispute Form’ – what to say, where to send it to, where you can get further advice, what will happen next.  We hope the toolkit will be of assistance to both tenants and advisors alike. We believe many tenants will have grounds in principle to challenge

If you would like a copy of GLC’s toolkit guide please visit our webpage here, and we will provide you with the option to download the toolkit in either PDF or rich text formats, and in addition we will e-mail you the links to download it too. We are asking for the first part of your postcode so that we can work out the level of take up across the country.

Although our guide is aimed specifically at Scotland for simplicity, the guidance and pro forma guidance is equally applicable in England and Wales as housing benefit is a UK-wide law, and the arguments for challenging the bedroom tax are also UK-wide.