Hi, as a result of the recent government thieving changes to Council Tax Benefit, my council (despite being 'Labour') has opted to minimise the impact on the wealthy by drastically reducing benefit to the needy. As a result my council tax payments have increased 500% - something which I have ranted about before.
I don't consider myself to be in an awful financial position; while I have a fair chunk of debt, I'm managing it reasonably well and even paying it down slowly. Given time to budget better I will be able to afford the increase come September - but the council decided that 2 weeks should be enough, its laughable.
So that's background; what I actually want to know is what the official meaning of the 'applicable amounts' that the government issues for calculating HB/CTB are? Surely they're a breadline amount which is the minimum that the claimant needs to barely scrape by?
Essentially all I'm looking for is an argument to hold off the council's recovery teams; but I do feel that there is a legal challenge to the way my council has chosen to approach this.
I don't consider myself to be in an awful financial position; while I have a fair chunk of debt, I'm managing it reasonably well and even paying it down slowly. Given time to budget better I will be able to afford the increase come September - but the council decided that 2 weeks should be enough, its laughable.
So that's background; what I actually want to know is what the official meaning of the 'applicable amounts' that the government issues for calculating HB/CTB are? Surely they're a breadline amount which is the minimum that the claimant needs to barely scrape by?
Essentially all I'm looking for is an argument to hold off the council's recovery teams; but I do feel that there is a legal challenge to the way my council has chosen to approach this.
