Essentially the new ruling says that if you can get a single bed into a room it counts as a bedroom, not a boxroom – regardless of size.
The Department for Work and Pensions recently mounted a successful challenge in a case revolving around the so-called “bedroom tax”. The social housing tenant’s ‘boxroom’ measured just 66 sq ft and therefore claimed that he should not have a 14% cut in his housing benefit as it was not classed as a bedroom.
The 1936 Public Health Act which also forms part of the Housing Act 1985 states that any room between 50 and 70 sq ft was a “half-person” bedroom and no room less than 50 sq ft (4.65 square metres) was allowable as a bedroom.
The ruling went in favour of the DWP which maintained that if a room is big enough to accommodate a single bed, it is a bedroom. The DWP was appealing against an earlier decision when a court ruled that a room measuring less than 50 sq ft is not a bedroom.
The judge ruled that a room measuring between 50 and 70 sq ft could only be used by a child aged under ten.
