Council pledges to use bedroom tax loophole to help local people.

Renfrewshire Council is working flat out to apply the recently-discovered bedroom tax loophole to local residents.

The loophole means those who continuously claimed Housing Benefit since 1996 are entitled to receive the Housing Benefit they lost since the ‘bedroom tax’ was introduced, and have it backdated to April last year.

It also means they can be made exempt from the ‘bedroom tax’ until the UK Government changes the legislation.

Councillor Mark Macmillan, Leader of Renfrewshire Council said: “I’m not surprised that the UK Government didn’t get its house in order as it ploughed ahead with this ill-thought-out policy, and I’d again like to urge them to do the right thing and scrap the ‘bedroom tax’.

“This loophole demonstrates utter chaos at the heart of benefit reform and will only lead to worry and confusion among benefit claimants who are already anxious about welfare changes.

“We are doing all we can to find the residents this loophole applies to; make them exempt from the unfair bedroom tax and backdate this to April last year when it was introduced.

“We realise this is likely to be a temporary loophole which will no doubt be closed in the near future so I’d like to assure residents that our officers are working as fast as they can to check our systems and find everyone who this may apply to.”

Source: Renfrewshire Council

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