Karen Danczuk’s Council Tax Secret

When Hannah Al-Othman of BuzzFeed News called on Karen Danczuk yesterday, she can hardly have imagined Kazza’s later meltdown. The two had what sounds like an amicable conversation, it was established that Kazza’s ex-husband Simon did not live at that address, but she helpfully agreed to pass on a message for him to call the reporter.

Karen Danczuk - not smiling at BuzzFeed News

Ms Al-Othman and her colleague Jim Waterson may therefore have been surprised when Kazza took to Twitter to creatively reimagine a meeting which the BuzzFeed reporter had wisely recorded. “So @BuzzFeed thinks sending journalist to terrorise my 7 & 9 on doorstep at family home is professional? Yet again @jimwaterson shocking” she started.

It got worse: “By the way @jimwaterson @BuzzFeed your message is also classed as blackmail … Police call is happening now … Having spoke to powers that be @BuzzFeed @jimwaterson have broke [sic] the law. They recorded conversation without my permission tut tut tut”. Waterson and Ms Al-Othman may have wondered what had caused Kazza to be on the hair trigger. I have an answer to that one.

I am reliably informed that Karen Danczuk is claiming Single Occupier Council Tax discount for her bungalow in Rochdale.

Have a think about that. The BuzzFeed story establishes that former MP Simon Danczuk does not, by Kazza’s admission, live at that property. But here another problem enters.

Simon Danczuk has put that address on his nomination papers for next month’s General Election. And after what happened to Paul Nuttall in Stoke recently, we now know that giving an address where you don’t actually live is against electoral law.

Of course, he and Kazza could now furiously backpedal and say OK, he’s actually living there. But that would be a flagrant breach of the Council Tax exemption which I’m told she is claiming. Oh dear! And it gets worse still.

What Mail Online reported last year

When Ms Al-Othman called on Kazza, she reported “A man who answered the door said Simon Danczuk did not live at the address and that he did not know where the former Labour MP lived”. Kazza has previously made great play of her Spanish boyfriend moving in with her. If he’s living there now, that is also a breach of the Council Tax exemption.

Just to help BuzzFeed News - and the authorities in Rochdale - with their endeavours, I’ve included a screen shot from the Mail Online article on Kazza and her Spanish partner David “moving in together”. How they choose to proceed I will leave up to them.

The folks at BuzzFeed may already have figured that they have uncovered a rare old can of worms with their latest Danczuk story. Now they have it confirmed.