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National
James Rodger & Kieran Murray

Thousands of households face £1,000 fine from Sunday as TV licence rules change

Hundreds of thousands of UK residents are facing a £1,000 fine this week as the BBC changes its TV licence rules.

Pensioners may get slapped with a hefty fine if they do not sign up for one.

OAPs have been warned that could face having to fork out as much as £1,000 for failing to comply.

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The BBC confirmed it will start to charge everyone for the licence from August 1, Birmingham Live reports.

Anyone without a licence that needs one after the end date of July 31 will face the fine.

Silver Voices, which has campaigned against the end of free TV licences, said "a significant hard core remains of over-75s who are refusing or unable to pay".

The group's Dennis Reed said: "Is the BBC going to fine and potentially take to court hundreds of thousands of senior citizens who are standing out against the scrapping of this welfare benefit?

"We have massive political and media support for a rethink on this issue and the Government now needs to intervene urgently to force a solution."

In a statement, the BBC said: "As we have now reached a situation where over-75s households are in line with the general population, the extended transition period we put in place due to Covid-19 will end on 31 July 2021."

The corporation then added, in the same statement: "And in line with general policy, anyone who watches or records live TV programmes on any channel, or downloads or watches BBC programmes on BBC iPlayer, must be covered by a valid TV licence."

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