The Bermuda Housing Corporation is urging Government to stop billing its tenants for land tax, it was revealed this week.

Bermuda Housing Corporation (BHC) Raymond Dill told a women's forum on Monday night that the practice was unfair, agreeing with a questioner who wondered why tenants were given the bills when they did not own the property.

He said: "It's a policy the board has been reviewing over the last six or seven months. The current board feels it is iniquitous."

He said the board was talking to the Attorney General and the Accountant General about changing the way land tax is collected.

He added: "We can't change the law overnight. An investigation is going on to look at the impact."

Housing concerns featured strongly at the forum organised by the Women's Resource Centre at the Heritage Hall in Union Street, where a panel including lawyers, civil servants and counsellors fielded questions from an audience of more than 30 people.

A women who faced eviction was advised to find out if the apartment she rented was under rent control by inquiring at the rent control office. If a tenant is living in such a property they cannot be forced out unless they have breached the terms of their lease.

Mr. Dill said a handful of BHC tenants had entered into rent-to-buy programmes but he said lack of stand alone houses meant that it would be difficult to expand this scheme without splitting its multiple dwellings into condominiums.

One woman complained that she found it hard to pay her way through a retraining course at Bermuda College because employers were not willing to be flexible over hours.

Lawyer Clare Hatcher said employers needed to realise that the community would benefit from a bit of leeway as parents struggled to get kids to pre-schools and make it in for work.

The forum was also attended by two men who brought up concerns about getting access rights to children. Ms Hatcher said fathers unhappy with court orders to apply for new hearings by writing to the court themselves. She added: "You can ask for a social inquiry report."

She said current legislation was biased against men in that they had automatic joint custody to their children if they had been married to the mother (although this could be later amended by a court). But if the father was not married he only had the right to access. Ms Hatcher said Government was planning to change this.

She urged people who felt their ex-partner was not abiding by the spirit of custody orders to get a clearly defined custody order as vague orders were harder to enforce.

And Women's Resource Centre therapist Donna Trott said families could work over differences in re-unification sessions the charity ran with Child and Family Services.

And there was advice for the hard up.

Beth Vesey of the Bank of Butterfield urged debtors to tie up all their commitments into a consolidated loan which was easier to pay off.

She said the bank would offer budgeting advice and she said some merchants who were owed money might waive interest if they were guaranteed debts would be paid direct every month.

Ms Vesey admitted that consolidated loans would depend on the debtors credit record but she said financial institutions would be keen to put any debts owed to them such as overdrafts, credit cards debts etc into one manageable package.

People struggling to pay the rent and feed their family were told by the Salvation Army's Janice Dill that the charity could help with food and electricity bills.