diff --git a/changelog.d/9562.misc b/changelog.d/9562.misc
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..2f0133bff0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog.d/9562.misc
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Fix spurious errors reported by the `config-lint.sh` script.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/scripts-dev/config-lint.sh b/scripts-dev/config-lint.sh
index 189ca66535..9132160463 100755
--- a/scripts-dev/config-lint.sh
+++ b/scripts-dev/config-lint.sh
@@ -2,9 +2,14 @@
 # Find linting errors in Synapse's default config file.
 # Exits with 0 if there are no problems, or another code otherwise.
 
+# cd to the root of the repository
+cd `dirname $0`/..
+
+# Restore backup of sample config upon script exit
+trap "mv docs/sample_config.yaml.bak docs/sample_config.yaml" EXIT
+
 # Fix non-lowercase true/false values
 sed -i.bak -E "s/: +True/: true/g; s/: +False/: false/g;" docs/sample_config.yaml
-rm docs/sample_config.yaml.bak
 
 # Check if anything changed
-git diff --exit-code docs/sample_config.yaml
+diff docs/sample_config.yaml docs/sample_config.yaml.bak