How to apply for Housing or Council Tax Benefit

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If you want to make a claim for Housing and/or Council Tax Benefit you will need to complete an application form.

You can collect a form from your local council office, phone us to have a form sent to you in the post, or download an application form. You can find your local office contact details on the tabs shown below. If you do not know if you are in North, South, East or West, please select your address using the post code checker.

Please note that if you have more than £16,000 in savings and capital (second home, bonds etc.), you are not entitled to Housing or Council Tax Benefit, unless you or your partner get Guaranteed Pension Credit.

You can still apply for Second Adult Rebate.

Completing the application form

• Please make sure that you answer all the questions.
• Refer to the Checklist in the benefits application form (Part 17) checklist in the application form (Part 17) 45kb  to see what evidence you need to supply to support your application. Evidence needs to be original documents, not copies.

If the form is returned to us with incomplete information it will delay the processing of your claim.

What if I need help completing the form?

If you need any help to complete your application form please contact us.

• Phone advice – our benefits advisors are available by phone to answer any of your questions during normal business hours.
• Interview – you can visit any of our 4 main offices (as shown on the tabs below) and a benefits advisor one of our staff members help you complete the form. Please make an appointment before your visit. If you do not have an appointment, you may have to wait to be seen.
• Home visit - if you are unable to come into the office but need help to complete your form, or have other Housing or Council Tax Benefit enquiries, we can arrange to visit you in your home.

Please see the tabs below for contact details of your local office to phone for advice, make an appointment or request a home visit.

When will my benefit start?

Always make a claim for benefit as soon as possible, as any delay can mean you lose money. Even if you do not have all the evidence we need to support your claim, you should send the application form back to us with a letter explaining why the evidence is missing. We can start to process your claim while we are waiting to receive the missing evidence.

We usually award benefit from the Monday after the day we receive your claim. Sometimes we can pay benefit from an earlier date if you have a good reason for not claiming earlier - this is called backdating

Fair processing statement:

We will keep and use your personal information in line with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998.

For the purpose of processing your claim, to check information and prevent and detect fraud, we may pass information to other agencies or organisations, such as the Department for Work and Pensions, the Job Centre, Rent Service and HM Revenue & Customs.

The council participates in data matching exercises through the Housing Benefit Matching Service and National Fraud Initiative. These exercises match the data held by the council with that of other agencies including credit reference agencies, other Local Authorities and government departments to:

• prevent or detect benefit fraud or any other crime
• support national fraud initiatives; and
• protect public funds

Last updated: 23 January 2012