For further information, please contact the housing benefit team:
Housing benefit is to help certain people on a low income who pay rent for where they live. Housing benefit is a means-tested benefit.
You can claim housing benefit if:
Some people aren’t eligible for housing benefit. You are not eligible if:
Tell us as soon as you can if you want to claim housing benefit, because we start counting from the day we get your first phone call, email, or letter. All you need to tell us at this stage is your name, contact details and national insurance number.
Then you’ll need to complete our online form, provide supporting evidence. If you’re claiming council tax support as well as Housing Benefit, you can do this on the same Housing Benefit and council tax support form.
The forms are also available from one of our Housing Offices listed on the contact us page. If you’d like some help filling in the form, contact the Housing Benefit Support Team. All questions relating to your housing benefit and council tax support claim should be answered truthfully.
Fraud occurs with housing benefit or council tax support when:
It is a means-tested benefit where the amount you get depends on how much money you make, your situation, who lives with you, any other help you get, and any savings you have. If you have a partner, your combined income and savings will be taken into account.
Housing Benefit should pay for part or all your rent, not for other costs, for example fuel or meals. Any adults living with you can affect how much Housing Benefit you receive.
You can find more information about local housing allowance and changes to housing benefits on our Local Housing Allowance page.
It usually takes about 28 days to check your housing benefit claim. After that, it can take up to another seven days for you to get your first payment.
It might take longer if you didn’t give us all the information we asked for, or if we need to ask you for more details.
If you have an outstanding claim and are having problems with your tenancy, click the link to the Housing Benefit team on the contact us page.
The application form asks for details of the account you want to use. You can write to ask that your housing benefit be paid direct to your landlord every four weeks in arrears.
If you’re living in the property, housing benefit is usually paid from the Monday after the claim form is received. If we receive the claim form the same week the tenancy starts, we’ll pay housing benefit from the start of the tenancy. We only give you money before you move into a new home in special cases. For example, if you can’t move in yet because the new home is being changed to help a family member who has a disability.
If you’re unhappy with the outcome of your housing benefit claim decision, you may be able to ask for the decision to be reviewed. You can learn more about the appeals procedure.
If you or your partner are old enough to get pension credit, you don’t need to ask for your housing benefit to be paid for past months. It will automatically be paid for up to three months before you ask for it, as long as you meet the income and savings rules.
If you are old enough to work, you can ask for your claim to be paid for up to one month before the day we get your request. We need to be satisfied with the reasons you give for not asking earlier, and we need to make sure those reasons existed for the whole period you want the backdated money.
These reasons are known as ‘good cause’. It’s up to you to prove ‘good cause’, which means that any reasonable person of your age, experience or circumstances would also have failed to claim benefit.
The more details and proof you give us, the faster we can decide. Sometimes, we might need to ask you for more information or ask you to come in and talk about your claim. We will send you a letter to tell you our decision. If we can’t change the date of your claim, we will explain why in the letter. You can ask us to look at our decision again if you don’t agree.
There are several ways you can pay back overpaid housing benefit:
You can pay by cash or cheque in person at one of the housing benefit offices listed on our contact us page.
If your landlord gets your housing benefit directly, sometimes we might ask them to give it back.
Fraud happens when someone gets more housing benefit than they should by knowingly withholding or falsifying information. This could be not telling us about money you or your partner have or not declaring someone else living in your household.
Our counter fraud team may recover the money from you.
A direct earnings attachment is a way for councils to get back money that was overpaid for housing benefits. This means employers take money from their employees’ salaries and give it to the council to pay off the debt.
Advice for employers can be found in the Employers guide to direct earnings attachment which explains:
A payment schedule must be completed and sent to the council to give details of the amounts deducted from the employee’s wages:
The full procedure is explained in the employers guide, however it is not intended to be a full description or statement of the law.
To see legislation for employers regarding direct earnings attachments, visit the official legislation website.
If you are an employer and have any questions not answered in the guide, please phone us on 023 9284 1643.
It matters if your carer lives with you or not. To learn more about how your housing benefit changes if your carer doesn’t live with you, check out our Housing Benefit – Carers page or talk to us for help.
Housing benefit is money that helps you pay for the place where you live. If you have to leave your home for a short time, you might still get this money, but only in some situations. To learn more about when you can get housing benefit while you’re away, visit our Housing Benefit – temporary absences page.
If you move from one home to another, rent might be payable on both houses at the same time. You may be able to claim housing benefit for both homes for a maximum of four weeks if:
If you need to apply for housing benefit on two homes, use the online contact form to tell us about your change in circumstance.
If the number of people living in your home changes, you might need more or fewer bedrooms. This can change the amount of local housing allowance that will help pay for your home. Changes which can affect your local housing allowance are, for example:
