Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support
Who can claim?
Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support is usually claimed by the claimant themselves.
When someone is not able to deal with their own affairs for any reason, they can have an appointee who can claim on their behalf. An appointee takes on the legal responsibility and duties for the claim and therefore can be made responsible for overpayment repayments and investigated for fraud as if they were the claimant.
To become an appointee, please complete an appointee form.
People who cannot claim
You cannot claim housing benefit if:
- You do not pay rent
- You live at home with your parents
- You do not live in the house you are claiming for
- You cannot normally receive housing benefit if you or any of your children are related to your landlord.
- You do not fall into the following categories:
Authority to discuss
If you do not have an appointee but want some help with your claim from a friend or family member, you can give them authority to discuss your claim.
Please complete an authority to discuss form.
Discussing your claim with your landlord
Our forms will ask you if you give consent for the Council to discuss your claim with your landlord. This can be useful if your landlord receives payments or wants to confirm the status of your claim.
When a landlord has authority to discuss your claim, we only discuss the basics such as the payment amounts and dates and whether or not the claim is live. If a claim is suspended, we will tell them so but would not normally include reasons why, for example we can tell them that we requested information from you on a certain date but will not tell them your wages have increased therefore we require new wage slips.
Giving consent to discuss your claim with your landlord is optional and if you do not allow it, we will not normally discuss anything with your landlord where legislation does not allow it.
If your Housing Benefit is paid directly to your landlord, we can discuss amounts and payments dates with them.