Housing Benefits
Housing benefit is paid by the Council to help people who live in rented accommodation meet the costs of their rent. It is means-tested so any income or savings you have may affect the amount that is paid.
Who can claim?
You must be liable for rent and have savings of £16,000 or less. If you are aged 60 or over and receive the guarantee credit part of pension credit, the £16,000 capital limit does not apply and you will still be able to get full eligible housing benefit.
How much is paid?
As housing benefit is a means-tested benefit it depends on a number of factors including how much income and savings you have, your household composition, whether you are disabled or a carer etc. Recent changes mean that more pensioners can now get more help with their rent. To calculate what you might be able to claim, visit the entitledto website. Please note that this will give you an estimate of what you might be entitled to claim and you will still have to complete and submit an application form, which can be downloaded below.
Non-dependant deductions
Your housing benefit may be less if other people share your home, e.g. an adult son or daughter. This is known as a non-dependant deduction. However, from the 6 October, if a non-dependant arrives in your household or an existing non-dependant's income increases, the deduction from your housing benefit will not be applied for 26 weeks.
How to claim
You can claim on a form available from the Council or you can claim on form HCTB1 form that comes with the pension credit form. The Pension Service should ask you if you need a form. You can ask for your benefit to be backdated for up to one year. From October 2003 you do not have to have any special reasons, but outside of this period you need to show you have good cause for a late claim, eg ill health.
The Pension service will be working more closely with local authorities, therefore if you are claiming the pension credit, your local authority will not need to re-assess your income and savings if the Pension Service has already done this. They should accept the Pension Service assessment without needing to recheck or verify the information.
The Start Date of Your Benefit Claim
Under Housing and Council Tax Benefit law your claim for benefit must be made in writing, either on a benefits application form or by letter. Normally we will start your claim from the Monday after we receive your application form or letter. It is therefore very important that you get your application form or letter to us as soon as possible because it affects the date your benefit claim will start from. If we send you an application form we will allow you 4 weeks to complete and return it. If you take longer than 4 weeks to return the form you might lose your entitlement to some of your benefits.
The Rules on Backdating Benefit
You can only ask for a backdate of benefits if there is a reason why you were unable to apply for your benefit earlier. If you disagree with the date your claim starts from for any other reason you can appeal against the decision.
For more information or to make an application for backdating a Housing Benefit claim, telephone the Benefits section on 01923 773138 or e-mail enquiries@threerivers.gov.uk
If anything happens during this time which might affect how much benefit you get, you must tell us immediately.
Overpayments
When we give you too much benefit, we call it an 'overpayment'. If we give you too much benefit, we will send you a letter.
The letter we send you will tell you:-
- why we gave you too much benefit
- how much the overpayment is
- if you have to pay back the amount
- how you can appeal if you think this is wrong
You can download the form for claiming Council Tax or Housing Benefit below.
For more information, contact our Benefits Section on 01923 773138.
You can download a Housing Benefit Fraud Referral Form to report suspected fraudulent benefit claims.
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Benefit Fraud Referral Form. Form for suspected fraudulent benefit claims DOWNLOAD
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