Benefits - Change Of Circumstances
It is your responsibility to make sure the details on your claim are up to date.
The following is a list of changes that we must be informed about as they can affect your benefits although this is not exhaustive.
- Starting to claim Universal Credit
- Stopping or starting work, or changing employer
- A wage change following a change of hours, rate of pay or if you are off work sick.
- Starting to pay into a work based pension or paying for child care
- Your capital (the total amount held in all of your accounts) reaching £6,000, £10,000 or £16,000
- A child leaving school or if you stop receiving Child Benefit
- Receiving an annual pension increase, even if it’s only a small amount
- Anyone moving in or out of your home
- Having a baby
- Start or stop to receive benefits for a disability or carer’s allowance
- A change in income or other benefits for anyone in the household
- A change in your rent or service charges
- Moving house
Even if you don’t think a change will make a difference to your claim, it is important to let us know so that we can check the amount of Housing Benefit or Council Tax Support that you are entitled to.
Any delay in reporting changes could mean you lose money that is due to you, or may mean that we have paid you too much, and in most cases we would ask you to repay this.
We may suspend your claim when we have been told about a change if we need more information and we will write to you about this. This means payments will temporarily stop. We do this to try to prevent an overpayment.
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Housing Benefits
If you are receiving Universal Credit, you will need to contact Universal Credit to report a change in your circumstances.
If you are moving you will need complete a housing benefits change of address form.
If you are self employed you will need to complete a self employed earnings form.
If you have a increase in your rent, we will need evidence of this change. The easiest way to provide your evidence is to use our upload form.
For all other changes please complete our change in circumstances form
We can impose a civil penalty of £50 if you don’t tell us about a change within 1 month.
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Council Tax Support
If you have a change in circumstance relating to your council tax, please fill in the form below:
I am Working age and want to report a change in circumstances
I am Pension age and want to report a change in circumstances
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Evidence of change
All evidence must be the original documentation and show the date of change as well as the new details.
Evidence could be:
- Your signed tenancy agreement showing the start date and amount of rental liability.
- A letter from your landlord showing a change in rent.
- Payslips, the last one showing the old amount and the first one showing the new amount.
- A letter from the employer detailing the date of change and the new amount.
- An award letter from other agencies detailing a new award or a change to income, such as Child Benefit, a private pension or incapacity benefit.
- Confirmation that you have claimed Universal Credit (your housing costs will be paid as part of this and your Housing Benefit claim will be ended).
- Bank statements showing the date of any significant change in capital (if you have over £6000 in total).
- Birth certificates or Child Benefit award letters confirming responsibility for a child.
- Legal documentation, for example immigration status, bankruptcy or court orders.
Customers who receive Pension Credit should report any change to the Pension Service.
If you do not have the necessary evidence, do not wait. Tell us about the change and we can collect the documents at a later date.
The easiest way to provide your evidence is to use our upload form.
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Housing Benefits on Two Homes
If you move from one property to another you may be eligible for Housing Benefit for both of them, but only if your liability for rent on both properties could not reasonably have been avoided.
It can usually only be awarded for the period after you have moved into your new address and can only be awarded for a limited period of time and in certain situations such as;
- Violence or fear of violence
- Unavoidable overlap of your tenancy
- Awaiting adaptations for a disability
You can apply here