How Do I Claim Housing and Council Tax Benefit?

If you have visited our pages Can I Claim Housing Benefit? and Can I Claim Council Tax Benefit? you should now have some idea about whether you are entitled to one or both of these Benefits.

 

Dependent on your circumstances there are now three ways of claiming Housing and Council Tax Benefit.

 

 

 

If you know what claim form you are looking for, you can download it at the bottom of this page.

 

If you make a new or repeat claim for Income Support (IS), Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA), Incapacity Benefit (IB) or Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), you will make your claim for Housing and/or Council Tax Benefit at the Jobcentre Plus at the same time.  This is known as the Customer Management System (CMS).

 

Once the Jobcentre Plus has dealt with your claim for IS, JSA, IB or ESA, they will send us your details. Before your claim for Housing and/or Council Tax Benefit can be processed, we may need to write out to you for more information, such as proof of your rent.

 

 

If you in receipt of Pension Credit and wish to make a claim for Housing and Council Tax Benefit  you will, in most circumstances, only need to complete a 3-page claim form. You will only have to complete a supplementary form if there are children, non-dependants in the household or you live in privately rented accommodation. 

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If you are already claiming Income Support, Jobseeker's Allowance or Incapacity Benefit, or are in receipt of other income, such as earned income (including self employed earnings), pensions or Pension Credit (see above for special note for Pension Credit claimants), you must claim Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit directly from Sheffield Benefits Service.

 

In all cases you should claim as soon as you think you need to.  We can usually pay benefit from the Monday after the day we received your form.  If you are not able to return your form on time because of your circumstances, you can ask us to consider backdating your claim to a date earlier than the date we received it.

 

Go to Evidence and Proofs for information about what you need to supply with your claim form. The sooner you give us the information and proof we need, the quicker we can work out how much benefit you are entitled to.

 

To claim Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit you will usually need to complete a claim form. 

 

 

If you would like to have a look at the range of claim forms available, download them using the links below. These claim forms can be printed and completed, but remember some of these forms are very large documents and you may prefer to pick up a copy. 

 

To help you to complete the form, please download and read the relevant Guidance Notes.