How to claim Housing and/or Council Tax Benefits

You must fill in a claim form to get Housing Benefit and/or Council Tax Benefit. You can use the same form to claim both Housing and Council Tax Benefit.

If you live with a partner you should make one claim for both of you. If one of you is a student then the non student should fill in the claim form putting the student down as the partner.

You must return the form to us straight away, otherwise you may lose benefit. You can send any proofs we need later but you only have a limited time for this, we will tell you how long.

You can claim benefit by either:

Filling in our claim form. 

• This can be printed from the link below,
• You can collect the form from the Contact Centre at the Civic Centre
• We can post a form to you

Contacting us

You can get help filling in the claim form at the Customer Contact Centre at the Civic Centre, please complete as much of the form as you can before bringing it in.

If you are making a claim for Income Support, Jobseeker's Allowance or Employment & Support Allowance (ESA), you can claim Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit at The Job Centre.

You can ask our Visiting Officer to visit you if you are elderly, unwell, disabled  or unable to leave the house; or

You can get independent help and advice from various Advice Agencies.

The claim form is quite long as we have to ask a lot of questions. This is to make sure we have the right information to give you the correct benefit entitlement.