Changes in your circumstances can mean a change to your housing benefit or council tax benefit claim.
If you receive housing and/or council tax benefit, the law states that you must tell us about any changes in your, or your family's circumstances. This is because it may affect the amount of benefit you are entitled to.
If you do not tell us about a change within one month of it happening, you may lose out on benefit, or we may pay you too much benefit that you will have to pay back to us.
Telling the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) or Her Majesties Revenues and Customs (HMRC) about a change does not mean that they will pass the information on to us. You must tell us yourself.
Some of the changes in circumstances that you must tell us about:
- You or your partner's wages go up or down
- You or your partner start working or change jobs
- Any state benefit that you or your partner receive change or stop
- You or your partner start to receive a state benefit
- Any adults move into or out of your home, or the circumstances of any adult living with you changes
- You or your partner's private pension goes up or down
- You or your partner's savings go up or down
- You or your partner have any other change which may affect your benefit
You must send us written confirmation to tell us about the change and the date it happened. You can download a change in circumstances form by using the link on the right hand side of this page.
You must also provide supporting evidence of the change in circumstances. We can only accept original documents, photocopies are not suitable.
Change of address
You must also tell us if you move address while you are in receipt of housing and/or council tax benefit. To tell us about a change of address you should use one of the change of address forms available as a download from the link at the right hand side of this page.
Use change of address COA1 to tell us about a move to a private rented or housing association property, and use change of address COA2 to tell us about a move to a council tenancy or to a property that you or your partner own.
If you are paid too much housing or council tax benefit this is called an overpayment and you will have to pay it back. If you disagree with an overpayment you have the right to appeal – the appeals form and guidance notes can be found using the link on the right hand side of this page.