Apply for housing benefit

You should apply for Housing Benefit/Council Tax Support as soon as you think you need help. Do not delay in making a claim or you may lose out.

With the introduction of Universal Credit, Housing Benefit is no longer available to all residents, depending on your circumstances you might need to claim Universal Credit housing Costs instead.

To claim Housing Benefit/Council Tax Support you need to complete the on-line benefit application and include evidence to support your claim You can get a copy of this form from the Civic Centre if you do not have access to the internet or a printer.

You must provide original documents to confirm the details on the form and prove identity. Have these to hand as you will be asked to upload them once you have completed your claim form.

If you upload your evidence with your claim form, we will process it quickly and send you a decision.

The following list show examples of the documents we will accept

• bank statements, last 2 months itemised
• birth certificate
• credit cards
• divorce papers
• driving licence (full)
• life assurance policies
• life insurance policies
• medical card
• national insurance card
• passport, current and valid
• UK residence permit
• utility bill, paid and in your name for the last quarter
• wage slips from current employer

Housing Benefit application form

Evidence to support your application

If you do not have all the evidence asked for on the form, return the form anyway, but you should provide the missing evidence within one calendar month to avoid any loss of benefit.

We will write to you to tell you if you are eligible for Housing Benefit / Council Tax Support and how much you will get. We will also tell you what information we used to work it out. If you think we have used the wrong information, please email benefits@runnymede.gov.uk

Any entitlement will usually start from the Monday after we received your application form. The first payment should be paid within 14 days of entitlement being calculated.

If you know your circumstances are going to change, you can apply up to 13 weeks before.

In some circumstances we can backdate claims

You can track your claim using OneAccount

• OneAccount

To access some services you will also need to verify who you are and allow your OneAccount details to be shared with the Council’s other systems.