NEW CLAIM ONLY

You can now apply for Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction on-line. Please do not use to report a change in your circumstances. Please contact the Council for advice on 01159177777 if you wish to report a change in your/your household circumstances.

However if you are of working age you will need to claim Universal Credit if you need help with your rental liability, unless you fall into one of the following exempt categories;

    1. Tenants in exempt supported or temporary accommodation
    2. Those of state Pension age (in the case of a couple both must be of state pension age)
Before you complete your online application you may need some or all of the following documents:

  • DWP / HMRC / Pension Service Award Letters
  • Wage Slips (If you are in employment)
  • Bank / Building Society Statements (If Applicable)
  • Copies of any Private Pensions
  • Tenancy Agreement / Rent Book (If Applicable)
In most cases, once you have these documents to hand you can scan or take a photo of them and upload them to your application. You can also do this if you have the relevant documents in electronic format.

The Local Authority sometimes needs information about people other than the person who has applied for a benefit to work out what that person is entitled to. For example, where a person makes a claim for Housing Benefit we may need information about other people who live in the same household to work out how much a person will be paid. You may wish to advice your household members accordingly that their data may be processed.

Please answer all the questions that apply to you as the form will be specific to you dependent upon the answers you provide. This includes the documents and evidence you will be asked to upload.

You can save your application at any point and return to it later. Just click Save and enter your email address when prompted.

Once you have completed the application and provided the documents we require, we will verify your application and contact you again to tell you if you are eligible for Housing Benefit or Council Tax Reduction and how much you may receive.

In order to complete your claim we require some of your personal data. We will only use the data supplied in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). For information on how we process and store your personal data see our privacy notice.