Housing Benefit

Housing Benefit financially covers both housing association rents and privately rented accommodation. You may be able to claim for help to pay the rent for your home if you or someone who lives with you are on a low income.

Am I eligible?

You can claim Housing Benefit if any of these apply:

• You are single and have reached State Pension age.
• You are in a partnership and have both reached State Pension age.
• You are in Council Placed emergency/temporary accommodation
• You live in sheltered or supported housing.

If not, you'll need to claim Universal Credit.

Use the benefits calculator on GOV.UK to find out what benefits you may be entitled to and how your benefits will be affected if you start work.

How to claim

If you need to make a new claim for Housing Benefit and/or Council Tax Support, please visit our new claim webpage.

You will be able to submit evidence to support your claim at the end of the application process by uploading documents saved on your computer. You will in all cases need to provide evidence of all income or benefits received into your household to enable us to process your application.

Please don’t delay in submitting a claim as you are able to provide any supporting evidence within 1 month of the claim submission to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. You should always quote your reference number given during the application if evidence is supplied at a later date to ensure it gets linked to your new application.

Start a new Housing Benefit and/or Council Tax Support claim

Evidence checklist

• Once you have completed the form you will see an evidence checklist, which lists the documents that you need to provide in order for us to assess your claim.
• You can e-mail the evidence required to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. We would recommend you using a smart phone or tablet to take a clear photo of any paper documents that you need to provide evidence for and attaching it to the email address above. Please always quote your full name, address and reference number to ensure the information can be successfully linked to your application.
• You will receive a notification to tell you that we have received your application.

Application support

Contact centre opening times:

• Pershore is open Mon-Fri 9am-5pm
• Droitwich is open 9:30am-3:30pm Tuesdays
• Evesham is open 9:30am-3:30pm

View more information about our contact centres

Payments

Payments of Housing Benefits are paid directly into your bank account. If you do not have a bank account, you would need to open a new account.

Backdating

Working Age claimants

If there has been a reason which stopped or delayed you applying for Housing Benefit you can ask for your claim to be 'backdated' for a maximum of 1 month, so that it starts from an earlier date.

You can only ask for a backdate of benefits if there is a good reason why you were unable to apply for your benefit earlier. You have to prove "good cause", some examples of when you may have "good cause" are:

• if you did not immediately claim benefit after leaving the hospital
• if you were ill and had no-one to make a claim on your behalf
• if you did not understand that you could claim benefit because of age, inexperience or language difficulties
• if you have suffered a recent family bereavement

Pension Age claimants

If you have reached the qualifying age for State Pension Credit we can backdate your benefit automatically to a maximum of 3 months from the date of your claim. You do not need to show good cause, but you must provide proof of your income and capital for the period of backdating.

How to make a claim for backdating

Under Housing Benefit law your application for benefit must be made in writing to Revenues and Benefits, PO Box 11, Pershore, WR10 1PU or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Your claim will be considered by a Benefits Officer. The more information and evidence you give in support of your claim the quicker a decision can be made.

If we have decided that you have not shown "good cause" and that we cannot backdate your claim, the reasons for this will be explained in our letter. You will then have the right to appeal against our decision not to backdate your claim. Read more about the right to appeal.

Extended payments (when returning to work)

You may be able to continue receiving Housing Benefit for an additional 4 week period, if some of your benefit entitlements come to an end because:

• you will be starting work or increasing your hours, and
• expect your new work or increased hours to last for 5 weeks or more, and
• have had an entitlement to Jobseeker's Allowance (income-based or contribution-based), Income Support, Employment and Support Allowance, Incapacity Benefit or Severe Disability Allowance for a continuous period of 26 weeks or more.

Extended Housing Benefit payments are automatically calculated and issued to you if you are eligible. If you think you are not receiving the entitlements and should be, please contact us. View contact information page.

What will happen next?

• If you are entitled to extended payments, we will award you four weeks Housing Benefit at the same rate you were entitled to before you started work.
• At the end of the extended payment period, we will work out your claim based on your new circumstances.

Benefit Cap

• The cap is a limit on the total amount of state benefit that people of working age can receive.
• The council has no discretion whether or not to apply the cap.

Read more information about the Benefit Cap on GOV.UK including who it does and does not affect.

View your existing claim

Log in to your Open Portal (Self Service) account to view your claim.