Housing Benefit or Council Tax Support change of circumstances

Report a change - Housing Benefit or Council Tax Support

If your circumstances change whilst you are getting Housing Benefit or Council Tax Support, including if you are getting Universal Credit or any other state benefits, you must tell us what has changed and when the change happened. You need to tell us about your changes straight away – otherwise you could miss out on help you would have been entitled to.

How to report a change

You can:

Please quote your benefit claim reference in all correspondence – your claim reference is either an 8 digit number starting with 900, or a 5 digit number. You can find it on any letter we’ve sent about your Housing Benefit or Council Tax Support.

We may ask you to confirm your change in writing, or provide proof of your new circumstances. We can sometimes suspend your benefit, so that you do not continue to be paid too much whilst we wait for your information or evidence.

Changes which increase your benefit or support

If you tell us within a month when you have a change which increases the amount of help you are entitled to, we will increase your benefit and support from when your change happened.

If you delay, we will usually only increase your benefit and support from the Monday after you tell us about your change and you will miss out on money you could have been entitled to. Please tell us if you have a good reason for any delay, and we will consider whether we can apply your changes from an earlier date.

Changes which decrease your benefit or support

If your change decreases or stops your benefit, we will always change your award from when your change happened. This means you may be asked to pay back an overpayment.

Telling us about your changes promptly helps us to minimise the amount we have to ask you to pay back.

If you deliberately fail to report a change, we may decide that you have committed benefit fraud. You could end up with a criminal record, a fine, or even a prison sentence.