Housing or council tax benefit change of circumstances

Once you have made a claim, if you have a change in your circumstances that may affect your benefit you must advise us straight away.

If you do not do this we may pay you the wrong amount of benefit.

In most cases beneficial changes can not be backdated. This means that if you have a change that entitles you to more benefit and you delay in telling us you may lose benefit.

If you have a change that means that you are entitled to less benefit and you delay in telling us you may be paid too much benefit, which we will then ask you to repay.

If you are of working age all your changes should be reported to the benefits section. If you are a pensioner some changes should be reported to us and others to the pension service, please contact the benefits section for more advice about this.

In most cases you will need to notify us of your change in writing and provide evidence of your new circumstances.

You should tell us about any change, even if you are not sure it will affect your benefit.  If you do not tell us about a change in circumstances within a reasonable time you may be committing fraud.

When you signed your claim form you signed an agreement to tell us about any changes, your award notice also gives you instructions about reporting changes.