Council Tax Benefit

About your claim

There are two benefits available for people who have to pay Council Tax. They are Council Tax Benefit and Second Adult Rebate.

Download a "Guide for homeowners who want to claim Council Tax Benefit"

The application form available from the Benefits Section tells you how to claim these benefits. Once we have worked out your benefit entitlement you must check your notification letter very carefully to make sure we have used the correct details. If you find any mistakes let us know straight away.

Which Benefit?
You cannot get both Council Tax Benefit and Second Adult Rebate at the same time. If you qualify for both, we will give you the one which will reduce your Council Tax the most.

You can claim Council Tax Benefit if:-

• you are on Income Support or Job Seekers Allowance
• you are on a low income (this includes people who are self employed)

You cannot get Council Tax Benefit if:-

• you, or you and your partner between you, have more than £16,000 in savings

A partner is someone you are married to, or someone you live with as if you are married to them.
The Department for Work and Pensions provide information on State benefits.

By completion of an Application form, which can be obtained from the Benefits Section, alternatively you can download a Benefit Application form. Download notes to help you fill in the application form.

You must send proof of the money you earn so we can work out your Council Tax Benefit.

If you work for an Employer
Please ask your employer to fill in the Certificate of Earned Income form, which can be obtained from the Benefits Section, alternatily download the Certificate of Earned Income form.

If you are Self Employed
If you are self employed please send us your recent accounts. If you cannot do this, get in touch with us for more details.

If you cannot send the information now
Do not delay sending in your claim form if the proof we ask for is not available at the moment. But you must send this information as soon as possible. We cannot work out your benefit without it.

How long it takes to work out your claim depends on:-

• how quickly you send in all the information
• how busy we are when you make your claim

We will send you a letter telling you how we worked out your Council Tax Benefit. Please check the information in this letter very carefully, if there is anything you think is wrong, you MUST tell us straight away.

If you might be able to get Income Support or Job Seekers Allowance (income based) please apply to the Department for Work and Pensions.

When does my Benefit start?
Your benefit usually starts from the Monday after we get your claim form.

If you think Benefit should start earlier
If you think your benefit should start earlier, you can say so on the form.

Please write down:-

• the date you think your benefit should start
• the reason why you did not claim earlier

If you get benefit from an earlier date, it is called backdating. Your benefit can be backdated by up to 52 weeks if you have a good reason for not claiming earlier.

We will pay your Council Tax Benefit straight to your Council Tax account. You will get a bill showing any amount you have to pay after benefit has been awarded.

You may be able to get Council Tax Benefit for the full amount of Council Tax that you have to pay. This will depend on your income and whether you have other people living in your house.

Go to our online benefit calculator for an online estimate of your benefit entitlement.

Download a leaflet detailing how your benefit is worked out

If you have friends, relatives or anyone over 18 living in your home, you may get less Council Tax Benefit. These people are called non-dependant. An amount may be taken out of your benefit for each non-dependant who lives in your home.

Non-dependant people do not include:-

• your partner
• a child you get Child Benefit for
• people under 18 years old
• people in full-time education
• people on Youth Training Schemes.

If you get Income Support or Job Seekers Allowance (Income Based)

If you get Income Support, or Job Seekers Allowance you will get the full amount of your Council Tax as benefit after any non-dependant deductions have been taken off.

If you do not get Income Support or Job Seekers Allowance (Income Based)

We work out your Council Tax Benefit by comparing the money you get each week with your 'applicable amount'. Your applicable amount is what the government say you and your family need to live on each week.

The applicable amount will be higher for some people - for example, if you are disabled or you are a one parent family.

If the money you get each week is less than, or the same as the applicable amount, you will get the full amount of Council Tax Benefit. If this happens you should claim Income Support or Job Seekers Allowance as you may get more help.

We count the money you earn from work after money has been taken out for:-

• Tax and National Insurance
• half of any money you pay into a pension fund

We also count any other money you have coming in. This includes most state benefits, maintenance, works pensions and any savings or capital you have.

We do not count:-

• Disability Living Allowance
• Attendance Allowance
• Mobility Allowance
• War Widows Pension
• War Disablement Pension
  

The first £15 of any maintenance payments you receive if you have dependant children

But we need to know if you get any of these, as you may get more Council Tax Benefit.

Government rules say that if you (and your partner if you are a couple) have savings or capital of more than £16,000, you cannot get Council Tax Benefit. If you have £3,000 or less, it will not affect your claim.

If you have between £3,000 and £16,000, it affects how much Council Tax Benefit you will get. For every £250 (or part of £250) you have over £3,000, we add £1.00 to the money we count each week when working out your benefit. We do not count any actual interest you get from savings and capital.

You can appeal if you think your council tax benefit is incorrect.

You may be entitled to claim second adult rebate if you have non-dependants living with you who are on low income.

Yes, the next section is very important, please read it very carefully.

If anything happens during this time which might affect how much benefit you get, you must tell us immediately.
If you don't tell us about a change, and we pay you too much benefit, you may have to pay it back.
You must tell us about the following changes:-
Changes to the money you get

Please tell us if:-

• you start or stop getting Income Support or Job Seekers Allowance (income based)
• you start or stop getting working Tax Credit and/or Child Tax Credit
• the money you or your partner gets increases or decreases
• the money non-dependants get increases or decreases
• there are any other changes in the money people in your home get. For example, someone starts getting Disability Living Allowance
  

Changes in your home
Please tell us if:-

• you change your address (Download a change of address form)
• the number of people in your home changes - for example, someone has a baby
• a partner comes to live with you
• a partner leaves

Other changes
Please tell us if:-

• you, or your partner, go into hospital for more than 6 weeks
• you, or your partner, become a student, or stop being a student
• the amount of savings or capital you have changes

You do not have to tell us about changes in age (for example, if one your children becomes 11 years old), as we will have this information already.
Download a copy of the change of circumstances form.

If we give you too much benefit or Second Adult rebate, we will send you a letter. When we give you too much benefit, we call it an 'overpayment'.

The letter we send you will tell you:-

• why we gave you too much benefit
• how much the overpayment is
• if you have to pay back the amount
• how you can appeal if you think this is wrong

In most cases we will send you a revised Council Tax bill, and you will usually have to pay more Council Tax.

To read our overpayments policy.
From time to time we may send you a review form. If you want to carry on claiming benefit, fill in the form and return it to us as soon as you can.

If you do not send us the Form
If you do not send us the form, your benefit will stop. We will send you a revised Council Tax bill. This will usually mean you will have to pay more Council Tax.

All this information is for guidance only. It does not cover all the rules for all the benefits for every situation, nor does it provide a full interpretation of the rules. It should not be treated as a complete and authoritative statement of the law.