Backdated claims

If you are requesting that either your Housing Benefit or Council Tax Reduction claim is backdated you will need to provide proof of your income, savings and personal circumstances for that period.

Housing Benefit

If you have a good reason for not claiming earlier, we might be able to backdate it.  You can only claim a backdated payment of up to one month.

Council Tax Reduction from 1 April 2022

If you are working age the maximum period for which a claim can be backdated is 12 months.  This will take into account any changes in your circumstances that have reduced your income.

Pension Age claimants

If you have reached the qualifying age for State Pension Credit we can backdate your Housing Benefit and/or your Council Tax Reduction automatically to a maximum of three months from the date of your claim. You do not need to show good cause but you will have to provide proof of your income and personal circumstances for the period of backdating.

What to do

You will need to fill in details about your backdating claim in Part 11 of the form when submitting your Benefit application form

If we accept your claim, we will start your claim from the Monday after we received your application form. Therefore it is important that you get your form to us as soon as possible.

What happens next?

Based on the information you have provided, we will decide whether we are able to backdate your benefit. We will send you a letter informing you of our decision. 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.

If you disagree with our decision, you can ask us to look at our decision again.