All About Benefits

What are Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support?

Housing Benefit can help you pay your rent if you are on a low income. You can claim if you have to pay rent for the property you live in. You may be a Council tenant, pay rent to a private landlord or a Housing Association.

Council Tax Support can help you pay towards Council Tax on your home.

These are both means tested benefits, which you may claim for if you are working full-time or part-time, self-employed, in receipt of state benefits or retired. If you and/or your partner have more than £16,000 in savings and investments you cannot claim for Housing Benefit or Council Tax Support (unless in you are in receipt of Pension Credit Guarantee Credit).

Your income will be the total amount you and/or your partner have to live on each week from all sources. Earned income is worked out by deducting your tax, National Insurance contributions and half of any contributions you make to a pension scheme from your gross wage. Unearned income is all other income such as Tax Credits and any other benefits or pensions. Certain benefits are ignored for income purposes e.g. Child Benefit, Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance, but we still need to know that you are receiving them.

Who can apply for Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support?

You can apply Housing Benefit (council and private housing) if you are the named person liable to pay the rent.  If you are a joint tenant we can also help you with your share of the rent.  In some circumstances you can be treated as the liable person, even though you are not the named person on the tenancy agreement. 

You can apply for Council Tax Support if you are the Council Tax payer or their partner. 

How do I apply?

• Apply online for Housing Benefit and / or Council Tax Support
• Download and Print Housing and or Council Tax Support claim form

You can also contact us for an application form.

New tenancies

If you are thinking of renting private accommodation and think you may need help with your rent, then please refer to our pages about Local Housing Allowance (LHA). We have a bedroom calculator to help you work out how many rooms we can base your Local Housing Allowance on, and a table showing the LHA rates for different localities.

If you take a new Council Tenancy, you will be given a Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support claim form in your Tenants' Pack.

Paying a Mortgage

Accounts Online

You can now view the following information online: