Backdating
The law states that any claim for Housing Benefit/Council Tax
Benefit must be made at the time you want benefit to start from.
Benefit is, normally, only payable from the Monday after you
requested a claim form from us. If you are under the age of 60 the
law will allow us to backdate a claim, for a maximum of 6 months
from when a written backdate request is received, but only where
there is a good reason for the claim being made late. This is known
as "continuous good cause".
Some examples of what might be counted as "good cause" are:
- If you were ill and had no-one to make the claim on your
behalf.
- If you could not reasonably have been expected to know
your rights, eg where there have been detailed changes in the
law.
- If you did not understand that you could claim - perhaps
because of age, inexperience, language difficulties, difficulty in
understanding technical documents or some other reason.
- If you were wrongly advised that you were not entitled to
Housing/Council Tax Benefit. If you were unable to manage your
affairs and did not have an 'appointee' or someone to help
you.
If you think there is a good reason for making a late claim, you
should:
Make sure you complete a claim form for the period(s) in
question and supply all the evidence about your income as soon as
possible. Request in writing that your claim is backdated - giving
the period(s) you want your claim to be considered from and giving
full details of why the claim was made late.
If you are over 60 years old we will automatically backdate your
claim to when you first qualified for benefit, up to a maximum of 3
months, from when we actually receive it.