If there has been a reason which stopped or delayed you applying for Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit prior to 1st April 2013 or Council tax Reduction, you can ask for your claim to be 'backdated' so that it starts from an earlier date. From April 2013, backdating of Council Tax Reduction is no longer available for people of working age.

The Start Date of Your Benefit Claim

Under Benefit law your claim for benefit must be made in writing, either on a benefits application form or by letter. Normally we will start your claim from the Monday after the first point of contact,even if this is a letter or phone call via the Jobcentre Plus office. It is therefore very important that you get your application form or letter to us as soon as possible because it affects the date your benefit claim will start from. If we send you an application form we will allow you 4 weeks to complete and return it. If you take longer than four weeks to return the form you might lose your entitlement to some of your benefits.

There are other special rules about Housing Benefit on two homes and overlapping liability to pay rent. If you are not sure whether you qualify, put down the circumstances on the claim form and we will write to you if we need more information.

The Rules on Backdating Benefit

You can currently ask for a backdate of benefits if there is a reason why you were unable to apply for your benefit earlier. If you disagree with the date your claim starts from for any other reason you can appeal against the decision. For information on how to appeal go to our "How to Appeal" page.

In order for a backdate of  Benefit to be allowed you will have to show 'good cause' why you did not apply earlier. There is no formal definition of 'good cause', each case will be decided according to its own individual situation. The maximum period that a benefit claim can be backdated  is six months for working-age claimants and three months for people of pension age. This period would start from the date we receive the backdate request.

Changes from April 2013

The Government is abolishing Council Tax Benefit from 1st April 2013 and each council must replace this with a local Council tax Reduction scheme. The new schemes must cost less than the old one and in order to achieve this, there will be no backdating provision within the main scheme for people of working age. Please see the Council Tax page on welfare reform for more information about these changes. Housing Benefit backdating is not affected.