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.