When you put in a new Housing Benefit claim,how long does it take them to get in touch with you?
May 6th, 2010 by admin
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5 Responses to “When you put in a new Housing Benefit claim,how long does it take them to get in touch with you?”
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About 2 weeks if you qualify it will be back dated to the day of your claim.
speaking from experience about 2 months,its a nightmare….
Hi I work for housing benefits
The amount of time taken to pay a claim depends on th complexity of the claim and how up to date the council you are claiming from are.
Normally a claim will start from the monday after it is recieved or the start of a tenancy if the claim was put in within 28 days of the tenancy start date.
The longest a claim should take to be paid is 4 weeks, however they may need to contact you if they need more information which will delay things. If you took the form to your local council and supplied everthing they need to make an assessment there is no reason why the claim cannot be paid within 2 weeks, if you are privately renting, you can ask your council to make emergency payments to you if your claim is not assessed within 2 weeks and your landlord is demanding money.
Six weeks is the bench mark.In the mean time your rent will go into arrears,if you don’t keep up with your rent also same with the community tax.The best way of doing this is to take your claim forms down to the appropriate department to get it processed and stamped with the date,they then give you a receipt proving that you have put in a claim,other wise a posted claim frequently gets lost,so they say,then you go in rent arrears to the tune of many of hundreds of pounds.
This happens quite often.My advise is get a new form filled in and take it down to the claims office with all your incoming and out going details.
It depends on where you are and the workload of the council dealing with your claim.
I do know that it can and often does take weeks to deal with a claim.
Landlords are obviously often unhappy that you are not paying rent because of the time it is taking for your claim to go through and some give you a notice to quit the property. I know of several people who have had this problem.
This mainly happens in the private housing sector. Council, social landlords and housing associations realise claims take time and are often happy to wait.
Don’t worry too much If this happens, take the notice to the department dealing with your claim and tell them that you are being threatened with eviction. The Housing Benefit Department will, or should deal with your claim immediately.
You have not mentioned Council Tax Benefit. If you are entitled to Housing Benefit, it is quite likely you are also entitled to a reduction in your Council Tax. If you have not already, please make a claim for this too.
The same council will deal with this also.
I hope this has been of help.
Poseidon