Report a Change in Circumstance

Why must I report a change in my circumstances?

You must tell us about any changes to your circumstances that may affect your Housing Benefit or Council Tax Reduction. By telling us you will help us keep your Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction right and avoid having to repay any overpaid amounts. You should not rely on other people such as your landlord to tell us about any changes affecting you.

What changes must I report?

You need to tell us things like if you or your partner:

• stop or start getting state benefits
• start work or change jobs
• have an increase or decrease in wages
• have savings or investments where the value goes up or down
• go into hospital

You also need to tell us things like:

• any of your children leave school
• you change address
• the number of people living with you changes, for example
  • you have a child
  • other people come to live with you
  • you foster a child or children
  • other people leave your house

When do I need to report my change?

You must inform us of your change in circumstances straight away. If you delay in notifying us of this change, you may miss out on receiving additional Housing Benefit/Council Tax reduction. If the change would give you less Housing Benefit and this results in an overpayment of benefit, we may recover this from your ongoing benefit.

If the change would give you less Council Tax Reduction, this will be recovered through a change to your Council Tax bill.

How do I report my change?

The fastest, easiest and most secure way to report a change is by using our Electronic Change in Circumstances facility. If you do not already have access to your Housing Benefit/Council Tax Reduction details, you will first need to register for self service. This will only take a few minutes and will give you access to a range of information relating to your Housing Benefit/Council Tax Reduction application. If you need help submitting a change electronically, we have a  guide to Electronic change in circumstances [356kb] available. If you are unable to submit your changes electronically, you can also report a change by printing and completing our  Tell Us [133kb] form. Please also see our Privacy Statement.

If you have already reported a change in your circumstances and have been contacted by us asking for copies of documents to confirm the change, you can upload this using our Change in circumstance proof form.