Backdating a Claim

To qualify for backdating, you must be able to show that:

• You had a good reason for not claiming benefit earlier; and
• Your reason or reasons for not claiming earlier lasted until you actually made your claim (for example, if you were in hospital and made a claim as soon as possible after leaving hospital, we would treat this as continuous good cause).

We will usually need to see proof of the things you tell us about. For example, in the situation above, we would need to see a letter from the hospital or your doctor confirming your illness and the length of time you were in hospital.

By law,  from the 1st April 2016, we can only backdate a claim for up to one month for people of a working age and three months for pensioners from the date we receive your claim or request for backdating. You must clearly give the period you would like us to consider backdating your claim to cover. Local Council Tax Support can only ever be backdated by 3 months.

Your request must be in writing and this can be done either by:

• Filling in the relevant section under  'Additional Details' in the Application for Housing Benefit and Local Council Tax Support (PDF) [866KB]
• Writing to us
• Calling into our office where you can get help to write a request for backdating. We will not tell you what to write, you must tell us what you want us to write

Once we receive your request to backdate your claim we:

• Will make a decision as soon as possible
• Notify you of our decision
• Will give you appeal rights when we notify you

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