What is housing benefit?
North Devon is now a full service area for Universal Credit. This means most people of working age who would like to make a new claim to Housing Benefit will need to claim the housing element of Universal Credit to help with their rent.
However you may still be able to claim Housing Benefit if:
- You, and your partner if you have one, have reached pensionable age
- You live in temporary accommodation provided by the Local Authority
- You live in certain Supported Accommodation
If you are not sure of whether or not you would fall under any of these categories, please phone the Housing Benefit office on 01271 388877 for advice and/or a claim form.
Housing benefit helps you pay your rent if you are on a low income. The amount of housing benefit you get is worked out by looking at:
- how much money you have coming in
- your personal circumstances and the amount of rent you have to pay
- the amount of savings you have (more than £16,000 will normally disqualify you)
Online benefits calculator to see what help you can get.
Things to remember:
- hand your application in as soon as you can
- provide all the supporting evidence, we cannot pay your benefit until we have seen all the evidence we have asked for
- you won't get any benefit if you don't claim
The evidence that you need to provide
- National Insurance numbers for you and your partner
- identity (two documents per person)
- capital, savings and investments
- earnings
- other income
- benefits, allowances or pensions
- private rent and tenancy
Please note that you must provide original documents, not copies. We cannot pay your benefit until we have seen all the proof we have asked for.
A change in your circumstances
If you have applied for housing benefit and/or have been told that you are getting housing benefit you must tell us about changes that might affect your benefit straight away.
Report a change in your circumstances
You can find more information in our leaflet, which you can also pick up in any of our offices.
Benefit fraud
Do you suspect someone of committing benefit fraud? If so, please let us know.