1. Change in circumstances - Housing Benefit
Please tell the Benefits team as soon as you or someone who lives in your household:
- starts or stops working,
- has any change in income or savings,
- moves in or out
This must be within one month of the change.
The sooner you let us know about the change, the sooner we can award the correct amount of benefit.
How to tell us
Email: benefits@eastdevon.gov.uk
Please attach your evidence to the email. We can accept scanned images or photographs of your evidence which need to be in actual size so that we can read them.
Complete a form
- Certificate of earnings form
- Childcare charges form
- Housing Benefit on two homes form
- Proof of rent form
- Self-employed income sheet
- for Change of Address form, Change in Circumstances form and Pay your landlord direct form please email benefits@eastdevon.gov.uk or call 01395 571770 and we will send you an application form to complete and return to us. Please include your name, address, benefit reference.
Phone 01395 571770
We can take most changes over the phone although we may ask for evidence.
Your responsibility
It is your responsibility to tell us within a month, otherwise by law we can issue you with a:
- £50 civil penalty if you do not tell us of any change that may affect your Housing Benefit
- £70 civil penalty if you do not tell us of any change that may affect your Council Tax Reduction or Council Tax
To falsely claim Housing Benefit and/or Council Tax Reduction is a criminal offence and we may prosecute.
Why do I need to tell you about any changes in my circumstances?
If your circumstances change, it may lead to either an increase or a reduction in your Housing Benefit. Please tell us within one month of the change to make sure that any increase in your benefit entitlement is paid from the date that the change happened.
A change in your circumstances could also result in a reduction to your benefit entitlement. If you do not tell us promptly, and we find out later that we have paid you too much benefit, you will normally have to pay it back to us.
What happens after I have told you about a change?
We will write to you and tell you whether, and by how much, the change has affected your Housing Benefit. If we have not written to you within two weeks of your telling us about a change, please email benefits@eastdevon.gov.uk.