Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction Claims

To make a claim for Housing Benefit and/or Council Tax Reduction, please download and print the  claim form [1MB]  and return it to us. For either Housing Benefit or Council Tax Reduction claims (or both), please fill in all sections of the form that are relevant to you.

If you're unable to print the form, you can request one from Customer Services.

Alternatively, whilst we are not yet able to offer a full electronic claim process,  you can apply by downloading a form [787KB] . You can save the form to a device, complete it electronically and return it to us as an email attachment. In order to secure your personal information, we recommend that you follow the procedure below:

1. send an email to benefits@westberks.gov.uk letting us know that you would like to submit a new claim
2. we will email you back via secure email, inviting you to submit your claim form.
3. once you receive our secure message, if you select 'reply', your application form and any other scanned evidence you attach to your message will be sent to us securely

Please note: we are currently experiencing high volumes of queries and therefore there may be a delay between sending your initial message (at step one) and our secure response (at step two). You will not lose benefit as a result of delays in our response. As long as you return the form at step three within a month of the date it was issued to you, the start of your claim will be calculated according to the date you first contacted us (at step one).

You can use our on-line benefits calculator to estimate how much help you might receive.
 

Reporting change of circumstances

If you're already receiving Housing Benefit and/or Council Tax Reduction and your circumstances change, including if anyone joins or leaves your household, please  report the change(s) to us [792KB] .
 

Universal Credit

Most new claims for housing costs from working age claimants now need to be applied for through Universal Credit. Please see our housing benefit page and our Universal Credit page for more details.
 

If you are unable to claim help with housing costs through Housing Benefit, our claim form can still be used in order to claim Council Tax Reduction.