Claiming Housing Benefit, Council Tax Support and Second Adult Rebate

You can apply for Housing Benefit, Council Tax Support and Second Adult Rebate using the same online benefits claim form.

To get your claim started as soon as possible, you should apply even if you don’t have any supporting evidence yet. You can give us the evidence separately.

It helps speed up your claim if you give us your email address and phone number. We can then contact you quickly if we need more information. For secure email, we use a system called Egress.

If you require any further information – contact the benefits team.

Apply for Housing Benefit, Council Tax support or Second Adult Rebate

Before you start the claim form

You can get an estimate of how much Housing Benefit or Council Tax support you might get by using the entitled to benefits calculator (opens new window) or the Turn2us benefits calculator (opens new window).

When you apply you need to complete the form in one go – you can’t save it and go back later.

It might take some time to fill in the form if your circumstances mean there is a lot of information you need to give us.

If you are unable to fill in the form online see our help with online benefits forms.

Information we need from you

Before you start the form, you will need to have the following details ready:

About you and your partner

date of birth
National Insurance number
employment details such as income, average hours worked and details of all employers
unearned income, such as child benefit, welfare benefits, tax credits, pension information or student loans or grants
details and amounts of any savings, capital, investments or property/land held individually or jointly
amount of rent you get for boarders or sub tenants
amounts and dates of payments into or from pensions
if you are a tenant, details of the tenancy including rent charged, start date and the landlord or agent
your moving in date
dates of any current maternity, paternity or sick leave
date of arrival in the UK, if less than 5 years ago

About children

name
date of birth
child benefit amounts
child care costs

About joint tenants

names of the people you share the property with

About other people

It’s important to give us details of other people’s income, because otherwise we will treat them as working full time on a high wage and you might lose benefit.

name
date of birth
earned income (before deductions) and hours they work
unearned income, such as welfare benefits, tax credits, student loans/grants

Supporting evidence

When you fill in the form, it will tell you what supporting evidence or information we will need from you. To see what types of document we accept as evidence and upload documents, see supporting evidence.

If you can’t upload your documents, you can bring them to your local library or post them to Benefits Section, Cheshire East Council, PO Box 622, Crewe, CW1 9JH.

If someone is helping you with your claim

If someone is helping with your claim and you want us to share information with them, you need to let us know you are happy for us to do so. See authority to discuss.

Where people are unable to manage their own financial affairs, an appointee can handle their benefits claims for them.

Changes of circumstance

You must tell us straightaway about any changes that might affect your claim.