housing benefit how long ??

kurjam

is their any guide lines as to how long a council has to sort out a claim for housing benefit??
when i rang them up they said they aim to respond with 10 working days, well this has been and gone.... i rang them today and was told i am in a pile :mad:

is it just a case of sit and wait for a letter from them ??

dmg24

'Fraid so ...

I applied for Council Tax Benefit six months ago ...

Still waiting ...

kurjam

gosh and i thought my council took a long time, have you contacted your council ?? they should not take that long !!

black-saturn

First time I applied for it years ago it was a 4 month wait and my bf waited 6 months when he renewed his when his working hours went up. I think your in for a long one.

violetmva

We have applied in January, every 4 weeks since then they have asked for more and more information. The other day received a warrant if i don't chase my claim we could get evicted from the emergency accomodation we're in. Thought that was outrageous as i also am 6 1/2 months pregnant and we have been paying our part of the rent and the service charges every week. Finally today i got my award notice and now i wonder if i will be able to claim the overpayments as i was paying a bit more than i should. Any advice?

AGB863

They may aim to respond in 10 days, in my local area it's 14, but that is only if they have all the information they need to process the claim. Once they start asking for more information - it will slow the process down

At one point last year a typical claim was 7 months, but that is now down to 3.5 months

I have used the local authorities own web site a couple of times and made a formal complaint. Once a complaint is made, the authority has to respond to it and have to put a plan in place to resolve the complaint within a set time frame.

You would be surprised how fast a claim gets finished!

real1314

Hmmm, it's not part of legislation, but once you've submitted a claim with all the relevant info, they *should* process it within 14 days.

After this you can ask them to make payments at an interim rate.

A letter requesting this might be friutful.

Morglin

If Liberata are doing it allow 6 months for the first wrong assessment then anything up to 18 months for a correct one.:mad:

Seriously, it should be done within a month, but this varies depending on area and workload.

Lin

snicker

If you are being threatened with court action by your landlord and have been issued with a NOSP (Notice of seeking possession) you should take that straight away to the Housing Benefit office, this will normally get your case dealt with as a priority.

If you have provided Housing Benefit with all the info they require and it is their backlog that is holding up your rent being paid I don't think a court would normally evict you, the important thing is to keep records of all telephone calls and paperwork regarding your claim so that you can prove that you have been trying to get your benefit paid.

The Citizens Advice Bureau would also be worth contacting as they have Specialist Benefits Workers, If you live in a Council or Housing Association Property they also often have Workers that can help you to get it sorted too.

ianian99

they take months somke times but they must make an interim payment within 6 weeks or something like that cant remember

thesaint

snicker wrote: »

If you are being threatened with court action by your landlord and have been issued with a NOSP (Notice of seeking possession) you should take that straight away to the Housing Benefit office, this will normally get your case dealt with as a priority.

If you have provided Housing Benefit with all the info they require and it is their backlog that is holding up your rent being paid I don't think a court would normally evict you, the important thing is to keep records of all telephone calls and paperwork regarding your claim so that you can prove that you have been trying to get your benefit paid.

The Citizens Advice Bureau would also be worth contacting as they have Specialist Benefits Workers, If you live in a Council or Housing Association Property they also often have Workers that can help you to get it sorted too.

This is what I would also suggest, but if the notice issued is an S21(no fault) one, the court has to enforce the eviction order.