Change of circumstances
The law says you must tell us if there is any change to the information we have used to calculate your housing benefit or Council Tax Benefit/Support.
You should tell us straight away when a changes happens. If you delay telling us about a change, we may continue to pay you benefit that you are not entitled to and you could be overpaid. We will expect you to pay back any benefit that you are overpaid.
If you take more than a month to tell us about a change that entitles you to more benefit, we can usually only increase your benefit from the week after the date you tell us about the change.
If you don’t report a change that you know will affect your benefit, and you don’t have a good reason for this, you are committing a criminal offence, just as if you gave us false information or concealed the truth.
How to tell us
You can do it online, using My Islington or you can:
- Phone us: 020 7527 4990
- Email us: frontoffice.housing@islington.gov.uk
What you need to tell us about
You need to tell us about any change that could affect your benefit, for example if there is any change to:
- your or any partner income, benefits, capital or savings
- your rent (if you are a council tenant you don’t need to tell us about any rent changes)
- you move address
- the number of people in your home changes
- anyone who lives with you starts or stop works
- any change in the income of someone who lives with you
- a child leaves school
- you leave your home temporarily
- you are going abroad (outside of Great Britain)
- you, or your partner, become of stop being a student
- you, or your partner claim Universal Credit
We cannot list all the changes in circumstances that you should tell us about, but if you are not sure whether we need to know please tell us anyway.