Appealing a benefit decision
Once we have worked out your benefit, we will send you letters telling you how we worked out your claim. If you do not agree with the decision on your Housing Benefit or Council Tax Support, you can:
ask us for a written explanation of how we assessed your benefit entitlement
ask us to look again at the decision
appeal against the decision at an independent tribunal
Ask us for a written explanation Toggle accordion
A written explanation of the reasons for our decision provides you with more detail about the rules we follow when we made the decision.
You must ask for this within one month of the date that you received your decision notice.
Ask us to look at the decision again Toggle accordion
If you don’t agree with the way we worked out your benefit, you can ask us to look at it again. This is known as a ‘reconsideration’.
If the original decision is wrong, we will change it.
You must ask for this within one month of the date that you received your decision notice.
Appeal against the decision at an independent tribunal Toggle accordion
We will write to you and tell you why we are unable to change our decision. If you still do not agree with our decision you can appeal to an independent tribunal. An appeal tribunal is like a court of law.
Housing benefit appeals
Appeals against Housing Benefit decisions are dealt with by the HM Courts and Tribunal Service.
An appeal to the Tribunal service must:
Be in writing and signed by the person making the appeal
Be delivered to the Council offices
State your name and address
Provide the name and address of any representative and an address for the appeal documents to be sent
State what is being appealed
Give the grounds for your appeal
Be within one month of the date of our decision or reconsideration of your benefit
If your appeal is late you will need to give the reasons why it is late. If we decide that we are unable to accept your appeal, we will submit your request to the Tribunal who will decide if your late appeal can be accepted. An appeal cannot be considered if it is more than 13 months late.
We will send to both you and the Tribunal details of:
Your appeal
The relevant law
The reasons for our decision
Read the appeal papers carefully. If you do not understand something, then ask us, an advice centre or a solicitor to explain. We can send you a list of local advice centres.
The Tribunal will then contact you directly with a form to complete to allow the appeal to proceed.
Further information is available from GOV.UK
Council tax support appeal
Appeals against Council Tax Support decisions are dealt with by the Valuation Tribunal. They will only consider your appeal after we have looked at your claim again and decided we are unable to change our original decision.
You can appeal to them against our decision about:
whether you are entitled to a council tax reduction
how much council tax reduction the council has awarded you under the local scheme
The Tribunal is unable to hear appeals about the contents of our Council Tax Support scheme, only about the way the scheme has been applied to your individual case.
For further information and to make an appeal, please visit Valuation Tribunal Service.
Please read your letter carefully to check everything is correct. If you don’t understand anything, the document below may help.