|
|
Housing & Council Tax Benefits
Claimant Rights
As a person claiming Housing Benefit and/or Council Tax Benefit you have certain rights which we at Comhairle Nan Eilean Siar strive to promote and maintain:
These are:
You must have your claim determined within 14 days of us having received all the information necessary to assess your claim, or as soon as practicable after that.
- You must be notified in writing of this determination within 14 days of the determination being made. The letter will inform you of the amount of Rent Allowance, Rent Rebate or Council Tax Benefit you will receive weekly, based on the income and personal details you have provided. The notification will also explain your rights if you disagree with the determination
- Where we fail to make a determination on your claim for Rent Allowance within 14 days of having received all the necessary information, you have a right to receive a payment on account may be more or less than your entitlement. W will take into account any amount that we have paid ‘on account’ when we are able to make a final determination
- If there is a delay in you making a claim for Benefit you can ask to have your claim backdated. This is not an automatic right, as certain criteria have to be met before a decision can be made. To make an application to have your Benefit backdated you need to complete and return a Request For Backdating Form
 .
- You can ask at any time to have a detailed statement of how we calculated your benefit and we must send this to you within 14 days of your request
When we make a decision on your claim you have the right to ask us to look again at your claim if you disagree with our determination e.g.
- You may think that we have unfairly restricted the amount of rent on which we based your Rent Allowance claim
- You may disagree with our reasons for refusing your backdated request
- You may disagree on the amount of overpayment we are recovering from you, or the reason for the overpayment
You can to review any decision we have made that you don’t agree with – within 6 weeks of being notified.
|
