One call does it all!

Working age customers can claim Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit at the same time they claim Income Support, Jobseekers Allowance or Incapacity Benefit. This means they will no longer have to fill in a paper application form to claim Housing Benefit.

To claim all these benefits, they must telephone Jobcentre Plus on 0845 60 60 704.  Jobcentre Plus staff will take some basic claim information from them.  They will then call the customer back at an agreed time to gather more information needed for their benefit claims. 

JobCentre Plus will then print out the information given over the telephone and send it to the customer for them to check and sign.  The customer will return this information, with any documents needed to support their benefit claim, to the Taunton Jobcentre Plus office, at an agreed time.

Once the customer has provided all the necessary evidence and information to support their claim, Jobcentre Plus will pass the Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit claim details to us.

Not all new tenants will need to make a telephone claim. to download a flowchart for landlords to use to check which route a new or prospective tenant has to take to get Housing Benefit at their new address.

Jobcentre Plus staff will not collect evidence of a customer's liability to pay rent.  So we can process your tenants claims more quickly, make sure you send us details of their rent.

to download our 'Speed up your Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit Claim form.

to download a 'Rent Payment Certificate'.

To find out more about the telephone claims process, for a copy of a presentation to stakeholders on 31 August 2005 about the new claims process.