05. How to claim?

You must fill in a claim form before you can claim any benefit or tax credit. For many types of benefit, you will have to provide a lot of personal information about yourself, your family and your finances. It can take a long time and a lot of effort to fill in claim forms, but if you don't do it properly, you may not get the benefit.

You can claim for yourself and members of your family, but you can also claim for other people if they are not able to manage their affairs.

Who decides whether I will get the benefit or not?
An official, often called a 'decision-maker' decides whether you qualify for a benefit and if so how much you will receive.  You will get the decision in writing and if you don't understand the decision, you can ask them to phone you or write to you to give you a better explanation.  The letter will also include details of how you can challenge the decision and whether you can appeal if you don't agree with it.

How quickly can I get paid?
Benefits are normally paid only after the agency receives your filled-in claim form or pack. It's a good idea to claim as soon as you think you could qualify for a benefit (and take a copy of your application form to prove when you made your application). If you claim late, you won't normally be paid benefit for that earlier period unless you can show you have a good reason for this.

The law describes what these reasons could be. It includes things such as illness or disability which prevents you from claiming earlier. If you think you should have received benefit for a period before you claimed, you should ask for your claim to be backdated. The maximum period of backdating for most benefits is three months (up to 12 months for Housing and Council Tax Benefit), so you should find out about how to increase your chances of success.

How will I get paid?
How, when and how often you are paid depends on the type of benefit you are claiming.  At the moment most benefits can be paid by an order book or giro cheque which you can cash at a particular post office, but the government is moving towards paying all benefits directly into bank accounts by direct credit transfer.  Special Post Office card accounts or basic bank accounts can be set up for people who do not have current accounts at a bank or building society.

Statutory Maternity, Paternity and Adoption Pay and working tax credits are normally paid to you by your employer and will appear in your pay packet or payslip.

Housing and Council Tax Benefit can be paid direct to your landlord or rent or council tax account.

Do I have to do anything after I start getting the benefits?
This depends on which benefits you are receiving. As a general rule, once you are receiving benefit, you must tell the agency that pays you about any changes in your circumstances. These include things such as if your income changes or if your ownership of property changes, or if one of your children leaves school. For Jobseeker's Allowance you also have to have interviews with a personal adviser who will try to help you get work. For some other benefits, you may also be asked to attend interviews.

For Pension Credit, some claimants are not required to report certain changes in their income, but this rule does not apply to everyone. You should seek further advice if you are in this situation.

For tax credits, the rules regarding changes in income are different to most other benefits and you should get further advice. If you don't tell the Inland Revenue about some changes in time, you may have to pay a penalty fine or changes in your favour may not be fully backdated. Remember to check the rules for each individual benefit you receive, as one agency may require you to notify some changes while others don't.

What happens if I get paid too much?
If you are paid too much benefit, you may be asked to repay it. This may happen if you don't tell the agency about changes in your circumstances or you give them wrong information - even by mistake. If the problem is more serious, for example, if you lie about your circumstances. you may be investigated for fraud, and may even be prosecuted or fined.

Sometimes the agency dealing with your claim may make a mistake and pay you too much benefit. For most social security benefits you do have the right to appeal against an overpayment, but for tax credits there is no formal appeal right, just the possibility of them writing off the overpayment in cases of hardship or where they admit they've made a mistake.  But you can appeal against a decision which adds interest to an overpayment or which asks you to pay a penalty.  You should always get specialist advice if you are asked to repay overpaid social security benefit or tax credit.