You can check details of your Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support claim online in your My B&D and registering for the Housing and Council Tax Benefits service. You only need to do this once – after that you can login to your benefit details whenever you like.

Register or log in to My B&D

Housing or Council Tax Benefit claim number

This is printed on the notices or letters that we have sent to you about your benefit claim.

It’s a 9 digit number starting with 1.

If you do not have any notices or letters from us, you should contact us.

National Insurance number

National Insurance numbers are issued by HM Revenue and Customs. You can apply for a National Insurance number if you don’t have one or find your National Insurance number if you’ve lost it.

Understanding details of household

Under 'income details' you can see a breakdown of the income records we hold for each member of your household.

'Status' is where other members of your household will be listed, showing their status as:

• partner
• a child aged 0 to16
• a youth aged 16 to 19
• a non-dependant - someone who normally resides with you, such as an adult son, daughter or friend

'Special circumstances' notes any member of your household who is either a student or a carer.

Understanding your claim summary

These terms appear in Your Claim Summary.

Payee (invoices outstanding)

If ‘Payee’ has ‘Landlord’ against it

This debt can be recovered either from your ongoing benefit payments or your landlord, depending on why it arose:

• if it was because you changed address, an invoice will have been sent to your landlord and your benefit will not be affected.
• if it was because of a change in your income, it will be recovered from your benefit payments, even if you have moved address since the time of the overpayment

If ‘Payee’ has ‘Claimant’ against it

This is an overpayment we are recovering from you.

If you are unsure if your benefit is subject to any reduction in relation to recovering an overpayment, please contact us for clarification.

Understanding how benefits have been calculated

Applicable Amount

This is the weekly amount set by the government as the amount of income you can have before we start to reduce your benefit.

It varies according to:

• how old you are
• how many people are in your family
• whether any of them have disabilities

Disregards

This refers to some types of income, such as Disability Living Allowance, that are ignored when working out your weekly income.

Earnings and Working Tax Credit are disregarded in part.

The total value of any disregards will appear here.

Alternative

If you are claiming Second Adult Rebate because another person living with you has a low income, the amount of your Council Tax reduction appears under ‘Alternative’.

Glossary of key terms

Applicable Amount

The figure we use when calculating how much your family needs to live on.

This figure is set by Housing Benefit regulations.

Excess Income

The difference between the amount of income you and your family receive and how much your family needs to live on (known as your applicable amount)

Disregards

There are certain incomes that we ignore when we calculate your benefit.

Non-dependants

Adults over the age of 18 who live with you, for whom you do not receive Child Benefit.