Appeals

When you apply for housing or council tax benefit, you will receive a decision in writing from us about your claim. If you disagree with it, you can ask us to look at it again.

There are different ways in which you can do this. You can contact us to:

• Ask for an explanation of our decision.
• Ask us to reconsider our decision or
• Appeal against our decision.

In order to request any of these options you must be an "affected person". By this we mean the claimant, an appointee or the person from whom we are seeking to recover an overpayment.

You can contact us, at any time, requesting that we send you a more detailed explanation of our decision.

We will write back to you stating how and why we made the decision that we did. However, you must be aware that if you disagree with our decision, you only have one month from the decision date to request that we reconsider it or to appeal against it.

If you disagree with our decision, you should write to us asking us to reconsider it or download a form.

• You must do this within one month of the original decision date.
• You must clearly state which decision you are asking us to look at again, and why you think the decision is wrong.
• You should also provide us with any additional information that may help us when we look at your claim again.
• Where possible, we will arrange for a different benefits officer to look at the decision. If it is found that it was correct, we will send you a letter telling you that we can not change it but that you can appeal if you still think that we are wrong. If it is found that our decision was wrong, we will change it and write to you explaining why and how we have done this.

Any appeal that you make must be received within one month of the decision date.

• Your appeal must be in writing and signed by the affected person.
• If you have had a reconsideration of your claim, any appeal must be made within one month of the reconsideration date.
• You must clearly state the date of the decision that you are appealing against and the reasons why you think that our decision is incorrect.
• If we have not already done so, we will reconsider your case. If we are unable to alter our decision, we will refer your case to an independent tribunal administered by the Tribunal Service.

You can appeal against our decision by filling a form and sending it to us.

The tribunal service 

Tribunals are made up of judges who are experts on the issues affecting your appeal and are legally qualified to apply the law relevant to your case.

We will prepare all the relevant case papers and send a copy to both you and the tribunal service. If you do not understand them, you can ask us to explain them for you or contact an advice centre or solicitor for help.

The tribunal service will contact you regarding your case. There are two types of hearing, oral and paper. You will be asked by the tribunal service which you would prefer.

Find out more information on the Tribunal Service.