What is an appeal?

We make many decisions about a claim for Housing Benefits and Council Tax Benefit, including:

• Whether you can claim Benefit at all.
• How much you will get paid.
• How it is paid.
• When benefit starts and stops.
• If you have been paid too much.
• If we can ask you to pay back overpaid Benefit.
• Whether your claim can be backdated.

We always aim to make the right decision, taking all the benefit laws into account, but you may not agree. If you wish us to reconsider our descision, you need put this in writing, stating the reason or reasons you think we should reconsider, posting it to the address below.

Benefit Services

Ashford Borough Council

Civic Centre

Tannery Lane

Ashford

Kent

TN23 1PL

What happens when I make a claim?

We will work out how much Housing Benefit and/or Council Tax Benefit we can pay you, using the information you put on your claim form and any other evidence you supply (or we ask for). When we have processed your claim we will always send you a letter, telling you how much benefit we can pay you and how we have worked it out. The letter usually has several pages, because we have to tell you all the information we have used. Enclosed with the letter will be separate sheet of paper, telling you:

• How to let us know about changes in your circumstances (to make sure you get the right level of benefit paid to you), and
• How to ask us to explain the benefit decision, or appeal against it.

What if I have a query about how you have worked out my entitlement?

When you have read the decision letter, you may not understand why we have made that decision, or why information has been used in a certain way.  You can write in to ask us to explain the decision; this is called a ‘statement of reasons’.

You can ask for a statement of reasons at any time, but remember there is a one month time limit for making an appeal against a decision, and if you delay asking for the explanation then you could risk losing your right to appeal (unless there are special reasons for the delay).