If you qualify for Housing Benefit or Council Tax Benefit we usually pay it from the Monday after we get your claim.

Sometimes we can pay benefit before the date you claim. This is called 'backdating' your claim.

The law says that we can backdate a claim for up to 6 months if you are of working age as long as we receive a request in writing but, there has to be a good reason why your claim is late. This is known as 'good cause'. Good cause must be continuous for the period you want benefit backdated.

Good causes include the following:

• If you were ill and had no-one to make the claim for you
• If you could not reasonably have been expected to know your rights, for example, where there have been changes in the law.

If you did not understand that you could claim, perhaps because of:

• Age
• Inexperience
• Language difficulties
• Difficulty in understanding technical documents
• You were wrongly advised by an official organisation that you were not entitled to Housing Benefit or Council Tax Benefit
• You were unable to manage your affairs and did not have an 'appointee' or someone to help you.

For example

You were ill from January to March, and only claimed benefit in March when you were better.

You hadn't been able to claim before March because you had no-one to act for you.

In this case, we would consider backdating your benefit to January however, If you were ill from January to March and had no-one to act for you, but did not claim until May, we would not be able to backdate your claim to January.

We would only pay your benefit from May because 'good cause' did not continue from January to May.

If you think you have 'good cause' for making a late claim, you should:

• Make sure you fill in a claim form for the period in question, and supply all the evidence about your income as soon as possible
• Send the claim form to us, along with a letter which asks us to backdate your claim.

You need to tell us the period you want it backdated for, and give full details of why your claim is late. We will then consider whether we can backdate your benefit.

If you get an extended payment from us when your Income Support, income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, Incapacity Benefit or Severe Disablement Allowance ends, you will have to complete a new Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit claim form.

If you do not get an extended payment, you do not have to fill in a new form to claim Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. But you do have to tell us what your new income and circumstances are.

You should do that within one calendar month of the end of your Income Support, income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, Incapacity Benefit or Severe Disablement Allowance - if you don't, you might lose benefit.

If you reapply within one calendar month of the end of your Income Support or income-based Jobseeker's Allowance entitlement, we may be able to treat your claim as a continuous claim.

But, if you reapply after this time, the normal rules about the start date of claims will apply - that is, from the Monday after the claim is received in the Benefits Office.

We can consider if you have any 'underlying entitlement' if you provide proof of your actual income.

Here is an example of 'underlying entitlement'

Your entitlement to Income Support or income-based Jobseeker's Allowance ends in October but we only find out about the change in the following July. Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit must be cancelled back to October.

As more than one calendar month has passed since October, any new claim you make cannot automatically restart from October. But, if you provide proof of your actual income from October onwards, we will work out what benefit you would have been entitled to as if we had known about the change.

This is called 'underlying entitlement'. You will have to pay back any extra benefit that you have received but are not entitled to.

The idea of Rapid Reclaim is that it should be easier, and quicker, for you to reclaim Housing Benefit or Council Tax Benefit (or both). For example, you start work and come off Income Support or income-based Jobseeker's Allowance. But then you stop working and claim benefit again.

If you reclaim within 12 weeks of when your Income Support or income-based Jobseeker's Allowance ended, Jobcentre Plus will give you a Rapid Reclaim Pack. Form HBRR1 is in that pack, and you can use it to reclaim Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit.

If you don't agree with our decision, you can ask us to look at it again. Our letters tell you what your rights are.