Care and support

Help with council tax

What is it?

There are 3 different ways for getting help to pay your council tax:

• discounts
• a disability reduction
• council tax benefit

You can get help through all three schemes at the same time, if you satisfy the conditions. Also, some homes are exempt from council tax – seek further advice on this.

Who can claim?

If you are liable for the council tax bill you may be able to claim:

• a discount – the discount scheme looks at the number of adults in your home. If you live alone you get 25% discount. If you live with other people some of them may be disregarded e.g. people who are severely mentally impaired, certain types of carers, students. You can get a discount of up to 50%.
• a disability reduction – you may be able to get a reduction if a child or adult living in your home is disabled, and you have a room that is needed,or mainly used by them e.g. you have brought a bed downstairs changing the use of the downstairs room to a bedroom, or they need a second bathroom or kitchen or space is made to enable use of a wheelchair in the home. If you qualify for a reduction, your council tax bill is reduced to the amount payable for a home in the band below yours. If your home is in the lowest band, your bill is reduced by one-sixth.
• council tax benefit - this is paid by the local council to help people on a low income with their council tax bill. Your council tax can be reduced by either main council tax benefit or (less common) second adult rebate. Main council tax benefit depends on your income and your savings – if you have more than £16,000 then you are not eligible at all, unless you are getting the guarantee part of pension credit. Second adult rebate does not depend on your or your partner’s income/savings but looks at other people (e.g. non-dependant son/daughter) who live in your home and takes into account their financial circumstances. You will get whichever of these is worth the most.

How much is paid?

If you are getting the guarantee credit part of pension credit you are eligible for maximum council tax benefit, but this can be reduced depending on who else lives with you and what their weekly income is. See the note above on non-dependant deductions in housing benefit for when this will apply.

How to claim

Your local council has claim forms for discounts, reductions and council tax benefit. Normally the same form is used to work out both housing and council tax benefit.However, if you are claiming pension credit the Pension Service will usually check to see if you have claimed council tax benefit and if you haven’t they should complete form HCTB1 (help with rent and council tax) issued with the pension credit claim form. This is a new shortened 3 page form that is easier to complete and can be done over the phone at the same time as you claim pension credit.

You can ask for benefit to be backdated for up to one year as long as you are entitled during that period. However proposed changes due to come into force in October 2008 may now limit the amount of backdating to 3 months – see www.hertsdirect.org/benefits for up to date information.

For more information about council tax select the link entitled help with housing costs on the right hand side of the page.