Change of Circumstances
The law says that you must tell us as soon as you can if
your circumstances change.
Tell us straight away if:
● Any of your children leaves home or
Child Benefit stops for them or they leave school, ceases further
education, or their university course finishes,
● Anyone moves into or out of your
home (including lodgers and subtenants);
● You get married, form a civil
partnership or start living with someone as if you are married or
civil partners;
● You separate from your
partner, get divorced or have your civil partnership dissolved;
● Your income or the income of
anyone living with you, including benefits, changes;
● Your capital, savings or
investments change;
● You or anyone living with you
becomes a student, goes on a Youth Training Scheme, goes into
hospital or a nursing home, goes into prison or becomes employed,
changes or leaves employment;
● Your rent changes;
● You move;
● You or your partner are going
to be away from home for more than a month;
● You receive a decision from
the Home Office;
● If any of the details on your
entitlement letters sent to you are wrong; or
● Anything else you have told
us about changes.
You must tell us about these
changes.
Please telephone us on 01279
446633
e-mail using the following
link hdc.benefits@harlow.gov.uk
in person by visiting;
Contact Harlow
The Civic Centre
The Watergardens
Harlow
CM20 1WG
or write to us at;
Revenues and Benefits
The Civic Centre
The watergardens
Harlow
Essex
CM20 1WG
You can also follow this link
to obtain a printable
change of circumstances form (pdf) 53kb.
If you don’t tell us about these
changes:
You may lose benefit you
are entitled to or you may get too much benefit.
You must make sure that you
tell us about these changes. Don’t rely on someone else to pass the
message on.
If you do not tell us
about a change your benefits could be suspended or your claim
cancelled.
You could be interviewed under caution by our fraud team and
this could lead to:
- getting a sanction
- having to attend court
- your name appearing in the local newspapers
- being prosecuted
- being fined
- having to pay court costs
- a criminal record
- prison sentence
It is an offence not to
tell us about any change of circumstance that affects your benefit,
We may take court action against you and if we pay you too
much benefit, you will probably have to pay it back.
The Council is under a duty to protect public funds
and the information you give us may be used for the prevention and
detection of fraud and may be shared with other bodies
administering public funds solely for this purpose.
You can follow this link if you wish to return to the Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit index
page or you can use the links on the top and on the left
hand side of this page.