Discretionary Housing Payment and Hardship Payment

Discretionary Housing Payment

Discretionary Housing Payments are extra payments to help meet the shortfall between Housing Benefit or Universal Credit Housing Element and your rent payments.

You will need to complete our Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP) request form. Please tell us as much as possible about your circumstances and why you need extra help. Some parts of the form will ask you to upload supporting evidence; it is important that you do this at that point as you will not be able to return to upload evidence once the form has been submitted.

Please help us to speed up the decision about your DHP request by completing the form accurately and providing the supporting documents at the same time. 

Please note: If you also receive Council Tax Reduction we will consider a Hardship Payment at the same time, so you only need to apply for a DHP to be considered for both – you do not need to complete two separate forms.

Apply for Discretionary Household Payment

 

Hardship Payment

You will need to complete our Hardship Payment (HP) request form. It is important that you tell us as much as possible about your circumstances and why you need extra help. You will need to provide evidence to support your claim.

Apply for Hardship Payment

 

If you need help with either form please call us on 020 8708 5690

Text Relay customers should dial 18001 before this number to access the Text Relay service

What happens next?

Once your application has been received, it will be assessed and you will be contacted to find out if you have been successful or not.

If you are successful then the Discretionary Housing Payments will be paid along with your next Housing Benefits payment and the Hardship Payments will be credited to your Council Tax account.

What if my circumstances change?

If your circumstances change you need to tell us straight away by writing to:

Revenues, Benefits & Transactional Centre
PO Box 1345
Lynton House
255-259 High Road
Ilford, Essex,
IG1 1NN

Your Discretionary Housing Payments and/or Hardship Payments will be looked at to see if anything needs to change. If the change means that your Discretionary Housing Payments and/or Hardship Payments has to be reduced, then you may have to pay back some of the money already paid to you.