How to tell us you are returning to work

Printable forms

Download the Back to Work form [PDF, 568 Kb]

Download the Certificate of Earnings form [PDF, 88 Kb]

Further information

What happens when I (or my partner) start work?

• Tell us straight away, because Housing Benefit must stop from the Monday after your Income Support or Job Seeker's Allowance (JSA) ends.
• Or if you are getting any other benefit, such as incapacity benefit, we must amend your Housing Benefit from the Monday after you start work.
• Again you need to tell us immediately to avoid Housing Benefit being overpaid. If this happens, we will send you a bill for the money to be repaid.
• If you are starting work and you are still on a low income, you may continue to be entitled to Housing Benefit. You should fill in a Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit starting-work form to apply for this, which you can find if you click on the link below. You will need to bring your payslips as evidence of the information you put on the form. If this is not possible, you can ask your employer to complete a certificate of earnings form with details of your wages; Click on the link below for a Certificate of earnings form.
• You need to return this form within four weeks of the date your Income Support or JSA ended. We can then start any new help from the same date, so that the Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit are continuous.
• When Income Support or JSA is cancelled, we can sometimes extend your Housing Benefit payments for an extra four weeks. This is called ‘extended payments’.

Extended payments

• If your Income Support, income-based Jobseekers Allowance, incapacirty benefit or Severe Disablement Allowance (DSA) ends because you:
  
• Start work, or;
• increase the hours you work, or;
• earn more money;

Then you may be able to have an extra four weeks of housing benefit payments, at the same rate as when you were getting these benefits. This is known as ‘extended payments’. The new job must be expected to last for at least five weeks, and if you have been receiving incapacity benefit or SDA, it must be for at least 16 hours per week.

Qualifying for extended payments

To qualify for extended payments you must have been receiving Income Support or Income-based Jobseekers Allowance for 26 continuous weeks because you were either:

• Unemployed, or;
• Working part-time and low paid, or;
• A single parent, or;
• A carer (for an elderly or disabled person), or;
• On a Government Training Scheme, or;
• Receiving incapacity benefit or SDA for at least 26 weeks continuously.

You must tell us the date your circumstances changed. We will then grant ‘extended payment'. When the extended payments stop, you can still claim for housing benefit to be continued by filling in a form with us. Do this immediately to make sure you don’t lose any benefit.

If you claim extended payments because income support/JSA has ended, then you must tell the Job Centre Plus office that you want to claim this.