Providing evidence - what we need

In order to assess your application for housing benefit and/or council tax support we need you to provide proof of things like ID, income, capital etc. We've listed the documents we can and can't accept below. You must provide original documents, not photocopies, scans, photographs or emails. It's your responsibility to provide all this information and evidence that we need in order to process your claim and keep it accurate. However, we appreciate that sometimes you may not be able to produce original documents if they're not available to you, for instance you may bank online and don't have printed statements. If you're unable to provide original documents you should let us know why. In exceptional circumstances we'll decide whether we're able to accept alternative evidence and will tell you what this is.

The list below isn't exhaustive; we may ask for any evidence we deem necessary in order to allow us to accurately assess your claim.

• Payment of benefit may be suspended until the information we need has been provided
• Your claim may be closed down if you fail to provide the information we require within the given time limits.

Please note that if you're in receipt of:

• Income-based jobseeker's allowance, or
• Income-related employment and support allowance, or
• Guaranteed pension credit, or
• Income support

...you're not required to provide evidence of your capital. We'd still require evidence of income for any non-dependents living in your home.