Providing evidence for Housing Benefit, Council Tax Support and other benefits

Evidence to support Housing Benefit, Council Tax Support and Free School meal claims can be provided online, by post or in person.

When you complete an online claim for housing or council tax support, or an online change in circumstances form, you will automatically receive a notification telling you what information you need to provide. You can supply this information using our online evidence upload form.

The evidence checklist lists what you need to show us as proof within your application. For example, you may need to show us your bank statements to prove how much capital you have, or a passport to prove your identity or nationality.

The list also tells you whether you need to show us the originals or copies of each.

If you give us your email address when you apply, the checklist will be emailed to you. If you don’t give us your address you’ll need to make a note of the evidence you need to provide.

You can also use an online form to upload evidence to us.

To upload your evidence to support your claim, or let us know that something has changed, follow these easy steps:

1. Take a picture or scan of the document you want to send us, and save it on your computer.
2. Complete the online form with your details, and attach the files that you want to send to us.
3. Submit the form.

Your details and documents will be securely sent to us.

Please check all pictures and files before you submit them to make sure that all details can be seen clearly.

Image files need to be in any of the following formats:

• GIF
• JPG
• JPEG
• TIFF
• PDF
• BMP
• PNG

No single file should be more than 10MB in size.

Documents can be sent by post to:

The Benefits Service
PO Box 856 
London 
E17 9PN 

We can’t accept responsibility for documents that are lost in the post.

If you choose to send original documents by post, please allow 2-5 working days for these documents to be returned before making any contact about missing documents.

You can call into one of our libraries listed below to provide evidence in person. 

If you have had a change in circumstances it is important you submit an online form first. You will then receive a notification outlining any additional information we may need from you as evidence, if any.

We may not need evidence from you, or you may be happy to use our evidence upload form to supply this online, in which case this could save you time queuing to hand in documents to our staff. 

If we have already told you what evidence we need and you would like to hand it to us in person, you can go straight to a member of staff.

Leyton Library
High Road 
Leyton, E10 5QH

Leytonstone Library
6 Church Lane
Leytonstone
E11 1HG

North Chingford Library
The Green
Chingford
E4 7EN

Walthamstow Library
High Street
Walthamstow
E17 7JN

You can only drop off evidence at the libraries Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm, regardless of a particular library's opening hours.

What happens next?

We will process your request as quickly as we can and (wherever possible) within 10 working days. Please don’t contact us about your request until 10 working days have passed.