Housing Benefit is a benefit to help some people pay their rent. Check if you can get Housing Benefit. Apply for Housing Benefit.
You can ask for your Housing Benefit to start from an earlier date than when you made your claim.
You’ll have to tell us the date you want to claim from and why you could not claim earlier. You must have a good reason for not applying earlier.
When we’ve looked at your request, we’ll let you know if you’ve been successful. If you have, we’ll tell you how much Housing Benefit you’ll get. If we’ve decided that we cannot backdate your claim, we'll tell you why.