People are committing fraud if they claim something they have no right to. We are committed to prevent, deter, and detect council tax fraud.
We take fraudulent use of public money very seriously and will investigate all cases of suspected council tax fraud and council tax reduction fraud.
If you suspect someone is committing benefit fraud (for example: Universal Credit and housing benefit) then please report this using the National Benefit Fraud reporting site
Examples of fraud
Fraud is when people claim benefits, discounts or payment reductions when they have no right to do so.
Some examples of benefit fraud are:
- not telling us about a change in your circumstances while continuing to claim benefits
- not declaring work
- not declaring other benefits or occupational pensions
- claiming benefit for an address you don't live at
- not declaring property or savings
- not declaring a partner or other people living with you
You need to make sure you tell us about any changes as soon as they happen.
How do I report fraud?
If you suspect someone is committing fraud please report it to us. Your report will be treated confidentially, so the person will not know that it was you who reported them.
Other ways to report
- Call the national hotline on 0800 854 440
What information to give
The questions below are to give you an idea of what kind of information is useful to us. Don't worry if you can't answer all of them.
- Has the person claiming benefit got a partner living with them that they haven't told us about, do you know the partner's name, how long have they been there, what do they look like, do they work?
- Is either the person claiming benefit or their partner working and not telling us, where do they work, what hours do they do, what sort of work is it, do they drive to work or get picked up by someone, if they drive what sort of vehicle do they use (registration number, make, model, colour etc)?
- Is the person claiming benefit still living at the address they are claiming for, if not, where are they? Do they return just to collect post? If so, when? Does their landlord know what they are doing? Is the landlord involved?
- Does the person claiming benefit have other money coming into the household, where from, do they get other benefits, have they got any savings or a bank or building society account? Which one(s)?
- Do they get a pension from where they used to work? If so, where from?
- Does the person actually own the property they are claiming for or do they own other properties or land?