Published: Tuesday 02 February 2026
We have arranged around £10 million in housing benefit payments that were delayed because of the cyber attack.
We’re sorry we could not make these payments sooner. We know this has been a stressful time for many residents.
When you’ll get paid
If you rent from a private landlord or a housing association, and you normally receive housing benefit, you should get your payment in the first week of February.
We’ll pay the money into the same bank account as before.
What the payment covers
This is a single payment to cover housing benefit owed since 24 November 2025.
This payment is for housing benefit only. Our systems for council tax and council tax reduction are still being fixed.
Temporary payment system
We’ve put a temporary system in place so we can make these emergency payments.
We’ll keep using this system for monthly payments while we work to restore the normal housing benefit system. We expect this to be back online by early spring.
Possible payment errors
We do not have access to all the data we would normally use. This means there may be some errors.
Errors are more likely if your circumstances have changed since 24 November 2025.
If there is a problem with your payment, contact us at [email protected].
Council and temporary accommodation tenants
At the moment, we cannot use the temporary system to make payments for:
- people who rent directly from us
- people placed in temporary accommodation by us
Our teams are working directly with landlords and managing agents while we find a technical solution.