Home visit to check your benefit payment

You may get a visit from a Department for Communities officer to check your benefit payment is right. The results from the visit will be used to develop statistics about the amounts of benefit paid correctly or incorrectly to customers.

Home visit

A visiting officer from Standards Assurance Unit (SAU) may visit you if you’re claiming benefits. The benefits that are the subject of a review may change from one year to the next. 

Your name is selected at random to be checked. You will always get a letter beforehand telling you about the visit.

You can reschedule the visit if you need to.

Check their identity

You can check the identity of the visiting officer by:

  • asking to see their photo identity card
  • calling the SAU Support Team and giving the visiting officer’s name

What to expect

The visiting officer will interview you in your home and will want to see two forms of identification.

They’ll also ask to see documents about income, savings and rent, for example:

  • payslips
  • bank, building society or Post Office accounts
  • rent book or tenancy agreement
  • benefits and tax credit awards

Visits usually last up to an hour but may be longer.

The statistics produced after the visits are completed are reported in the Departmental accounts.

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If you have a comment or query about benefits, you will need to contact the government department or agency which handles that benefit.  Contacts for common benefits are listed below.

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Personal Independence Payment

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