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  2. Benefits and money
  3. Benefits and financial support
  4. Guide to benefits
  5. After claiming benefits

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.

More useful links

  • Employment and Support Allowance
  • Disability Living Allowance
  • Housing Benefit and rate relief
  • Jobseeker’s Allowance
  • Income Support
  • Pension Credit
  • Universal Credit
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After claiming benefits

  • Appeal a benefits decision
  • Becoming an appointee for social security benefits
  • Benefit appeal hearings
  • Benefits: report a change in your circumstances
  • Going abroad
  • Home visit to check your benefit payment
  • Information for prisoners about benefits
  • Overpayments of benefits and financial support

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What to do next

Comments or queries about angling can be emailed to anglingcorrespondence@daera-ni.gov.uk 

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.

Carer's Allowance

Call 0800 587 0912
Email 
dcs.incomingpostteamdhc2@nissa.gsi.gov.uk

Discretionary support / Short-term benefit advance

Call 0800 587 2750 
Email 
customerservice.unit@communities-ni.gov.uk

Disability Living Allowance

Call 0800 587 0912 
Email dcs.incomingpostteamdhc2@nissa.gsi.gov.uk

Employment and Support Allowance

Call 0800 587 1377

Jobseeker’s Allowance

Contact your local Jobs & Benefits office

Personal Independence Payment

Call 0800 587 0932

If your query is about another benefit, select ‘Other’ from the drop-down menu above.

Comments or queries about the Blue Badge scheme can be emailed to bluebadges@infrastructure-ni.gov.uk or you can also call 0300 200 7818.

For queries or advice about careers, contact the Careers Service.

For queries or advice about Child Maintenance, contact the Child Maintenance Service.

For queries or advice about claiming compensation due to a road problem, contact DFI Roads claim unit.

If you can’t find the information you’re looking for in the Coronavirus (COVID-19) section, then for queries about:

  • Restrictions or regulations — contact the Department of Health
  • Travel advice (including self-isolation) — contact the Department of Health
  • Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccinations — contact the Department of Health or Public Health Agency

If your query is about another topic, select ‘Other’ from the drop-down menu above.

For queries about your identity check, email nida@nidirect.gov.uk and for queries about your certificate, email covidcertni@hscni.net.

For queries or advice about criminal record checks, email ani@accessni.gov.uk

Application and payment queries can be emailed to ema_ni@slc.co.uk

For queries or advice about employment rights, contact the Labour Relations Agency.

For queries or advice about birth, death, marriage and civil partnership certificates and research, contact the General Register Office Northern Ireland (GRONI) by email gro_nisra@finance-ni.gov.uk

For queries about the High Street Spend Local Scheme,  email HSSS.mail@economy-ni.gov.uk.

For queries about:

  • Car tax, vehicle registration and SORN
    contact the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), Swansea
     
  • Driver licensing and tests, MOT and vehicle testing
    contact the Driver & Vehicle Agency (DVA), Northern Ireland

If your query is about another topic, select ‘Other’ from the drop-down menu above.

For queries about your identity check, email nida@nidirect.gov.uk.

 

For queries or advice about passports, contact HM Passport Office.

For queries or advice about Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs), including parking tickets and bus lane PCNs, email dcu@infrastructure-ni.gov.uk

For queries or advice about pensions, contact the Northern Ireland Pension Centre.

If you wish to report a problem with a road or street you can do so online in this section.

If you wish to check on a problem or fault you have already reported, contact DfI Roads.

For queries or advice about historical, social or cultural records relating to Northern Ireland, use the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) enquiry service.

For queries or advice about rates, email LPSCustomerTeam@lpsni.gov.uk

For queries or advice about  60+ and Senior Citizen SmartPasses (which can be used to get concessionary travel on public transport), contact Smartpass - Translink.

If you have a question about a government service or policy, you should contact the relevant government organisation directly.  We don't have access to information about you.

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