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Self-service

The Self-Service portal is available to all Lewes District and Eastbourne residents. You may find this service useful as you can access information about your Council Tax, Housing Benefit, Business rates and landlord accounts, all in one place.

Registering for this service is straightforward and should only take a few minutes.

Launch the Lewes Self-service Portal

Once registered you can receive notifications for any charges or payments, view bills online, check next payment amount and date (Housing Benefit only) and view details about your tenants' claims (landlords only).

You will need to register on the Lewes District Self Serve online portal.

Select 'Register' and follow the step by step guide. If you would like to learn how to use the portal further- select the 'Take a tour' option which will appear at the end of your registration. 

To add your Council tax Housing Benefit, Business rates or Landlord information you will need to select the 'My services' tab at the top of your screen. From here you will need to know the following information to get your services set up:

  • Council Tax: Reference number
  • Housing Benefit: Claim Reference number
  • Business rates: Account reference number
  • Landlord: Creditor Reference number

If you do not know your reference number please contact us and we will be able to provide this for you. Once you have entered your reference number, please select 'Access Now' and you will be given a series of online questions to be able to link your account. 

If you do not know the answers to the questions, or we don’t hold enough details to be able to do this (new accounts for example) please contact us and ask us to generate a PIN for you. We will send a letter with your PIN on it, but to speed up the process we will e-mail this to you as well.

Once you have set up your account you will be able to view the relevant details of your account, any payments made by us or by you, any correspondence we have sent to you and any other relevant details that we hold. 

Password help:

You are only required to enter in the 5th and 8th characters of your password. Do not enter your full password. Please note that all passwords are case sensitive.

Username help: 

When you sign up you are given the option to choose your own username or use your email address. Your username must not contain any special characters, like: ; [ ! or spaces between words

Once you have set up your account, you will be able to access the following.

Payments

The last payment you received from Lewes District Council. If you hover over this amount a blue box should appear with the words “Show Details”. Select this to go through to your account.

In the top left hand corner of the page, it automatically defaults to: Issued within the last week.  Choose the drop-down arrow to view previous financial years or the current financial year.

Finding tenants 

You also have the ability to search for particular tenants of yours, by searching on the tenants:

  • Claim Reference Number
  • Postcode
  • Surname
  • Address

Once your search results are back, you have the option of selecting the tenants reference number, which takes you through to the tenants Housing Benefit claim details. On this you will be able to view the following:

  • Current Housing Benefit Award
  • Next payment amount and the date this will be received
  • Any changes to the future Housing Benefit Award
  • Any payments made to yourself, by Lewes District Council and the date that this was paid.
  • Any overpayments the customer currently has for Housing Benefit
  • Any correspondence sent to you with regards to your tenants claim

The information is correct on the day that you view it. Any changes to your tenants claim will be updated immediately.

Payments

You will be able to view any payments made to you by Lewes District Council for Housing Benefit and the date that it is received. Each payment has a unique payment number. Select the number to go to a breakdown of each tenant's Housing Benefit received in that particular payment.

You have the option of selecting Display all results, which will open a new window with all the payments on and gives you the option of exporting this file by CSV/EXCEL/XML.

If the claim reference number is blue you can select it to view the particular tenant’s claim as explained above.

Overpayments

This tab allows you to view all of your tenants who have a current/or a recently recovered overpayment. It will show you how much is outstanding and the date that Lewes District Council created it.

Correspondence 

This will show all correspondence sent to you for all of your claims.

Can I use the portal if I didn't pay Council Tax in Eastbourne before?

If you have moved into an address in Eastbourne and will be paying Council Tax for the first time, you won't be able to use our Self-Service portal straight away. This is because we need to set up your account and send you a Council Tax Reference. Tell us about your new address in Eastbourne now, by registering for a Council Tax account online.

After registering and receiving your Council Tax reference and account information from us, you will be able to use all the Self-Service features below.


I am an existing Council Tax payer and would like to use the portal

Read our guidance below on how to register, or:

Launch the Eastbourne Self-service Portal

Once registered you are able to view your account balance, repayment plan and instalments for your Council Tax or Business Rates accounts. You can view your next payment, previous payment and award for Housing Benefit and/or Council Tax Reduction. If you are a landlord who receives payments for your tenants from Housing Benefit, you can see your schedules.

You will need to register on the Eastbourne Self Serve online portal.

Select 'Register for an account' and follow the on screen instructions. You will need a reference number from one of the following accounts you have with us:

To add your Council Tax, Housing Benefit, Business Rates or Landlord information you will need one of the following:

  • Council Tax: Reference number
  • Benefits: Claim Reference number
  • Business rates: Account reference number
  • Sundry debtors: Account reference number
  • Landlord: Payee Reference number

If you do not know your reference number, please contact us and we will be able to provide this for you. Once you have entered your reference number, you will need to complete your name and address and the authentication questions asked. Once you have done this please select 'Next'.

Please note: You will only need to select one of the above and then ALL services you have with Eastbourne Borough Council will be linked.

You will then be asked to enter your email address, phone number and a memorable word. If the information you provide matches what we have in our records, then we will email you your login details with a temporary password.

When you login for the first time, you will be asked to create your own secure password, you will then be able to view your account and any payments made by us or by you and any other relevant details that we hold.

Password help

You will be required to create a password between 6 and 10 characters long. You will also be required to create a memorable word. Please note that all passwords are case sensitive. If you have forgotten your password please use the link on the portal.

Username help

When you sign up you will be sent your username. If you have forgotten your username please use the link on the portal.

E-Mail received

Your e-mail could go into your junk or spam folder, please check before contacting us.  If you do not receive an e-mail this could be because the account has already been linked on the self serve portal. An e-mail will only be generated when the account is first linked, so particularly for landlords and business rates customers be aware that you might not receive an e-mail.

Housing Benefit

To link your Housing Benefit account, you need to be the claimant on the claim. If you are the partner you will not be able to link your Housing Benefit account.

Once you have set up your account, you will be able to access the following. Please note using the back button on the browser is likely to log you out of the account. Please use the hyperlinks found near the top of the page.

Home

The home page will list the services that you are eligible to view. This will likely be Council Tax, Benefits and Invoices.

Council Tax

This will list any Council Tax accounts that you have been liable for. This will show open and closed accounts and the balance of these accounts. Selecting the reference number of the account will allow you to view the account.

Benefits

The benefits tab allows you to see your payment details. It is broken down into 3 separate areas. 

You can see your next payment details including the date and the amount due to be paid.  By selecting 'view next payment details' you can see the weekly award and next payment for each individual tenant.  

You can select both the weekly award and next payment amounts and view further information about your tenants’ claims. You can also view the last payment made, including the date and the amount that has been paid. 

By selecting 'view previous payments' you can view the previous payments that have been made to you.  Select the PDF to view landlord schedules that are currently sent to you by post. 

Under tenant details, you can select on 'view all tenants' and this will allow you to see all of your current and previous tenants that have claimed benefits. The search box allows you to search on reference number, tenant name, amounts and address. You can also view the data in any order by using the arrows next to each tab. This is defaulted to reference number.

Invoices

The invoice tab shows your current invoice balance with regards to Housing Benefit debt. By selecting on 'View Invoices' you can see a breakdown of the outstanding invoices and cleared invoices.