Authority to discuss

For some services, we will only discuss the details of your case with you or with someone who has your permission to talk to us.

This authority to discuss is for:

Housing Benefit
Council Tax
Housing Register applications
homelessness or housing enquiries

There are three ways to give someone your authority to discuss.

You can complete our authority to discuss form, which will give your representative on-going permission to discuss your selected accounts and claims.

You can also give verbal authority to discuss when you call us. Your representative will only have permission to discuss your account or claim during that call.

If you have given power of attorney to someone, providing us with proof will give your representative on-going permission to discuss your accounts and claims.

On-going permission

Authority to discuss with a third party

Download form

To give someone on-going authority to discuss you will need to complete the form and return to us.

To complete the form, you will need:

your name, address and contact details
to tell us which services you want your representative to have permission to discuss
your claim, account or reference numbers
the name, address and contact details of your representative
your representative's relationship to you
to sign and date the form

Once you have completed the form, you can return it:

by uploading it via our contact form
in person at our Customer Service Centre postbox
by post to the address listed on the form

Once we receive your form, we will make a note on your account, giving permission for your representative to discuss your account or claim.

Verbal permission

You can give verbal authority to discuss when you call us.

To give a representative your authority to discuss, you will need to:

make the call when they are with you
tell us their name and relationship to you
confirm that you are giving them permission to discuss your account or claim with us

We will make a note on your account of who we spoke to.

The authority to discuss will only last for that call. If you want the authority to discuss for future calls, you will need to fill in our authority to discuss form.

Power of attorney

To give authority to discuss under power of attorney, you will need to send us proof that this in place. As proof, you can send us a copy of the relevant legal document. You will also need to tell us which service the authority to discuss relates to.

You can return your proof:

by uploading it via our contact form
in person at our Customer Service Centre postbox
by post to the address listed below

Customer Services
Chelmsford City Council
Civic Centre
Duke Street
Chelmsford
CM1 1JE

Once we receive your proof, we will make a note on the account for the relevant service(s), giving permission for your representative to discuss your account.