As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly apply for a Discretionary Housing Payment.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open the Discretionary Housing Payment guidance on GOV.UK and the application page for your local council, then copy the current questions and any evidence instructions.
   2. Gather your tenancy or rent information, benefit and income details, essential outgoings, household circumstances, arrears information and documents showing the hardship you are describing.
   3. Remove unnecessary identifiers such as National Insurance numbers and bank account numbers, then paste the council questions and your factual information into the prompt.
   4. Ask the chatbot to produce the draft answers, the [CHECK] items and the evidence checklist in the order of the council form.
   5. Compare every drafted figure, date, name and statement against your documents, replace each [CHECK] item with a confirmed fact or remove it, and check the council page for its current submission method.
   6. Paste the checked answers into the council's official form, attach the requested evidence, keep a copy of what you sent, and contact the council or a welfare rights adviser about any eligibility or hardship point you cannot verify.

   Prompt

   Help me prepare an application for a Discretionary Housing Payment in England, Scotland or Wales. Use only the information I provide and the council guidance or application questions I paste below. Do not invent facts, figures, documents, rules or deadlines, and do not decide that I am eligible. First list the information and evidence the form appears to require. Then draft clear answers in my own first person, using a factual and respectful tone. Keep every figure, date and name exactly as supplied. Mark anything missing, uncertain or needing confirmation from my council with [CHECK]. Explain which parts are factual and which parts describe the hardship or exceptional circumstances. Do not include unnecessary sensitive personal data. At the end, give me a final checklist of documents and questions to confirm with the council before I submit.
   
   Council or local authority: [NAME]
   Council guidance or application questions: [PASTE HERE]
   My circumstances and household details: [PASTE HERE]
   My income and benefits: [PASTE HERE]
   My rent, housing costs and arrears: [PASTE HERE]
   My hardship or exceptional circumstances: [PASTE HERE]
   Evidence I already have: [PASTE HERE]

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.