Mon 28-Jul-08 04:00 PM by Tony Bowman

Dear all,

I'm sure i must be missing the obvious, but what happens when the TCO has, what it thinks, is an invalid claim?

reg 5 of the TC(CN)regs, made under s.4 TCA, provides for the way in which claims should be made, including the NINO requirements. But I can't find anything that says what should happen if the claim isn't made that way.

The CPAG handbook (page 1276) says that information can be required from the claimant and that at least 30 days must be given (this isn't clearly referenced) but this seems to be in respect of the provision of information for something other than a defective claim.

In my client's case, the TCO said by telephone that they couldn't accept her claim because she didn't have a NINO (we know this is wrong and is the piont of dispute). I'm trying to find out if there is something else they should have done; such as a letter to the effect that "your claim is defective which you must rectify within one month".

If there is nothing, does that just mean that defective claim is not a claim at all? What happens if the client disputes the TCO assessment of whether the claim complies with reg 5? As far as I know this is not a decision you can appeal...

Thanks,

Hi Tony

I spent some time looking at the HMRC manuals on what can happen to claims when they are submitted some time ago as one of my cases had a verification failure & request for more info.

It seems to be that when a claim is submitted it can be processed via rapid data capture (no human intervention), or added to a work list because something is wrong with it or needs further work.

There are lots of worklists dealing with various things - including 'incomplete claims' and 'verification failures'.

For incomplete claims it seems that the person dealing with it from the worklist should find out the missing information. However, the work card:http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/ntcmanual/applica_appl_wl/ntc0050321.htm clearly states that a NINO is not necessary and the claim can be processed. Under the work processes for incomplete claims it seems that the adviser should contact the claimant for the missing info and if it is not available should issue a form TC609 requesting the missing information. It would therefore seem that your case shouldn't fall into this category as it is NINO related, but even if it did there should be a letter in the form of a TC609 to get the incomplete info.

The only other thing I can think of is that the case is on another worklist (I think my case landed on the applicant not matched/verification failure) list.

However where there is no NINO, the claim I think (although may be wrong as it is a while ago) falls onto applicant not matched list and a process should be started to get the DWP to allocate one and a TC154 sent to the claimant. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/ntcmanual/specialistsec_stu/ninoall_claimantuk_info.htm

The requesting of information seems to happen a lot in verification failures - and the claimant has 28 days to respond after which the claim is rejected for not providing additional information.

The rejection info is all here: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/ntcmanual/applica_reject/ntc0080050.htm

In answer to your question - in my view the claimant, regardless of what route it has gone down, should receive something as it should fall under one of these classifications.

Hope that helps, it took me a while to find it all and try and piece it together originally, so good job I saved the links!

Victoria

Thank you very much for this really help info Victoria. You're a star!

Thanks again,

Tony