well a warm-ish friday evening howdo to everyone and i hope all have a tip-top weekend

well, you'll never guess what i've gone and only done ... do'h !
i've only went and failed to submit a d.l.a appeal within the one month time limit in fact, it's now just over 3 months late ... double do'h !!
any suggestions on how this can get accepted (very) late, other than pleading stupidity and insanity but with a whole lotta chuckly luuuuurve thrown in to boot ?
i think i'm daffy-ducked personally but i'm sure there are others who peruse this site that have done something similar and ... HELP !!!

as ever, all thoughts greatly accepted and may the benefit gods smile down upon thee

pete ...

OOOOPs and double Ooooops - I cant see any other way than admittance - if it was not sent in time ! - and then you know what that means (big bad things)

Exceptional circs can apply for reasons of lateness but that depends on the reasons and by whome.

Just for info - I did refuse to take on a very late appeal case as the client admitted in writing to the DWP that he was 6 months out of time to appeal, knew he had 1 month to appeal but decided at the time not to as he thought it was pointless - he then submitted a very late appeal on the grounds he thought the decision was wrong. This was accepted by a tribunal Judge and case goes ahead. Now on my desk - why ?

So Not sure how this helps you but just show's . . . . strange things do happen

Best of . . .

If you have been ill during that time put that down.

Put down a reason come what may, even if it just that you have forgotten.

I would not worry too much, late appeals are generally accepted - I have never had one turned down.

No good worrying about it anyway, you are only human!

I find that being up front, and admitting it was entirely due to administrative oversights, adding in possibly uncovered absences, and entirely nothing to do with anything the client has failed to do, works wonders. a little bit of embellishment does wonders also!

I would agree with all of the above, as weve noticed that both late appeal requests and in fact postponement rquests are being dealt with in an understanding manner.

Scraping and bowing is never an easy topic for Welfs, but occasionally (very occasionally) it can help in the best interests of your client.

Sorry - may have missed something here - there doesnt appear to be any valid reason apart from you forgot - starting point might be to apologise to the person you are representing rather than 'embelishing' the facts and reasons for entering a late appeal - not sure if a daffy duck personailty counts as exceptional reason though but there again strange things happen.

I think it's exceptional reasons from the client's point of view. Surely the client was relying on you and the delay was down to you/your agency so there fore the client has good grounds for being late. Similar to others I have never had a late appeal refused - we have had to argue for late appeal before where the delay was down to us not getting to see the client in time - waiting lists etc. Just admit your fault and the client should be fine i reckon.

i did it once several years ago. i wrote to the appeal service admitting my error and asked that as the client had been let down by an organistion (me) that he had approached for assistance, it wasnt their fault that no appeal had been lodged in time

fortunately late appeal was granted

I've not had cause to see if the TCEA and the FTT rules alter this yet, but late appeals would be accepted by a LQPM if there were reasonable prospects of success. Usually a very easy benchmark to meet for an experienced welf.

If this is still the case, you can rely on it entirely if you want to.

If it makes you feel any better, I've done the same and openly admitted it, and not had any problems. IMHO, our honesty, professionalism and integrity as advisers tends to mean quite a lot and I don't think you'll get shot down in flames if your straight.

I would agree with Garjo that 'embelishing' is not the way forward, but if you really want to then if the reason your missed the key date was due to workload, embelish that. After all, where do we get our workload from...?

Sayo

Have to say I agree with the above statements but in your grovelling letter of aplogy I would miss out the " chuckly luuuuurve" and smily faces! Not sure what some of the Chairs (sorry..... Judges) I have faced in the past 25 years would make of them

Good luck, I'm sure you'll be OK.

Pete

Thu 08-Oct-09 02:53 PM by nevip

Unfortunately, reasonable prospects of success as a stand alone ground for a late appeal was removed from reg 32 of the D&A regs (which is still the governing provision for late appeals) by schedule 1, paragraph 122 of The Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Order 2008, effective from 3/11/08.

However, like others, I don't think you'll have too much trouble getting the appeal accepted under the circumstances as it can't be in the interests of justice (the overriding principle in reg 32) to deny a claimant his appeal rights because of the actions of others over whom he had no control.

thankyou one and all for your replies, made me feel much better

as pointed out the first thing i did was call the cl. in for appt. to explain the situation, apologise for incompetence, and advise as :
we write letter with appeal explaining there had been an administrative error which was the reason for the delay, and given the nature of cl. case we felt that it was very likely to be successful etc ...

will let you all know outcome of late appeal and thanx once more ...

pete