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Regulation 33 of the Social Security and Child Support (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 1999, that define how appeals should be made, simply specify (amongst other things) that they should be in 'writing' and 'sent or delivered to an appropriate office'.
I'm not aware of any case law specifically on the use of faxes when making an appeal against a decision.
However, the reasoning in the following two decisions might suggest that DLA Cardiff are on dodgy ground in maintaining a faxed appeal request is automatically invalid.
In CDLA/4895/2001, that concerns a leave to appeal request to the commissioners, Commissioner Williams holds -
'The Social Security and Child Support (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 1999 makes no express reference to electronic methods of communication such as fax. In this case, the fax was received and I see no problem about it being properly regarded as adequate for the purposes of giving or sending an application for leave to appeal under regulation 58.
It also has the advantage that the precise date and time of sending and arrival are both independently registered. The clerk was therefore wrong to tell the chairman that the notice was received only when the posted copy arrived. There may be problems if a fax does not arrive, or does not arrive in legible form, but those do not arise here as the fax was reproduced in documentary form on delivery.'
In R(DLA) 3/05, Commissioner Jacobs holds that, with respect to a request for a statement of reasons, a document is received by fax for the purpose of regulation 2(a) of Decision and Appeals Regs when it is successfully transmitted and received by a fax machine at the dedicated appeal tribunal venue, regardless of when it is actually collected from the machine.
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