loding a late appeal against bedroom tax

if a client can potentially argue that an additional room should not be treated as a bedroom but they haven’t yet lodged an appeal, is there anything to stop a late appeal being lodged, and a supersession request being made by the client which when refused would then bring appeal rights?

Am I right in thinking these circumstances would give grounds for asking for a supersession or am I totally wrong?

Nothing to stop a late appeal going in.  If you go down the supersession route then your ground would, presumably, be error or ignorance of a material fact.  In other words there was some fact or circumstance not in front of the DM at the time which, arguably could have (not certainly would have) changed the decision; or a fact or circumstance which was in front of the DM but which he confused himself over or misunderstood it, etc.

The Tribunal can entertain a late appeal for any reason so yes this can be done.

Getting the Council to revise the decision locally without troubling the Tribunal is more difficult because the claimant has to make out “special circumstances” that prevented an application for revsion being made earlier, or alternatively establish an alternative ground for revision such as official error.  You could argue that the council did not undertake suffiicently rigorous enquiries before slapping on the bedroom tax and this was an error, but they will probably say there is a limit to what you can reasonably expect them to do about a change affecting thousands of claimants all on the same date.  but even if they don’t accept an application for revision out of time, if the substantive argument has merits (i.e. the room really isn’t a bedroom) they should at least make a superseding decision from the commencement of the week in which the matter was raised.  Whether that decision can then be appealed on the grounds that it should have been a revision instead is a moot point that has kept UT judges very busy over the years, but the more straightforward route is to appeal the original decision out of time and hope that the Tribunal agrees to hear it.

thanks to you both.

the late appeal route is my preferred option but I just wanted to have a second option in place assuming that this fails to be accepted.