How to Appeal

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If you feel we have made the wrong decision when deciding your claim for council tax benefit or housing benefit, you can ask us to reconsider or lodge an appeal.

• What steps you can take?
• Who can appeal?
• How to make an appeal?
• What happens when you appeal?

What steps you can take?

You can either ask us to look at our decision again, or you can appeal against it at once. To do either you must ask in writing within a month of the date you received our initial decision.

If we look at the decision again for you and don’t change it, you still have the right to appeal. We will write to you with more advice and information if that happens.

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Who can appeal?

You can only make an appeal if you are directly involved in the decision. By law, this means you must be one of the following:

• The person who made the claim.
• Someone appointed by the council to act for a claimant.
• A landlord or landlord’s agent to whom rent is paid.
• The personal representative of someone who cannot manage their own affairs. This must be a formal arrangement such as a receiver or lawyer.
• Someone from whom the council is recovering an overpayment.
• The Appeals Panel will automatically turn down an appeal made by someone who does not have the legal right to make it.

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How to make an appeal?

You must make your appeal in writing within a month of the date you received the decision. The council produces an appeal form (pdf - 79KB) you can use, or you can simply write a letter to us.

Your appeal must:

• Be signed by the person who has the right of appeal.
• Identify the original decision, for example by giving details of the dates it covers or the amount it awarded.
• Explain the grounds on which you are appealing – you must say why you think the original decision was wrong, it is not enough to simply say you disagree with it.

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What happens when you appeal?

A senior officer will reconsider the original decision to see whether it was correct. If they change the decision in your favour we will write to you with the new decision and that is the end of the process.

If the officer cannot change the decision, or if they think any changes will work against you, they pass your case to the Appeals Service which is an independent service that holds tribunals to decide a wide variety of issues including benefits appeals. If this happens we will send you a pre-hearing form to ask whether you:

• Still want to go ahead with the appeal.
• Want to attend an oral hearing (spoken hearing) or prefer a paper hearing, which does not need your presence. (If you choose an oral hearing you must agree that you may get fewer than 14 days’ notice of when it will happen.)
• Have any other appeals outstanding.
• Need an interpreter or signer.

We will send your response to the Appeals Service along with our submission. We will also send you a copy of our submission.

Appeals are normally held locally, and if you chose an oral hearing you or a representative will be able to attend. A legally qualified chairperson presides over the hearing and will usually make an immediate decision. If you attend you will normally be given a written copy of the decision before you leave.

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