If you plan to attend your Tribunal hearing or not the Tribunal will be helped by a written submission setting out the reasons why you should be awarded the benefit.

You send us the bundle of documents you have received for your appeal. WE RECOMMEND THAT YOU SEND THE DOCUMENTS BY RECORDED DELIVERY.

We will need to see these documents as soon as you receive them, do not wait to get a date for the Tribunal hearing. The longer you can give us the better. We can look at documents with less than one month to go before the hearing but you should contact us on 0845 6120 474 to discuss this BEFORE sending the documents to us.

Your documents will be examined by a senior welfare rights officer who has over 30 years experience, who has attended over 300 Tribunals.

They will provide an assessment of your appeal. This will include an opinion on:

• The strengths and weaknesses of the claim and appeal
• What further evidence you may need to obtain
• If we would be able to prepare a written submission for the Tribunal.

If we can prepare a submission on your behalf this will outline your case, provide details of relevant case law and present the argument for an award of benefit on your behalf.

If you decide to proceed we will ask you to agree to pay us a fee of £60 for this service. If you do not agree then we will simply return the documents to you by recorded delivery. On some occasions after further investigation into your appeal our representative may then feel that your appeal has no prospect of success. Or you may fail to obtain the evidence needed to support your appeal. In those circumstances we will not prepare a submission; we will return the documents to you by recorded delivery with your fee, less an admin charge of £3.50 to cover postage.

Why bother?

A written submission to a Tribunal ensures that they consider all the issues arising in your appeal. If a Tribunal fails to take account of points emphasised in the submission their decision may be found to be in error of law and therefore set aside. Your submission will be prepared by someone who knows what a Tribunal is looking for as they have worked for the Tribunals Service as a member of Tribunals.

Been refused by a Tribunal or not happy with the decision?

If you are unhappy with the Tribunal decision the first step is to ask the Tribunal Judge to prepare a statement of reasons. You will then need to establish that the Tribunal has made an error in law. If so you can then appeal to the Upper Tribunal (UT). The UT can agree with the Tribunal, disagree and refer the case back to a new Tribunal or replace the Tribunal decision. We have extensive experience of preparing appeals to the UT. Again we would need to see the bundle of documents for the appeal and the statement of reasons. If you do not have a statement of reasons we can request this for you. The charge for this service is £80 as more research is needed to identify relevant case law. If we cannot find reasons to prepare an appeal to the UT we will return your documents to you by recorded delivery.

Payment options?

Both these services can also be offered on a “pay as you go” basis. If after the free assessment you decide to instruct us to help you then you deposit a minimum of £20 with us to cover one hour of our time. We will commence work on your case. If you fail to deposit sufficient funds with us to cover our charges we will cease to act on your behalf and will return all your documents to you and any remaining credit less an administration charge to cover the costs of returning your documents.  You can “top up” as much as you like to cover our charges but we ask for a minimum of £5 at any one time. Please note that our submission will not be released to you until you have deposited sufficient funds to cover our full charges with us by any payment method.

At the end of your case if you require the return of your documents then we will charge an administration fee which will be no greater than £5.