If a claimant dies can the appointee appeal a decision on benefit entitlement for a period before the death, or does the appointeeship (or at least the right of appeal) lapse on death?

This answers assumes no appeal was made prior to the clmt's death.

In my view, there is no provision in the HB/CTB DARs allowing an appeal to be made once a clmt has died. If an appeal had been made (by the clmt) prior to his death, then the LA has the power to appoint a third party to proceed with the appeal - I have dealt with such cases.

However, there have been some interesting contributions on "death" threads before about the power (or otherwise) that an estate may hold on behalf of the deceased. However, to date (& in the context of not being a lawyer), I'm not yet convinced by any of the arguments in relation to HB/CTB in terms of allowing a continuation of rights in the context of appeals.

Regards