This is new territory for me, so some advice would be much appreciated. My client requested a late appeal against an Is overpayment decision in Jan 2007. an acknowledgment was received in March 2007 confirming this would be sent to the Appeals Service within 50 days.Despite phone calls and 2 letters chasing this up nothing was done, nor was a letter of complaint acknowledged. It now turns out that a mistake has been made at the DWP and they are going to reinstate the appeal ! this whole process has taken over 15 months so far. Apart from going through the complaints procedure, what should I do about the appeal, and what grounds should I use to argue that the overpayment is not now recoverable? Article 6 seems a good place to start. I also have CH/3497/2005. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Hi. Complain is good, though for now the case is being dealt with as a late appeal. If accepted fine, if not, then you will need to wait until 12 of May for Tribunal of Commissionmers to decided on what happens when a late appeal is not allowed. see.CHR/3855/2005; That is, can an appeal be ( leave to appeal) made to Commissioners. Meanwhile, the substance of the case, i.e, whether there is an op or not has not been decided uopn < and I hope that no recovery has been initiated so far>, so the substance of the case is still live. Once the late appeal is accepted then Article 6 will not come in to it, if it is not, then the above decision will explain whether Art 6 is engaged or not. Mean while, did your client put in another claim whilst all this was going on? If he did, then have look at RJSA2/04, but to a large degree, the sending of the late appeal by the DWP seems to have taken care of things, so far.

"What grounds should I use to argue that the overpayment is not now recoverable"?

What are the facts of the case and the DWP's basis for recovery?