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Before you appeal

You can often sort out any Child Benefit Office decision you are not happy with without having to make a formal appeal. You can do this by:

• asking the Child Benefit Office for an explanation of their decision
• asking them to take a second look at their decision, if you're still unhappy with their explanation

If you have followed these steps and still don’t agree with the Child Benefit Office’s decision, you can usually make a formal appeal. This normally has to be within one month of the date of their decision.

How do you know if you can appeal?

You may not always be able to appeal against a Child Benefit Office decision. For example, you can’t appeal against the day of the week your Child Benefit is paid on.

The letter that the Child Benefit Office sends you about their decision tells you if you can appeal. For example it may be a decision on:

• the date you have been awarded your benefit from
• whether the Child Benefit Office consider you and your child usually live in the UK

If you want to appeal, but you're not sure if you're able to after reading the letter about the decision, contact the Child Benefit Office. You can do this by calling the Child Benefit Helpline.

Even if you can’t appeal, you can still ask the Child Benefit Office for an explanation of their decision.

• Contact details for the Child Benefit Helpline

Who can appeal?

Usually the person who claims the Child Benefit makes the appeal. You can ask an independent adviser to do it as long as you have given written authority for them to act on your behalf.

If you are an appointee and claim Child Benefit for someone else, you can make the appeal for them.

Deadline for appeals

Normally, you have to appeal within one month of when the Child Benefit Office sent you their decision. In special cases they will give you more time but you must tell them your reason for making a late appeal.

The Child Benefit Office can't accept an appeal dated 13 months or more after they sent their decision. If they can't accept your late appeal, they will pass your request to an independent tribunal to decide.

How to appeal

Your appeal needs to be put in writing and signed.

You can do this in one of the following ways:

• send the Child Benefit Office a letter
• send the Child Benefit Office a completed form CH24A Appeal Form
  

You must say in your appeal what you think is wrong.

You will need to send your letter or completed form CH24A to:

Child Benefit Office
PO Box 1
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE88 1AA

• Go to form CH24A (PDF 89K) Opens new window

• Help with PDF files

What happens after you have appealed

Step 1

If the Child Benefit Office hasn't already done so, they'll check that the decision is correct and explain it. If you're happy with the explanation you'll need to withdraw your appeal.

Step 2

If you don't agree, or you don't think all the points in your appeal have been covered, your case can go to an independent tribunal.

The tribunal will be run by one of the following, depending on where you live:

• for England, Scotland and Wales – the Tribunals Service
• for Northern Ireland – the Appeals Service Northern Ireland
  

The Child Benefit Office will set out their response to your appeal, explaining the law and the facts they used to make their decision. You or your representative will be sent a copy of their response.

If you want to know what happens after you've sent your appeal to the tribunal you can get more information from the relevant websites. To do this, follow the links below.

• More about the Tribunals Service on the justice website Opens new window

• More about the Appeals Service Northern Ireland on nidirect Opens new window

If your circumstances change

If anything changes that could affect your payments, you must let the Child Benefit Office know straight away. Don't wait for the appeal hearing.

• Child Benefit - which changes you need to report

Withdrawing your appeal

You might decide to withdraw your appeal because:

• you are happy with the Child Benefit Office's explanation of the decision
• you agree with a new decision
• your circumstances changed and this affected your Child Benefit

You can withdraw your appeal at any time by:

• sending in a completed form CH29
• writing to the Child Benefit Office
• contacting the Appeals or Tribunals Service dealing with your appeal, if your appeal has been sent to them
  

• Go to form CH29 (PDF 44K) Opens new window

• Help with PDF files

• Contact details for the Child Benefit Office