CCM4390 - Examinations: Examinations following a change of circumstances: The claimant does not reply to the opening letter
If the claimant does not respond to your opening letter by the date specified, you should:
- check to see if the information has been received in your office, but not yet passed to you
- consider whether there may be any exceptional circumstances preventing the claimant from replying, for example a postal dispute.
Where appropriate you should contact the claimant(s) by phone to
remind them of the need to deal with your query. If you think there
is a problem you can allow a further week or exceptionally more
than this with your manager’s agreement.
If the opening letter has been returned RLS or you know the
address is false reject the claim in respect of the change of
circumstances – see
CCM5287.
In all other cases if you are satisfied the claimant(s) has
been given every opportunity to supply the information you will
have 2 options:-
- Issue a reminder
- make a formal request for the information
- Issue a reminder – where there has been no reply, issue
letter TCC87 which tells the claimant that if they do not reply
within 14 days we will reject the claim in respect of the change of
circumstances. If the claimant then replies – see
CCM4370. If there is no reply after 14
days you will need to reject the claim in respect of the change of
circumstances as shown in
CCM4385.
- Formal request for information – it will be very rare in a change of circumstances case that you decide to make a formal request for information. Where you do decide to follow this route see CCM5090.
