CCM12120 - Opening and Working Enquiries: Date when a notice is given
The notice of enquiry must be
received by the claimant(s) before the time limit.
The Courts assume that second class post takes 4 working days to be
delivered, and first class post takes 2 working days. Working days
do not include Saturdays, Sundays or Bank Holidays. So, for
example, if your enquiry notice was posted second class on 13
August 2004, the Courts would assume that the claimant(s) had not
received it until 19 August (14 and 15 August 2004 are a Saturday
and Sunday respectively).
You should always make sure that you post your enquiry notice
at least 4 working days and, wherever possible,
7 working days before the date on which the
enquiry window will close. This is to allow for the possibility of
the notice being returned RLS, or for an unexpected disruption to
the postal service. Although the tax credit enquiry window can
close on a variety of dates, depending on the circumstances of the
case, the two most common dates will be
- 30 September – e.g., for 2003/4 enquiries, 30 September 2005
- 31 January – e.g., for 2003/4 enquiries, 31 January 2006.
The dates by which you should, wherever possible, post your enquiry notice for these two enquiry window dates will be
- 30 September 2005 – 21 September 2005
- 31 January 2006 – 20 January 2006.
It is not possible to set out here every conceivable closing enquiry window date, along with the date by which you should issue your enquiry notice. You should, however, adopt the same approach (calculating back 7 working days) in every case.
