Immigration Tribunal Appeals: A Practical Guide (2)

• Published date: 09 June 2021
• Law Firm: Richmond Chambers
• Author: Mr Alex Papasotiriou and Alexandra Pease

We recently examined immigration appeals in the context of the new digital MyHMCTS system and in the context of the Covid-19 Pandemic. We considered what immigration decisions you may appeal against in Part One, what is a human rights claim and claims certified as clearly unfounded.

This is the second of four posts to our Knowledge Centre that considers what happens if you receive a visa or immigration refusal decision and are planning to appeal.

The factors and considerations below cannot be considered an exhaustive list. The approach to an immigration appeal will depend on the individual facts and circumstances. There are many practical considerations. You may need to seek specialist legal advice as the presentation of an immigration appeal will be different depending on the issues and available evidence.

In this post we examine some of the practical considerations when appealing to the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal.

Time Limits - Lodging an Immigration Appeal at the First-tier Tribunal

If you receive an immigration refusal decision, the first consideration, aside from whether there is a right of appeal, is the time limit to lodge any appeal to the First-tier Tribunal.

There is a distinction between immigration appeals lodged within the UK and those lodged outside the UK.

If you are lodging an immigration appeal from within the UK you must lodge your immigration appeal within 14 days of the decision being sent to you. This is despite a refusal referring to the date it is deemed to be served; we often see refusals that refer inadvertently to the old procedure rules.

If you applied for entry clearance and are therefore appealing from outside the UK, the deadline for lodging an immigration appeal is 28 days from receipt of the decision. It may therefore be important to keep evidence of how and when your immigration decision was received (for example, by email). It is important to note that appeals against the refusal of entry clearance applications or any applications made outside the UK can only be brought from outside the UK. However, if brought within the UK, there is no restriction on where the appeal may be continued from. For instance, where a person receives a refusal of entry clearance and subsequently enters the UK as a visitor, they will be unable to bring an immigration appeal against that refusal from within the UK and would have to leave to bring the appeal. Conversely, there is nothing preventing an individual...