Tip 2: Look at Home Office appeal documents

What are Home Office appeal documents?

• Information the Home Office sends you and the Tribunal, after the Tribunal accepts your Notice of Appeal (Home Office appeal bundle)
   
• Any extra information the Tribunal tells the Home Office to provide in the Directions Notice (Home Office reply to Directions).  

How will I get the Home Office appeal bundle?

The Home Office will send you the appeal bundle by post (to the address you wrote on the Notice of Appeal). The Home Office must send you the appeal bundle so it arrives about 3 days after the Tribunal gets your Notice of Appeal. If you do not get an appeal bundle after 3 days, send an email to the Home Office to ask where it is:

• s95 appeals: AsylumSupportS95Appeals@homeoffice.gov.uk
   
• s4 appeals: Section4nationalteamappeals@homeoffice.gov.uk

If you do not have a Home Office appeal bundle when you reply to the Directions Notice, tell the Tribunal. If you still do not have an appeal bundle by the time of your hearing, tell the Judge.

What type of information is in Home Office appeal documents? 

Most appeal bundles have this information:

• Home Office reasons you don’t qualify for support (‘written submission’)
• your Notice of Appeal
• your application form for support (‘ASF1’)
• Home Office letter saying support is refused or to be stopped
• Home Office records about you/your immigration case (‘CID notes’)
• list of dates about your immigration and asylum support history (‘chronology’) ​ 

Depending on your appeal, the appeal bundle may also have:

• your UK travel visa application/entry clearance officer notes
• asylum screening interview notes
• a finance check on you (called an ‘Experian report’)
• emails from Home Office medical adviser
• Home Office investigation report (if you have a breach of conditions appeal)
• previous Home Office or asylum appeal refusal decisions

Why is reading Home Office appeal documents important?

• Home Office appeal documents may have new information about you and your appeal. This new information may be very important. For example, the Home Office might say you are ‘not destitute’ because of information you have not seen before (eg Experian report, CID notes or visa notes).
       
• The appeal documents are more detailed than the Home Office letter that you received about support being refused or stopped. Reading these extra details helps you better understand:
   
  • why the Home Office disagrees with you
     
  • any gaps/weak areas of your case
     
• On your Notice of Appeal, you have said why you do not agree with the Home Office letter refusing or stopping support. After reading the appeal documents, you may have more points to tell the Tribunal about why the Home Office is wrong.
   
• If you have an oral hearing, you are normally asked questions about the Home Office information. You will be better prepared to answer questions if you look carefully at the Home Office appeal documents before the hearing.