CCM12120 - Receipt of Notice and evidence

Receipt of Notice and evidence

Your notice must be received by the customer before the enquiry time limit has expired.

It is important that you retain evidence that the enquiry notice has been posted just in case the customer challenges receipt of it.
For all cases, it is best practice to note on Caseflow the date the notice left the office. You should also contact the customer and/or agent by telephone to inform them the notice is on the way.

Notes of the calls should be made and retained in the case papers. If you need written authorisation from your manager to use First Class post or Tracked Delivery, a copy of the authority should be uploaded to Caseflow and/or also placed in the file as evidence.

This list of evidence is not intended to be exhaustive, and you should keep any further evidence that you have of the notice being issued.

Important Note: We should not wait until too near to the last date of the enquiry time limit to issue the notice.

In cases where it is unavoidable that the notice is issued within one week of the last date for the enquiry time limit, you should, in addition to retaining the evidence detailed above, ensure that the notice is sent via Tracked Delivery and evidence of this is retained.

Unless the contrary is proved, the notice is taken to have been delivered as it would have been through the ordinary course of post.

There are two primary methods for sending post to customers. These are:
 
- to print and envelope letters in the office or
- to use the HMRC Central Print Service (HCPS)

In both methods you should take into account when the post will actually leave HMRC.

When printing and enveloping in the office, the notice is taken to have been delivered as it would have been through the ordinary course of post.
Royal Mail’s published position is that Second Class post takes up to 3 working days to be delivered and First Class post takes 1 working day.
You must check whether your printed letter will be handed to Royal Mail on the day you envelope it, as collection times will vary by office.
If not, your delivery timescale should only begin the following working day.

If you request a letter through HCPS before 8pm, our post courier will collect the following day (not including Sundays) for onward delivery to Royal Mail.
HCPS automatically dates your letter as the next working day and takes into account weekends and bank holidays.
Normal delivery is therefore 3 working days from the date you can see displayed on your letter in the Content Repository Information Search (CRIS).