You have eight weeks to appeal, what to do with them

The moment a refusal lands in your digital post, a clock starts. You have eight weeks to bring an appeal before the Immigration Appeals Board. Miss it and the appeal is normally dismissed without ever being read on its merits, however strong the case underneath.

How the eight weeks are counted

The period runs from the day you receive the decision, which for most people means the day it arrives in e-Boks. Both the decision itself and the e-Boks receipt log record that date. The final day is exactly eight weeks, 56 days, afterwards. Where that falls on a weekend or a public holiday, it moves to the next working day.

What happens once you appeal

1. Reconsideration. The authority that issued the decision looks at it again first.
2. Referral. If the refusal stands, the case goes on to the Immigration Appeals Board.
3. Decision. The Board can uphold, vary or remit the decision. Expect the whole sequence to take 12 to 24 months.

Five things that make an appeal stronger

1. Read the refusal properly

The decision has to identify which condition it considers unmet. That sentence is where the appeal starts, everything else is secondary.

2. Bring something new

Appeals accompanied by new documentation succeed markedly more often than appeals that restate the original arguments in firmer language.

3. Argue law, not feeling

Point to the specific provisions of the Aliens Act, the relevant orders, and Board precedent. That is what the Board is equipped to act on.

4. Put the personal circumstances in as evidence

Health, shared children, long cohabitation and established ties can engage a dispensation, but only if they are documented rather than described.

5. Get it looked at early

Eight weeks is not long to build a case from scratch. We have won more than 150 appeals before the Immigration Appeals Board, and the ones that go well are almost always the ones we saw early.

Do you need a lawyer for it?

No, you can appeal yourself. The reason many self-filed appeals fail is narrower than people expect: they argue a case the refusal was not actually about. What a lawyer adds is usually:

• identifying which provision was applied wrongly, and how
• finding the exception or dispensation route that fits the facts
• and structuring the submission so the Board can see the point immediately.

Send us the refusal as soon as it arrives, the earlier it reaches us, the more can be done with the time left.