got PIP decision

Wow, that is a lot of moves!

As far as I know the DWP don't have any hard and fast rules about the date of evidence, although clearly it needs to recent enough to be relevant. Some conditions by their nature are not likely to ever change, so people are not likely to be under regular reviews and are unlikely to have recent evidence. (I recently helped someone apply for PIP who had just had a leg amputated, although we had lots of recent paperwork about that I am expecting to have to rely on the same paperwork when his award comes up for review.)

Additionally in our present covid environment many people have not had the regular reviews with medics which happened a few years ago, so again they are having to rely on old evidence.

In your case if you are concerned about dates not tallying there is no reason why you should not put an explanation about that on your form. The really important thing when it comes to dates is that you can evidence that you have had your condition for at least 6 months, since they won't consider anything which is a short term condition.

I hope you get things sorted,
Catherine

Hi Hazel

I'm sorry you find yourself in this position. It's always hard when an organisation has offered to help and then they come up short.

BIS

Hi Hazel,
Regarding your MR, I think it is really important that you explain in a paragraph or two about how the form was filled in (or not!) by CAB, and say that you were not given an opportunity to check the form before it was sent. I have clients who I have advised that have filled out the forms themselves, and unfortunately haven't done this correctly for whatever reason- what I do is to explain this and then go through all the descriptors and explain the problems/give examples/state the correct points -and why. I have been asked about this at tribunals, but it doesn't seem to have caused major issues.
So, you should write in and explain the CAB problem, and then go on to explain the correct points as I have suggested above. Be frank about this, otherwise if you do have to go to the tribunal, and you start saying something different from the form, the tribunal will think you are being shifty and will not award points!
As an aside, maybe this is something you should also take up with CAB as a complaint. I appreciate times have been troublesome during COVID but you should never have been encouraged to sign a blank form which is not returned to you for physical checking!!!
CAB should have kept notes of the fact you sent the signed form, and that they sent in!
You could then put in your MR that you have made a formal complaint, which will add some 'weight' to your MR when you say things were noted that I didn't say.

I hope this helps.
Good luck.
LL26