Petition for appeal and recovery of payments

Appealing an unemployment fund decision

If you disagree with your unemployment fund’s decision, you can challenge it by filing an appeal with the Social Security Appeal Board.

Decisions issued by your unemployment fund

Please read through the decision and the reasons for the decision carefully. If you disagree with the decision, you can challenge it by following the appeal instructions supplied with the decision. Make sure to address your appeal to the Social Security Appeal Board but to submit it to your unemployment fund.

Before submitting an appeal, you may, if you wish, contact the unemployment fund to ask for more detailed grounds for the decision issued by the unemployment fund via a message in Otenetti.

Labour market policy statement issued by the employment authority

Statements issued by employment authority are not open to appeal as such. If you disagree with a labour policy statement issued by the employment authority, the best way to proceed is to apply for an earnings-related allowance for the period referred to in the statement and wait for your unemployment fund’s decision on your application. Once you receive your unemployment fund’s decision, you can appeal against it. Unemployment funds cannot process appeals filed against labour policy statements before they have issued a decision themselves.

Filing your appeal

Appeals must always be made in writing. However, even an informal message counts as a written appeal. Please make sure to include at least the following information in your appeal:

The decision that you are appealing against (please mention the decision number)
What in the decision you disagree with and how you would like to change the decision
Enclose any documents you have that support your position. Please mention the number of supporting documents in your appeal. Supporting documents can be uploaded via Otenetti under ‘Send attachments’. Please include a note in your supporting documents to indicate that they are related to your appeal.
Your name and contact information

You can submit your appeal to your unemployment fund as an electronic message via Otenetti, by uploading a file containing your appeal to Otenetti using the ‘Send attachments’ function, by email or by post. You can find the contact information of the Unemployment Fund Ote here.

You can also ask an attorney or an agent to handle the appeals process on your behalf.

Time limit for filing an appeal – deadlines and instructions

Your appeal must reach your unemployment fund no later than on the 30^th day after you received the decision that you wish to challenge. The date on which you received the decision is the date on which you opened it in Otenetti.

If the decision was sent to you by post, you are deemed to have received it on the seventh day after it was posted. The decision will specify either the date of receipt or the date of posting. If you decide to send your appeal by post, it is your responsibility to ensure that the appeal makes it to its destination on time.

Premature or late appeals

Your appeal is deemed to be premature if it reaches your unemployment fund before a decision has been issued for the period referred to in your appeal. Without a decision, there is nothing that can be challenged. Appellate authorities do not, as a rule, entertain premature appeals as they have no basis. It is therefore important that you wait for your unemployment fund’s decision before you appeal.

Your appeal is deemed to be late if it reaches your unemployment fund after the 30-day deadline, as the decision that you are trying to challenge will have already become final at that point. However, appellate authorities sometimes entertain late appeals if you have a particularly good excuse for missing the deadline. The majority of late submissions are nevertheless deemed inadmissible.

Processing and progress of an appeal

Once your appeal is received by the unemployment fund, we will first examine whether the decision can be rectified by the unemployment fund in accordance with your appeal. If necessary, we will request additional information or clarification from you. If the decision is found to be incorrect, we will rectify the decision ourselves, process the matter as quickly as possible, and issue a new decision. If the decision cannot be rectified, your appeal will be forwarded to the Social Security Appeal Board.

If the decision is based on a binding statement issued by the employment authority, we will request an additional statement from the employment authority as a result of your appeal. If the employment authority amends its statement based on your appeal, we will reconsider your application and issue a rectification decision. If the employment authority does not change its previous statement, the unemployment fund will forward your appeal to the Social Security Appeal Board for consideration.

When your appeal is forwarded to the Social Security Appeal Board, the unemployment fund will submit its own statement, together with all documents related to the appeal. All documents will also be sent to you for your information at this stage. After the matter has been transferred to the Social Security Appeal Board, you may still submit your own response directly to the Appeal Board.

Decision issued by the Social Security Appeal Board

If the Social Security Appeal Board grants your appeal, we will re-examine your application and give you a new decision, which you can again challenge. If the Social Security Appeal Board rejects your appeal, your unemployment fund’s original decision becomes final.

If you disagree with the Social Security Appeal Board’s decision, you can file an appeal against it with the Insurance Court. Petitions of appeal to the Insurance Court are also submitted via your unemployment fund. All the documents that were sent to the Social Security Appeal Board in connection with your original appeal are handed over to the Insurance Court at this point, and there is therefore no need to resubmit any documents.

The Insurance Court’s rulings are final and not open to appeal.

Processing time of an appeal at the levels of the appeals system

The average processing time before the Social Security Appeal Board is 10 months. The average processing time in the Insurance Court is 13 months.

Recovery of payments

If your unemployment fund discovers new facts that affect your eligibility after paying you benefits, it may become necessary to recover benefits to which you were not entitled. It is also possible for your unemployment fund to have made a mistake. The Act on Unemployment Security obligates unemployment funds to recover such overpayments and unduly paid benefits.

Most common reasons for recovery orders

Retroactive pension or other social benefit that needs to be taken into account in the calculation of the amount of unemployment benefits
Retroactive labour policy statements issued by the employment authority
Incomplete or inaccurate information about income or social benefits, as provided by the claimant or retrieved from the Incomes Register
Mistake made by the unemployment fund, such as a typo or an oversight of a fact in the application that should have been taken into account in the calculation of the amount of benefits

In order to avoid the need to recover undue payments, please make sure to include all information that may affect your eligibility for benefits or the amount of your allowance in your application. If you are unsure as to what information to include, talk to your unemployment fund before submitting your claim.

Recovery process in the unemployment fund

Notification of overpayment and reopening of benefits cases

The unemployment fund will send you a hearing letter regarding an overpayment before issuing a recovery decision. The hearing letter explains the period for which the benefit has been overpaid, the amount of the overpayment, and the reason why the overpayment has occurred. If necessary, the unemployment fund will also request your consent in the hearing letter to withdraw an earlier incorrect decision and to reconsider the matter.

By responding to the hearing letter, you may provide your own explanation regarding the overpayment and, for example, propose a repayment plan. You can submit your response via the Unemployment Fund Ote’s electronic service, Otenetti. The response is submitted from the Otenet home page under Recovery – recovery letters – Submit a response.

After receiving your consent to rectify the incorrect decision, the unemployment fund will issue a new benefit decision and a recovery decision.

If you are dissatisfied with the recovery decision or the underlying benefit decision, you may appeal against them in accordance with the appeal instructions enclosed with the decisions. You can find more information about appeals at the top of this page.

The recovery decision, instalments, and tracking of payments can now be found on the Otenettis first page.

Benefit fraud

If you fail to report a circumstance affecting your eligibility for benefits or the amount of your allowance, your unemployment fund will make an assessment as to whether or not the omission was intentional. The letter that you receive from your unemployment fund in such circumstances will also be calling for an explanation of your actions.

If you are found to have knowingly claimed benefits to which you were not entitled, you may, in addition to having to pay back the unduly received benefits, be given a reprimand or a warning or you may be expelled from your unemployment fund. In more serious cases or in the event of repeated fraudulent conduct, your unemployment fund may have to report you to the police.

Relief from the recovery of overpayments

Unemployment funds have discretion to forgive overpayments in full or in part on compassionate grounds, provided that the overpayment was not the result of fraudulent conduct by the claimant. An overpayment case can also be dropped if the amount involved is negligible.

The assessment as to whether or not an overpayment should be forgiven on compassionate grounds is based on the circumstances of the claimant and their family as a whole. In order to make its assessment, the unemployment fund needs information about the family’s financial and social circumstances. You can find a template to print out and fill in for this purpose in the Forms-section. Your unemployment fund will not be able to give you relief from overpayment without it. The facts that your unemployment fund will be looking at include your family’s monthly net income relative to, for example, the basic amounts of social assistance and the protected earnings rate used in the context of debt collection.

Short-term money problems or indebtedness are not sufficient grounds for granting relief without the presence of other compassionate grounds. A mistake made by the unemployment fund or some other official body also does not automatically lead to relief, although such circumstances will be taken into consideration.

Repayment of an overpaid benefit

When you receive a recovery decision, you will also receive a repayment plan.

You may also contact the unemployment fund later via a message in Otenet and propose a repayment schedule that suits you. An overpaid benefit does not necessarily have to be repaid in a single instalment; instead, you may agree with us on repayment in instalments.

Any changes to instalments or to the repayment schedule must always be agreed in writing, for example by sending a message via Otenetti. You can find the contact details of the Unemployment Fund Ote here.