The first fortnight matters most

Do five things: obtain the reason in writing, lodge an internal appeal before the deadline in your letter, preserve your evidence, check your final pay, and notify Acas. The last of these protects your right to claim, and it is the one people leave too late.

Obtain the decision in writing

Ask your employer to confirm in writing:

• the reason for dismissal
• the date your employment ends
• whether you must work notice, or whether notice will be paid instead
• the payments and benefits you will receive
• arrangements for returning company property
• your right of appeal, to whom, and by when

Verbal explanations shift over time. Written ones become evidence, and any inconsistency between what you were told in the room and what appears in the letter is useful material.

Employees with the necessary qualifying service have a statutory right to request written reasons, which must be supplied within 14 days. That qualifying period reduces from two years to six months on 1 January 2027. If you were dismissed while pregnant or on statutory maternity or adoption leave, written reasons must be provided automatically, without request and regardless of service.

Appeal, and appeal within the deadline

The deadline is in your dismissal letter and is commonly five to seven working days. Diarise it the day you receive it.

Structure the appeal under headings:

Factual error. Identify each finding you say is wrong and state the correct position.

Evidence ignored. Name the documents, witnesses or messages available but not considered.

Procedural failure. Were the allegations set out clearly and in advance? Was the investigation adequate? Were you given the evidence before the hearing? Were you allowed a companion? Was the same person investigator, decision-maker and appeal chair?

Inconsistency. Has a colleague done something comparable and received a lesser sanction?

Proportionality. Even if the findings stand, was dismissal within the range of reasonable responses, or would a warning have sufficed?

Mitigation. Length of service, clean record, health, provocation, workload, personal circumstances.

Discrimination or protected disclosure. If you believe the real reason relates to a protected characteristic, a whistleblowing report, pregnancy, or your having asserted a statutory right, say so expressly. Raising it for the first time months later is harder to explain.

State the outcome you want: reinstatement, re-engagement, substitution of a warning, or a negotiated exit.

An unreasonable failure to follow internal procedure can result in a tribunal reducing your compensation by up to 25% under the Acas Code.

An appeal does not stop the tribunal clock

This is the most expensive misunderstanding in employment law. Your appeal runs on the employer’s timetable. Your tribunal deadline runs on the statutory one. They are unconnected. Do not wait for the appeal outcome before notifying Acas.

Preserve evidence, lawfully

System access is usually cut off within hours. Secure lawful copies of:

• your contract and any variation letters
• the staff handbook and the disciplinary, grievance, capability and absence policies
• payslips, P60s, pension statements, bonus and commission schemes
• the invitation letter, investigation report, hearing notes and outcome letter
• appraisals, objectives and any prior warnings
• relevant emails and messages to which you had legitimate access
• occupational health reports and fit notes
• any grievance you raised and the response

Then write a dated chronology while your memory is fresh. It will do more work than any other single document.

A warning. Do not remove client databases, confidential commercial material, colleagues’ personal data, or documents you had no legitimate reason to hold. Doing so exposes you to a counterclaim and to fresh allegations of gross misconduct, and it hands the employer a way to reframe the entire dispute. It converts strong claims into weak ones with striking regularity. If you need documents you cannot lawfully take, they can be obtained later by subject access request or tribunal disclosure.

Check your final pay

Summary dismissal for gross misconduct removes entitlement to notice pay. It does not remove entitlement to wages already earned or to accrued statutory holiday. Final pay errors are separately claimable as unlawful deductions, and they are useful negotiating material.

The deadline

You must notify Acas before presenting a tribunal claim.

Figures last reviewed [date].

The trigger is the date your time limit starts, not the date you claim. For unfair dismissal, time runs from the effective date of termination — normally the last day of your notice period, or the day of dismissal if no notice was given.

What this means this autumn. An employee dismissed on 24 September 2026 has three months. An employee dismissed on 5 October 2026 has six. Colleagues dismissed days apart will have deadlines four months apart. If your dismissal falls near the boundary, have the date calculated this week.

How we help

We assess whether the dismissal was fair, whether discrimination, whistleblowing or an automatically unfair reason is in play, whether the procedure met the Acas Code, what the claim is realistically worth, whether a negotiated exit beats litigation, and exactly what your deadline is.