Cenkci v HMRC: adviser's death does not strengthen taxpayer's hand in late appeal

The Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) has refused Engim Cenkci permission to appeal against a First-tier Tribunal decision declining to admit his late appeal against capital gains tax assessments, rejecting the contention that his late accountant's alleged deceit had vitiated the original proceedings.

In Cenkci v HMRC [2026] UKUT 249 (TCC), Judge Anne Redston considered fresh grounds drafted by Colm Kelly of counsel, instructed by Collyer Bristow, following an oral reconsideration hearing on 30 June 2026. HMRC, though notified, chose neither to attend nor to make submissions.

Mr Cenkci, who owned residential properties and received rental income, had relied for more than three decades on his accountant, Ms Nihat of HV Akin & Co. He did not check the returns she prepared, forwarding HMRC's correspondence to her instead. After HMRC issued CGT assessments in July 2020, Ms Nihat maintained that an appeal had been posted on 27 July that year. The FTT's Judge McGregor found that burden unmet, holding the appeal was not made until April 2021 and was therefore late. Applying Martland v HMRC, she assessed the prospects of success as very low, noting the absence of evidence supporting principal private residence relief.

Mr Cenkci did not attend the FTT hearing, having been told it was a simple procedural matter. Ms Nihat died in February 2024, her firm ceased trading, and newly instructed advisers eventually pursued a significantly late application for permission to appeal.

Mr Kelly's central submission was that Ms Nihat had "deliberately misled" and "deceived" both her client and the tribunal, taking the case outside the guidance in HMRC v Katib. He argued that the FTT had decided the matter on an inaccurate and incomplete understanding of the facts, and that, with Ms Nihat now dead, setting the decision aside was Mr Cenkci's only remedy.

Judge Redston rejected the ground. None of these points, she observed, had been advanced before the FTT, and none of Mr Cenkci's witness evidence had been before it. Citing Lewison LJ in Fage UK v Chobani UK, she reiterated that a trial is the first and last night of the show, not a dress rehearsal. It was not an error of law to decline to consider a submission never made or evidence never adduced.

Nor did the material support a finding of deceit. The FTT had not found Ms Nihat dishonest, only that she had failed to discharge the burden of proof; her conduct was consistent with a belief that the appeal had been sent in time. Mr Kelly's written case had itself characterised her as having "negligently" advised Mr Cenkci that his attendance was unnecessary.

Even had deceit been established, the judge held it would not assist. Katib, recently approved by the Court of Appeal in HMRC v Medpro, treats an adviser's failures as those of the litigant, and Mr Cenkci's position was indistinguishable from that of Mr Katib, whose own adviser's conduct had been equally striking.

The argument built on Ms Nihat's death fared no better. To treat a bereaved litigant more favourably, Judge Redston reasoned, would advantage those whose advisers had died or become insolvent, contrary to the interests of justice. The death of a taxpayer's accountant, she held, does not strengthen their hand.

Submissions on assessment time limits and the public interest in correct taxation were also dismissed, the former being unpleaded and the latter incapable of displacing statutory time limits.

Permission to appeal was refused.