The tribunal deadline just doubled. Here's what that means for you.

The tribunal deadline just doubled. Here's what that means for you.

Advice from an HR consultant in Ipswich on how the new 6-month employment tribunal time limit affects your business and what you should be doing about it right now.

The deadline for employees to bring a tribunal claim against you has just doubled.

From 1 October 2026, most claims can be filed up to 6 months after the event, instead of 3.

That old 3-month window quietly worked in your favour for years. Plenty of employees simply ran out of time before they ever got round to making a claim.

That safety net is gone now, and if your processes aren't tight, you're more exposed than you realise.

Here's what you need to know.

What you should be doing right now

I'm leading with the practical stuff because, honestly, that's what matters most. Understanding the legal detail is useful, but getting your house in order is urgent.

If your internal processes were already well documented, the new time limit raises the bar on what you're already doing. If they were a bit loose, this is where it starts to bite.

The single biggest factor in defending any tribunal claim is documentation. Full stop. If you can't demonstrate what happened and why, six months after the fact, you can lose a case purely because the paperwork isn't there. I've seen it happen.

So here's where to focus:

• Record every formal conversation. Disciplinary meetings, performance discussions, grievance outcomes. All of it needs to be written down properly at the time it happens.

• Follow the Acas Code of Practice. Your disciplinary and grievance procedures need to align with it. If they don't, a tribunal will notice.

• Apply your policies consistently. If you treat one employee differently from another in the same situation, that inconsistency becomes evidence against you.

• Actually carry out probation reviews. And document them. A probation period that exists only on paper isn't worth much if it's ever questioned.

• Keep a clear paper trail for decisions. Every time you make a call about someone's employment, you need to be able to show your reasoning later.

You should also think about how long you're keeping records. HR files and related correspondence need to be stored for longer than many businesses currently do. If a claim lands six months down the line and the evidence has been deleted or lost, you can't rely on it.

Your managers are your biggest risk area

Your managers are the ones making daily decisions about people. How they handle a performance issue, a conduct concern, or a difficult conversation. Those are the decisions that end up in front of a tribunal panel.

If they're having conversations without writing anything down, or making calls without following your procedures, every one of those decisions just became riskier under the new rules.

Have the conversation with them now. Don't wait until a claim arrives to discover that nobody documented a verbal warning from four months ago.

So what's actually changed?

From 1 October 2026, the time limit for bringing most employment tribunal claims goes from 3 months to 6 months. The change comes as part of the Employment Rights Act reforms.

It covers a wide range of claim types. Unfair dismissal and discrimination are the obvious ones, but it also includes whistleblowing, harassment, unlawful deductions from wages, and working time claims.

A couple of important details:

• The extended deadline only applies to acts or dismissals that happen on or after 1 October 2026. Anything before that date still falls under the old 3-month rule.

• Where a claim involves a series of connected events, the 6-month limit kicks in if the final event in the chain falls on or after 1 October.

The government's own estimate is that these reforms will push tribunal claims up by 17%. From what I'm seeing with the businesses I work with, I'd expect the real increase to be considerably higher than that.

Why six months changes the risk profile completely

Under the old rules, if three months passed after a dismissal or incident without a claim landing, you could feel fairly confident that nothing was coming.

Six months is a very different picture.

Someone you let go in October could file a claim the following April. A grievance that seemed resolved in November could reappear as a tribunal case in May. Issues you'd mentally filed away as done can resurface months later, often with legal representation behind them.

There's another angle to consider too. The longer window gives employees more time to seek legal advice and prepare their case properly. A claim that arrives after months of careful preparation is harder to defend than one that was thrown together at the last minute under the old deadline pressure.

As part of my HR consultancy services in Ipswich, I'm already having these conversations with business owners who hadn't considered what the extended window really means in practice. It's not just a legal technicality. It changes how long you need to stay alert after every significant people decision.

Questions worth asking yourself

Before you move on with your day, take a minute to think about these:

• If someone you dismissed today brought a claim in six months, could you pull together the documentation to defend it?

• Do your managers know what they're supposed to record after a formal conversation, and are they actually doing it?

• When did you last check that your disciplinary and grievance procedures line up with the Acas Code?

• How long are you keeping HR records, and is that long enough under the new rules?

If you're unsure about any of those answers, it's worth addressing them now rather than later.

How I can help

I carry out process and documentation reviews designed to make sure your business meets the standard a tribunal would expect. That includes looking at your disciplinary and grievance procedures and how you're handling record-keeping.

Sorting this out before a claim arrives is always going to be cheaper than dealing with it after one does.

As an outsourced HR consultant in Ipswich, I work with businesses like yours to get these foundations right, so you can feel confident that your processes will stand up if they're ever tested.

If you'd like to have a conversation about where your business stands, get in touch and let's book a discovery call. No pressure, just a straightforward chat about what might need attention.