file an otherwise valid direct pay fear agreement with the agency of original jurisdiction within thirty days of the date of execution then the v a is no longer responsible for withholding the fees for past good benefits and paying them directly to the doing precisely what the veterans court said that they were relieved of under the plainly revealed language of these statutes and their structure these regulations and their structure the veterans to be permissive in this circumstance for the regulations were not confined to the permissive nature of the statutory language was interpreted by the veterans court and snyder cited in our brief  in support of the fact that it is mandatory and not permissive and that this is an obligation of the secretary as intended by congress congress wrote a unique regular statute in fifty nine dollars forty cents as far as i am aware there is no other comparable statute in which the congress directs the agency to withhold and pay fees from a grant of an award and does so upon a specific condition or conditions that the fee must be limited to an amount of twenty percent and that the fee agreement for representation of the veteran must be on a contingent bas authority to promulgated regulations and amongst those regulations were the two regulations at issue here what the secretary did not do was to provide a consequence they parroted the language of the and if they're going to provide a consequence they need to do so plainly to put the attorney or the agent on notice that there is a consequence so presupposing for a moment that there is a basis for the secretary to i'm sorry or why does the regulation call out thirty day time and as i understand it your position is there should be no consequence if that thirty day imitation and that therefore we should  i guess assume that it has no consequence no meaning no no your honor but that is not our position our position and want isn't there and the regulation to put the agents and attorneys on notice that is the expectation of the secretary that they get that three agreement so that they can have that she agreement available to determine in a withholding context whether or not they do or do not meet the requirements of the statute for withholding and payment purposes it is entirely appropriate for them to put that in there the problem here is that what the veterans court did is to take it another step and to say that there is a is no longer responsible if the secretary had said if you do not submit it within thirty days then we are putting you on notice that we are no longer responsible under fifteen i know for particular case in the facts of this particular case mr raven did provide the fee agreement within thirty dollars days to the board of veterans appeals and from one thousand nine hundred and eighty eight until two thousand and seven approximately they obligation to say i'm sorry i'm the boy is not the agency no the board is not the agency but that was the mandate of the statute prior to two thousand and seven this happened within a couple of if the veterans court is correct is mandatory then it is required that the secretary comply with his mandatory obligation or at the very to a obligation to seeing if we know for he to withhold and pay the fee in which the veteran could be the attorney is confronted with having performed services with the expectation that the secretary was going to withhold and pay his fee what occurred here was the refused to consider whether or not he was obligated to withhold in a under fifteen dollars i know forty and they made that decision before they had in fact received the fee agreement from st that the time period in your circumstance the fee agreement was not attempted to be submitted until five years thereafter in this case the fee agreement with the requirements of the regulation and i do need to submit the fee agreement to the right place within thirty days i do you want the question outside the thirty days that ultimately got that's correct and what's the difference between your fact that and the fact that by the five years your honor and that there was ample opportunity for the secretary of yours not good but what and years of cat know within thirty days of the decision that implemented that put both the agency the veteran and the attorney on notice that there was going to be an award of past due benefits within that thirty day window from april th when the but what relation says this thirty day window critical there is no regulation that says that your honor and the point is that this regulation says thirty days but doesn't say what the veterans court said was that then the agency would be relieved of its responsibility and i'm saying that the intent of congress in five thousand nine hundred and four was to compensate the attorney to ensure that the attorney was paid for his services by the may please the court before i address my friend's attempt to rewrite the v a s regulation i'd like to respond to something he said to you which was that the secretary refused to consider whether or not it was required to pay fees to m they checked to see if there was a direct pay for the agreement in the record in mr cook's case and did not find one because he had not filed one with the regional office so the idea that they refused to consider payment is factually correct it also gets i think at an underlying argument that is in mr robinson brief which is that the v a here somehow erred by moving quickly to provide mr cook with his pass to benefits  the suggestion is that the regional office used with unusual rapidity and that somehow they had bad faith motive in doing so and i think given the number of times a veteran bar accuses the v a of dragging its heels in making sure that veterans get their payment it rings rather hollow for mr robinson al q the v a of moving quickly but doing so somehow to deprive him of his benefits turning to the regulation itself the regulation as the court said as plain as day it has a requirement that attorneys who are accredited by the v a to represent vetted veterans know the difference between the board and the agency of the original jurisdiction and that they file their direct  the regulation to receive direct pay then the v a is obligated to follow the regulations and pay direct they in that case the v a had mistakenly paid the veterans or veterans one hundred percent of the past due benefits despite the attorneys having correctly filed a valid agreement with the correct v a office and the argument there was well if the v a has paid out all of the money nothing remains to be paid to the veteran the court said the veterans court insider said no if you've elected to provide through the regulations for direct pay and the attorney or agent satisfies regulations that it's a mandatory obligation but only if and when not based on turning the may and the weaver about regulatory requirement that thirty day regulatory requirements and please you know i know i'm a little late just accept this fee agreement and please you know if and when my client gets awarded benefits direct pay me my tendency so two responses one i don't think there is a direct to the r o sort of waiver request you can make through the regulations he would have to file a notice of disagreement and go through that process but my understanding from the v a is that they don't impose this h for filing requirement when it serves no purpose so that if mr arabin had provided his few greenman on day thirty two and it was in the record and there was no prejudice to the veteran from mr evans failure to file it you know within the thirty days they would have paid him his twenty percent fee the problem here is that when they went to pay the fees  to undercut fees to attorneys recognizing that is important for attorneys to be able to represent veterans it is important though that the attorneys provide the office that pays the money with the agreement insufficient time thirty dollars days certainly s right that's exactly right in this case shows the problem is that they paid mr cooke on april th and then eight days later mr ravin shows up and so what he is requiring either is that the v a double pay those twenty percent and then either pay  hundred and twenty percent or seek to recover costs from veterans despite the failure to follow follow the requirement or he suggests in his reply that the court rewrite the regulation to require v a to hold onto veterans money for thirty dollars days when they find there is no fee agreement in the record and provide notice to the attorney that they failed to file their fee agreement with the regional office and allow them to correct that problem that's obviously not allowed under five thousand nine hundred and four dollars which says that the v a can't withhold money into the regulation the court noted was at least somewhat novel and so i believe they wanted to give additional consideration to that argument of course the requirement that there be no direct paid need not appear as a penalty in the regulation because the regulation says obviously unless and until attorney agent you do these things we have to pay the money to the veteran  th of two thousand and ten by the staff scuse me station attorney for the coordinator involving this case and indicates that after thoroughly reviewing and correct made in rules for the existence of the attorney for the agreement in the record in this case the review finds that there was no attorney for the agreement of record therefore no attorney fee decision is required this clearly reflects their intention not to proceed with a determination to review that attorney fee to determine compliance with five thousand nine hundred and four dollars d but more importantly this was done six days before they paid mr cooke on a decision that had been made ten days earlier the fact of the matter is is that this memorandum was not served on mr raven he was not given an opportunity to respond yet within twenty  within fourteen days on the th of april he submitted his fee agreement to get the opportunity not knowing that this memorandum had existed before this attempted waiver to get consideration of his agreement having been submitted in less than thirty dollars days from the date of the decision that implemented the board's decision so mr raven made every effort to do this filing his fee agreement initially with the board realizing that there was not compliance with the regulations even though there wasn't notice and going ahead and giving his fee agreement to the secretary now at this point in time the secretary had more than ample  payment to mr cooke of the fees that should have been withheld under five thousand nine hundred and four the argument of the government that this is not something that they do to impede the attorney is simply betrayed by the fact in this case there was ample opportunity to comply with five thousand nine hundred and four as was understood at that time to be mandatory obviously this panel can read decide whether the language of fifty nine dollars for the says made is mandatory or not but regardless in this case this is about what the regulations provide for and the regulation simply did not put mr raven or