Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about demands to pay business rates. The law prevents us considering the conduct of the court action the Council took. Mr X can reasonably take court action if he believes the Council’s demands are wrong.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council has acted wrongly in demanding payment of some business rates. He states this resulted in backdated demands he cannot afford, enforcement agents visited him and he suffered stress.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)
4. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
5. It is our decision whether to start, and when to end an investigation into something the law allows us to investigate. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by the complainant.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. The Council should bill for business rates in line with the rating list. The Valuation Office Agency (VOA), not the Council, compiles and makes any changes to the rating list. Changes can include merging several previous premises into one or dividing a property into more than one premises. The VOA also decides the rateable value of each business premises.
9. Mr X states the Council treated two addresses associated with his business as a single, merged property. He argues this was wrong for two reasons: the two premises are separate and the Council chand its business rates demands without the VOA having changed the rating list. The Council took court action and got liability orders against Mr X for non-payment of the rates the Council demanded.
10. This point concerns whether Mr X is legally liable for the rates the Council is demanding. Mr X can ask the courts to set aside the liability orders if he believes they are wrong. The courts can decide this, so the restriction in paragraph 4 applies. The potential cost of court action does not in itself automatically make it unreasonable to expect Mr X to go to court. Mr X could ask the court for his costs if he succeeds. Also, it is more appropriate for the courts than the Ombudsman to decide lawfulness where this is disputed. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect Mr X to take court action about whether he owes what the Council says and about whether the Council acted wrongly in changing the bills when it did.
11. The VOA might recently have changed the rating list for the addresses concerned. Mr X can challenge that decision with the VOA if he sees fit. However, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has no power to consider the VOA’s decisions.
12. Mr X says the Council has ignored the fact his business had an agreement with the company they rented premises from between 2020 and 2023 that the rent would include the business rates. This point relates to whether Mr X’s business, rather than another company, was legally liable for the rates. This was for the court to decide. If Mr X believes the court’s decision was wrong, he can put his argument in court and ask the court to set aside the liability orders. Therefore the restriction in paragraph 4 applies here. For the reasons given above, it is reasonable to expect Mr X to take court action.
13. Mr X complains the Council continued with the court action and got liability orders against him in his absence, despite Mr X having said he wanted to attend the virtual court hearing and despite Mr X having given the Council some information after receiving the summons. These points relate to the conduct of court action, so the restriction in paragraph 3 prevents us considering them. We cannot consider anything from the issuing of the summons to the granting of liability orders.
14. The Council demanded business rates backdated several years. Mr X argues the Council should have acted sooner if it believed rates were not being paid properly. This point is secondary to the central points of the complaint about whether Mr X is liable for the amounts the Council demanded and whether the Council has followed the correct process to demand payment.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. We cannot consider the conduct of the court action the Council took. Mr X could reasonably take court action if he believes the Council’s demands are wrong. The Council’s alleged delay in billing Mr X is secondary to the main points of the complaint and it would be disproportionate to investigate this in isolation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman