Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (20 010 846)

Category : Benefits and tax > Council tax support

Decision : Closed after initial enquiries

Decision date : 24 Feb 2021

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about council tax arrears and council tax reduction. This is because part of the complaint is late and because the complainant could have used his appeal rights.

The complaint

  1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mr X, disagrees with the way the Council has calculated his council tax reduction (CTR) and council tax arrears. Mr X wants the Council to clear his council tax debt.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
  2. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
  3. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a tribunal. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
  4. The Valuation Tribunal deals with appeals against decisions on CTR.

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How I considered this complaint

  1. I read the complaint and the Council’s responses. I invited Mr X to comment on a draft of this decision.

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What I found

What happened

  1. Mr X has council tax arrears of £4606. He has had arrears in every year since 2012. Mr X claims CTR.
  2. The Council told Mr X that he has arrears because he has not continuously received CTR since 2012 and, when not receiving CTR, he has not paid enough money to cover the council tax. The Council explained to Mr X that there have been many times when it closed his CTR claim because Mr X did not respond to requests for information.
  3. The Council explained that each CTR decision includes appeal rights. In November 2020 the Council reminded Mr X that he had appeal rights for the latest CTR decision in October.
  4. Mr X does not think the Council has awarded the right amount of benefit. He says the Council has treated him badly. He wants the Council to cancel all the council tax arrears.

Assessment

  1. I will not start an investigation for the following reasons.
  2. Mr X has acquired council tax arrears in every year since 2012. The law says people should complain to us within 12 months of becoming aware of a problem. If Mr X thought the arrears from 2012 to 2019 were wrong, then he needed to have complained at the time. I have not seen any good reason to accept a complaint which goes back over nine years.
  3. I also will not start an investigation because Mr X could have used his appeal rights. If Mr X disagreed with any decision to end the CTR claim, or if he did not think the Council had awarded the correct amount of CTR, he could have appealed to the Valuation Tribunal. It is reasonable to expect Mr X to have used his appeal rights because the tribunal is the appropriate body to consider CTR disputes.

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Final decision

  1. I will not start an investigation because part of the complaint is late and because Mr X could have used his appeal rights.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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