Summary: Mr B complains about the way the Council considered his application for a discount or exemption for council tax, his offer of repayments and failed to respond to his correspondence. There was fault by the Council in its communication with Mr B but it has not caused him significant injustice.

The complaint

1. Mr B complains about the way the Council considered his application for a discount or exemption for council tax, his offer of repayments and failed to respond to his correspondence.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered the complaint and asked the Council for its comments on the complaint and additional information. I sent a copy of a draft of this statement to Mr B and the Council and invited their comments

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What I found

6. Mr B owns two properties where there is a liability for council tax. In 2014 Mr B was declared bankrupt. There is council tax liability from 1 April 2015 of over £8000.
7. In June 2018 an officer of the Council wrote to Mr B explaining what information he would need to supply if he wished to apply for a discount because the one property, in which he lives, required major or structural repair. This followed a hearing at court where the officer and Mr B spoke.
8. An environmental health officer inspected the property at the end of June. She identified a number of serious problems with the property but said that, as the owner, Mr B was responsible for the necessary works.
9. Mr B wrote several times to the Council over the summer. His position was that as the problems with the property were so serious he should receive a discount on the council tax. The Council replied substantively on 13 November. Mr B was not satisfied with the response so complained to the Ombudsman. We referred the complaint back to the Council as it had not completed the Council’s complaint process. This resulted in a further response from the Council on 11 January. Mr B responded saying the reply hadn’t addressed all his points.
10. Mr B had applied to the court to have the liability orders the Council had obtained set aside. The legal team to the court wrote to Mr B on 15 February 2019 giving its decision. In short this explained there were three criteria which must be met before a court would decide to set aside a liability order. The legal team could not make judicial findings on the criteria but would decide if the criteria had been addressed in the application and, if they had, would list the case for hearing. The legal team concluded on Mr B’s application that he had addressed only one of the three necessary criteria and therefore refused to list it for a hearing.
11. It seems as if Mr B has, wrongly, taken this to be a ruling on the one point. And on that basis wrote to the Council chasing a response to his earlier January letter and also saying that as the court said there has been an error then the Council should apply to the courts to have the liability orders set aside.
12. In April the Council wrote to Mr B to advise him that if he disagreed with the Council’s decision on his application for a discount on the basis of the condition of the property he could request a review and then appeal to the valuation tribunal.

Analysis

Discount

13. I have seen no evidence to show Mr B completed the forms the Council had provided to apply for a discount on the council tax due to the condition of the property. But it was clear from his correspondence that this was the claim he was making. The Council consider the claim to be without any merit as Mr B is the owner of the property and living in it and so is responsible for the condition of it. The Council’s position may be correct. But the Council should have been clear with Mr B about how it was treating his correspondence and attempts to claim a discount. It rejected his claim so it should have ensured that it informed him of his right of review and appeal. It has now done that but it should have done so last summer.
14. Where there has been fault I have to consider whether that has caused significant injustice to the complainant. The Council has explained why it considers that Mr B’s claim would not succeed and I consider it has provided persuasive arguments so I consider it is unlikely that he will have been caused any significant injustice. But if he does make a successful appeal on this point to the valuation tribunal then I would be willing to consider a further complaint from him.

Payment arrangement

15. The Council would not accept Mr B’s offer to pay £100 a month as it did not have information about his finances. As far as I am aware Mr B has not provided this. There is no fault in the Council’s decision not to accept the repayment proposed by Mr B.

Correspondence

16. There was delay by the Council in responding to some of Mr B’s correspondence. The Council apologised for this when it wrote to Mr B. The Council wrote twice to Mr B in January. One was a stage 2 complaint response. The other revisited earlier correspondence. This was confusing.
17. Mr B then chased a response and also referred to the court letter I refer to in paragraphs 11 and 12 above. The Council did not reply as it considered it had already responded to his points. Although it may not have been clear the point Mr B was making about the letter from the court it was clear this was a new point. The Council should have responded to this, even if it was to ask Mr B to clarify his position. The Council should also have clearly explained to Mr B if it was not going to enter into further correspondence with him.
18. The Council should have been clear in its correspondence with Mr B but I do not consider this failing has caused him significant injustice and no remedy is needed.

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Final decision

19. There was fault by the Council in its communication with Mr B but it has not caused him significant injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman