Summary: Ms D complains the Council wrongly instructed enforcement agents to collect a debt for an address with which she had no connection. The Council has recognised its fault. We have completed our investigation finding the Council has offered a satisfactory remedy to Ms D for any injustice arising from this. The Council has also agreed to make some procedural improvements detailed at the end of this statement.

The complaint

1. We have received a complaint from a representative acting for ‘Ms D’. The complaint concerns the Council’s instruction of enforcement agents (bailiffs) to collect a debt from Ms D for which she was not liable. The debt for council tax, related to a property with which Ms D had no connection. The complaint alleges the Council was at fault for passing the debt to agents and too slow to correct its mistake.
2. As a result, Ms D’s representative says Ms D suffered avoidable anxiety and distress. The agents asked Ms D to pay towards a debt she could not afford with the threat the agent would remove possessions if she did not pay.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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. Before issuing this decision statement I considered:

• The complaint made on Ms D’s behalf and any supporting information provided by her representative.
• Information provided by the Council in response to my written enquiries.
• Relevant law and guidance including the Taking Control of Goods Regulations 2013 and National Standards for Enforcement Agents.

6. I also sent both the Council and Ms D’s representative a draft decision statement setting out my proposed findings. I considered any comments made in response to the draft before completing my investigation.

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What I found

Background and key facts

7. Ms D moved to the Council’s area in August 2016 into a house I will call ‘Property A’. The Council says that she did not tell its revenues service, responsible for billing council tax, of her move until April 2017. Ms D receives welfare benefits. This includes benefits paid for disability, as Ms D has various health issues.
8. Throughout the 2016/17 and 2017/18 financial years Ms D could receive council tax support to meet her council tax bill. This is a means-tested reduction the council can apply to someone’s council tax bill where they are on a low income. While Ms D eventually received council tax support to reduce both years council tax bills to zero, I note the Council did not pay this straight away. The Council did not put any support into payment until September 2017 as it said Ms D did not apply for it until then. Later, it agreed to backdate payment to March 2017 as Ms D’s representative argued she had tried to claim council tax support around that time. It then agreed to further backdate payment to August 2016 after reconsidering Ms D’s case again between May and November 2018. This followed Ms D becoming a client of its ‘gateway’ service which provides welfare benefit advice. The Council says it provided this further backdating of council tax support even though its scheme did not require it to.
9. Ms D therefore built up significant arrears of council tax for Property A before her council tax support went into payment. By July 2017 the Council had obtained a liability order entitling it to use various methods of recovery. I will return below to how the Council tried to recover the debt owed by Ms D for Property A for her 2016/17 and 2017/18 council tax bills.
10. But while collection for those debts continued the Council also linked another debt to Ms D’s council tax account in February 2018. It passed to an external enforcement agent a debt associated with ‘Property B’. Ms D had no connection with Property B. The Council says it passed the debt to the agents because of an administrative error. It mistakenly thought Ms D owed the debt as she has the same name as the debtor.
11. When Ms D received contact from the enforcement agents she contacted her representative. They contacted the agents in turn before the end of February 2018. However, the Council says the representative only sent the agent details of their authorisation to act for Ms D. The agent kept the case on hold for around six weeks waiting for further representations. But as they received no further communication from the representative they then resumed recovery and visited Ms D at home in April 2018.
12. In between the Council received contact directly from Ms D’s representative in February and March 2018. It took around five weeks to reply. When it did so, the Council said it could not answer the representative’s enquiry as it did not have any authorisation for him to act for Ms D. The Council says it then took the representative around a month to provide that. Once received, the Council put recovery of the arrears associated with ‘Property B’ on hold. It enquired to find out if Ms D had any link to ‘Property B’. However, Ms D received one further letter from the agents in May 2018 about this debt.
13. In early June 2018 the Council put a further hold on collection of this debt as its enquiries remained outstanding. And by early July 2018 the Council received confirmation it had linked Ms D to the debt at ‘Property B’ in error. It recalled the debt from the enforcement agents.
14. In response to complaints about its handling of this matter the Council apologised for:

• not carrying out more checks to see if Ms D was liable for the debt at ‘Property B’ before passing the case to enforcement agents.
• the poor contact between its revenues service and enforcement agents after January 2018.

15. The Council offered Ms D £150 in recognition of any distress caused by its mistakes.
16. As noted above, the Council’s actions in instructing enforcement agents to collect a debt associated with ‘Property B’ coincided with steps to recover council tax debt owed for ‘Property A’. In November 2017, the Council had passed the debt associated with ‘Property A’ to its own enforcement agents for collection. It says it only did this after keeping a hold on the account for over three months having tried to negotiate a repayment with Ms D.
17. In May 2018 Ms D’s representative contacted the Council to try and resolve the problems Ms D met in claiming council tax support. As part of their representations, they asked the Council to consider recovering any council tax arrears via an attachment of benefits. This would mean the Council applied to the Department of Work and Pensions for money to be deducted from Ms D’s welfare benefits and paid to it, as an alternative to the use of enforcement agents. In June 2018 the Council refused this request but did not give reasons.
18. In November 2018 the Council stopped using its enforcement agent to collect debts associated with Property A. This followed resolution of Ms D’s council tax support claim as I previously described.
19. In general comments the Council has defended its use of enforcement agents in collecting debts from Ms D. It recognises she has disability and receives Employment Support Allowance (ESA) in recognition of this. But it says that disability does not automatically make Ms D vulnerable. So, instructing enforcement agents was not inappropriate.
20. However, it recognises it could have sought recovery of council tax arrears via an attachment to Ms D’s benefit income rather than instructing its own enforcement agents. In recognition of this, the Council has removed all enforcement agent fees from the debts it passed to the agents in November 2017.

My findings

The collection of debt associated with Property B

21. The Council has accepted it was at fault for linking the debt associated with ‘Property B’ to Ms D and passing that debt to enforcement agents to collect. It has also accepted it was at fault for not having better communications between its revenues service and enforcement agents asked to collect that debt. It is clear from the chronology above the agents and Council between them had enough information to contact the representative and look to resolve this matter before April 2018. But because they did not share communications neither responded effectively. This led to Ms D receiving a visit from an enforcement agent that month which was otherwise avoidable.
22. Enforcement agents have powers to remove items belonging to debtors in certain circumstances. The worry that agents might remove goods belonging to her, would inevitably cause distress for Ms D. This was her injustice therefore.
23. The Council has provided suitable apologies for its failures. It has also offered a payment of £150 in recognition of the distress. I have considered carefully if that is enough, noting the Ombudsman’s published guidance on remedies.
24. On balance I consider it is. I recognise the threat of enforcement action lasted around five months. I consider this too long as the Council could have resolved this matter sooner. However, against that I note that after April 2018 the debt was on hold and no further visits took place (although Ms D received a further letter from the enforcement agents). So, while it took too long to resolve this matter, the activities of the enforcement agents were not constant in that time. I therefore consider the Council’s offer of remedy proportionate to the injustice caused.

The collection of debt associated with Property A

25. Different considerations apply when looking at the Council’s actions in collection of these debts. There is no dispute Ms D is liable to pay council tax. I note she has ultimately received council tax support to pay in full the 2016/17 and 2017/18 council tax bills. However, I consider there is no evidence to find the Council at fault for having progressed collection of arrears to obtain a liability order before this support went into payment. There is no evidence to contradict the Council’s account that Ms D failed to alert the Council to her move into the Borough. Or that she tried to claim council tax support before March 2017 at the earliest.
26. In these circumstances Ms D always ran the risk of receiving a liability order and the distress associated with the Council recovering its debt. However, I consider this case still highlights some potential concerns around the Council’s practice in council tax debt recovery in three areas.
27. First, I have considered if the Council should have identified Ms D as vulnerable, meaning it should not have instructed enforcement agents to collect the debt (or recalled the debt on those grounds). I agree here with the Council that it does not have evidence to consider Ms D vulnerable. Ms D’s disability makes her potentially vulnerable, but on its own this would not lead me to think the Council could not instruct enforcement agents. The Regulations say that a debtor is vulnerable if they cannot safeguard their personal welfare. There is no evidence I have seen provided by Ms D or her representative that would lead me to think the Council could draw that conclusion.
28. Second, I have considered if the Council should have applied for an attachment of benefit from the Department of Work and Pensions which administers Ms D’s state benefits. The effect would be that her benefits would be reduced to clear the council tax debt. I welcome that the Council has recognised that it should have considered this alternative before instructing enforcement agents in respect of the debt Ms D owed for ‘Property A’ in November 2017. I consider its failure to do so here was fault.
29. The injustice this creates is that of further distress, in the form of uncertainty. But while I consider the Council should have considered using an attachment of benefits, I could not go on say it had to do so. I also note that any form of recovery, including this option, carries with it some distress.
30. I therefore consider the Council’s acknowledgment of its fault and its removal of fees associated with the use of enforcement agents a proportionate remedy for this part of Ms D’s complaint. This is also after taking account the Council has backdated Ms D’s council tax support payments beyond the usual scope of its policy. However, I consider there may still be a wider lesson the Council can learn here which I expand on below in the section headed ‘agreed action’.
31. Third, I have noted the Council’s decision to use two enforcement agents simultaneously in this case. One for Ms D’s debt owing for ‘Property A’ and an external agent for the historic debt on ‘Property B’ for which Ms D was not liable. I consider this an undesirable practice. The Regulations which cover the use of enforcement agents encourage the use of a single agent to recover multiple debts to reduce the fees payable by debtors. It will inevitably create hardship for debtors on a low income such as Ms D to have to deal with multiple agents. It may also cause unnecessary confusion and make it harder to resolve debt problems for those with multiple debts.
32. I do not consider any separate injustice arises from this fault to that which I have identified above. But I consider again there may be a wider lesson the Council can learn here, which I expand on below.
33. Finally, as part of my investigation I noted records in the papers suggesting Ms D had incurred further council tax arrears at Property A beyond the end of the 2017/18 financial year. To avoid doubt I can clarify this investigation has not considered any arrears Ms D may have incurred for council tax in the 2018/19 or 2019/20 financial years.

Agreed action

34. It flows from my findings above that I am satisfied the Council has already taken action in this case which has provided a satisfactory remedy for Ms D’s injustice. However, I also wanted it to learn wider lessons from this complaint. The Council has accepted this and agreed that within three months of a decision on this complaint it will:
1. complete a review of the procedure followed for deciding when it will seek to apply for an attachment of benefit to recover debt as opposed to use of enforcement agents; the Council should ensure the relevant officers have clear advice on its expectations in this area; it should ensure it keeps records to explain why officers have decided to use a particular recovery approach if this is not consistent with its policy;
2. have completed a review of the procedure followed for passing different council tax debts to different enforcement agents to recover for the same individual in debt; this should take account of my comments above on this practice.

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Final decision

35. For reasons set out above I uphold this complaint finding fault by the Council causing injustice to Ms D. I am satisfied the Council has provided a remedy to Ms D for the injustice its faults caused. It has also now agreed further action which will address wider lessons from this complaint. Consequently, I can complete my investigation satisfied with its actions.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman