Salford City Council (19 006 452)

Category : Benefits and tax > Council tax

Decision : Upheld

Decision date : 12 Mar 2020

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: Mr B complains about the Council’s recovery of a council tax liability from a short period in 2016. There was fault by the Council which caused injustice to Mr B. The Council will apologise and make a payment to Mr B.

The complaint

  1. Mr B complains about the Council’s recovery of a council tax liability from a short period in 2016. He says he had paid the sums due in full at the time and, if there was any additional liability when he moved out, the Council should have told him at the time as it had his new address. He also complains about the way the Council has responded to the issue and his complaints.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. 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)
  2. 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

  1. I considered the complaint and documents provided by Mr B and spoke to him. I asked the Council to comment on the complaint and provide information. I sent a draft of this statement to Mr B and the Council and considered their comments.

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What I found

Summary of events

  1. Mr B was living in property 1. He moved to property 2 in early 2016. There was a slight overlap of the tenancies when he moved between the properties. He had paid the council tax for property 1 by two instalments making the final payment on 15 January 2016.
  2. The Council issued a bill to property 2 for Mr B’s liability there from 21 January 2016 on 4 May 2016.
  3. In March the landlord of property 1 told the Council new tenants had moved in on 26 February 2016. So the Council made Mr B liable for council tax up to 25 February. It issued closing bills to Mr B at property 1. The Council issued reminders and a summons to property 1 and then obtained a liability order against Mr B in the courts in December 2016.
  4. In January 2017 it asked the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to make deductions from Mr B’s benefits. That did not happen. In February 2019 the Council reviewed the account and again asked the DWP to make deductions from Mr B’s benefits. The DWP told Mr B of the deductions of £3.70 a week.
  5. Mr B went to a local Council office. He disputed there was any liability but paid the sum due to stop any further deductions. The Council removed the court charges that had been added.
  6. Mr B complained to the Council but was dissatisfied with the response so complained to the Ombudsman

Analysis of the key issues

The liability

  1. When Mr B left property 1 he had paid the full sum due on the bill he had received up to the end of March 2016 so I understand why he considered there would be no liability. However, because he received council tax reduction when this was recalculated to the date the new tenants moved in there was a small liability.
  2. During the consideration of the complaint it became clear Mr B’s tenancy had ended before the new tenants moved in. When the Council recalculated the liability based on the correct information there would have been no outstanding liability and Mr B would have been in credit by just over £20.
  3. The Council has provided a statement of account and issued two cheques to Mr B to refund the amount due to him. That is just over £90. I understand Mr B has not cashed the cheques as he wanted to be certain it was all resolved. I can see no basis to question the calculations the Council has now done and believe the refund to be correct.

The recovery action

  1. The Council wrote to Mr B at property 2 in early April 2016 thanking him for his change of address form for housing benefit and council tax reduction. This gives his new and old address and the dates when he moved. It sent a bill for his liability for council tax at property 2 from 21 January 2016 to Mr B at property 2 in May 2016. But it did not update the record for property 1. That is fault.
  2. Once the Council had started the recovery action this was all wrongly sent to property 1. It then asked the DWP to make deductions from Mr B’s benefit. I don’t know why that did not happen or why it took two years for the Council to notice that it was not happening. But when the Council did notice it asked DWP again.
  3. I consider where there has been so much delay it would have been good practice for the Council to write to Mr B to tell him of the outstanding liability. Admittedly, even if the Council had done this it would have gone to property1 as the Council only updated the council tax account there when Mr B got in touch when the deductions started.

Complaint handling

  1. In March 2019 Mr B went into the Council offices when the DWP told him of the deductions. The Council removed the charges that had been added to the liability and he paid the rest to stop any further action. He complained to the Council and it quickly replied.
  2. He was not satisfied with the response and, at the beginning of April, asked that his further comments be considered at stage 2 of the Council’s complaint process. The Council says that letter did not get linked to his stage one complaint as it did not include the reference number. I consider this to be unsatisfactory. The letter is headed a stage 2 complaint and he refers to the issues he had with the Council’s response. It included an email address. The Council should have checked with him if it was unable to find the correspondence to which he was referring. Instead nothing appears to have been done to respond to the letter until Mr B chased a response in the middle of May.
  3. An officer phoned and wrote to Mr B on 22 May. The letter refers to correspondence from Mr B but not specifically to his stage 2 complaint. Nor does it refer to how he can escalate the complaint if he remained dissatisfied. This was poor practice.
  4. Mr B complained to the Ombudsman in July. We asked the Council whether it had had chance to consider the complaint. It said it had not so we referred the complaint back to it. This was wrong. The Council had had a complaint from Mr B and it had replied to both his stage 1 and stage 2 letters.
  5. When we ask a council whether it has had chance to consider the complaint the requirement is the Council should have had a reasonable opportunity to respond. That will normally mean going through the Council’s internal complaint process. But, if something has gone wrong in the Council’s own consideration of the complaint it should be clear when responding to our enquiries that is what has happened. We can then decide whether it would be reasonable to refer the complaint back to the Council. It was of little consequence here as the Council quickly wrote to Mr B and he renewed his complaint with us.

Injustice

  1. If the Council had properly updated its council tax records in March/April 2016 none of this would have happened. Mr B would have had his refund of overpaid council tax (just over £20) then. What has actually happened is that Mr B has had deductions form his benefit of nearly £30 and paid almost £40 more to stop the recovery action while it was all sorted out. Mr B is on a low income and this had a significant impact on him. In addition to that he has had the worry and inconvenience of resolving it.

Agreed action

  1. The Council will apologise to Mr B and pay him £100 within one month of this decision.

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Final decision

  1. There was fault by the Council which caused injustice to Mr B. The Council will apologise and make a payment to Mr B.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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