Summary: The Council has confirmed it made errors in its calculation of the Council Tax owed by the owners of a number of holiday chalets. However, the complainant has not been disadvantaged by this. For this reason, the Ombudsman has discontinued his investigation.

The complaint

1. I will refer to the complainant as Mr D.
2. Mr D complains about the accuracy of the Council Tax billing for a holiday chalet he jointly owns.

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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’.
4. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
5. We cannot investigate something that affects all or most of the people in a council’s area. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(7), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I reviewed Mr D’s correspondence with the Council, and his Council Tax bills for the years 2018/19 and 2019/20.
7. I also shared a draft copy of this decision with each party for their comments.

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What I found

8. Mr D jointly owns a holiday chalet, along with his wife and two others. The chalet is one of 77 on a site in the Council’s area.
9. Each chalet is subject to a planning restriction, which means the owners cannot occupy it for a set period each year. Over the years since the chalets were built, some owners have successfully applied for an extension to their occupancy rights.
10. For each day a chalet cannot be occupied, it is exempt from Council Tax. This means chalet owners with extended occupancy rights are eligible to pay more Council Tax than those without.
11. The Council also applies a separate Council Tax discount to the chalets. Before the 2018/19 tax year, this was 50%, but the Council then decided to reduce the discount to 10%.
12. The change in discount was announced in early 2018. Mr D says the announcement triggered discussions between different chalet owners, which highlighted their Council Tax exemptions were not consistent with their occupancy rights. This prompted Mr D to contact the Council.
13. The Council then established it had made errors in how it billed the chalets. In Mr D’s case, this was that the occupancy restriction on its records was one day longer than it actually was, meaning he had been marginally undercharged. The Council said it would issue a correct Council Tax bill to Mr D, but would not backdate the additional charge as it was its own error.
14. The Council also said it would review all similar properties in its area, on Mr D’s site and others, and write to each property with its findings. However, it cautioned Mr D this was likely to take some time, as it needed to manually cross-reference Council Tax records and planning records for each one. At the date of this statement, the Council says this review is ongoing.
15. Over the following months, there was a significant volume of correspondence between Mr D, the Council, and the local MP. Mr D complained about delays in letters, with the outcome of the review, being issued to other chalet owners. He also referred to the discrepancies in the Council Tax bills for chalets with the same occupancy rights, including one in particular which had been billed for £120 less than his chalet.
16. The Council confirmed Mr D had now been correctly billed for his chalet. However, in February 2019, it agreed to pay Mr D £120 as a goodwill gesture.
17. In April, Mr D contacted the Council again. He said the 2019/20 Council Tax bills for the chalets, which had just been issued, were still inconsistent with each chalet’s occupancy rights. The Council sent a final reply on 13 May, saying it was confident the bills were now correct.
18. On 11 September, Mr D referred his complaint to the Ombudsman.

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Analysis

19. The role of the Ombudsman is to investigate and identify administrative fault by authorities in his jurisdiction; and remedy any injustice arising from this fault which specifically affects the person who has complained, or those they represent.
20. The Council has accepted it has made errors in its Council Tax billing for the chalets, both on Mr D’s site, and (it appears) others in its area. This is because of confusion arising from the number of days’ exemption the chalets are due, and a failure to consolidate Council Tax records with those of the Council’s planning department.
21. Although the Council says the billing for the chalets on Mr D’s site is now correct, Mr D considers there are still discrepancies, identifying one chalet in particular which he says is being undercharged. The evidence I have does not allow me to draw a conclusion on this.
22. However, whatever the facts, there is no reason to think Mr D has been over-charged his Council Tax at any point – in fact, it appears he has been under-charged for several years, albeit only by marginal amount.
23. And while others may have been more significantly under-charged, this does not represent an injustice to Mr D. The Ombudsman seeks to return a complainant to the position they would be in, if there had been no fault by the relevant authority. In this case, while there has been fault, it has not led Mr D to pay more Council Tax than he should. I cannot recommend the Council provide him with a remedy because others have benefitted from a mistake, when he has not.
24. Mr D has complained about general poor communications from the Council, such as long delays in replying to his correspondence. I note the Council has acknowledged this.
25. However, while the Ombudsman will sometimes recommend a small financial remedy to recognise the time and trouble a complainant has been to, the Council has already paid Mr D £120. This is the most the Ombudsman would likely recommend as a remedy for time and trouble in such as case, and so I consider the Council’s ‘goodwill gesture’ acts as an adequate remedy here.
26. Mr D has also raised concerns about the Council’s failure to collect the full revenue it is due, and how this may affect local services. However, and without dismissing this point, the Ombudsman is specifically barred in law from investigating matters which affect "all or most” people in the relevant authority area. This includes complaints about the Council’s general handling of its finances.
27. Taking this all together, there is no evidence Mr D has suffered an injustice which the Ombudsman could resolve. For this reason, I consider it would be disproportionate to continue my investigation here.

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Draft decision

28. I have discontinued my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman