Summary: Mr R complains the Council wrongly summonsed him to attend court for non-payment of Council Tax for a second property. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint because Mr R could have appealed to the Valuation Tribunal and there is no direct link between the fault of the Council and the injustice to Mr R.

The complaint

1. Mr R complains the Council wrongly summonsed him to attend court for non-payment of Council Tax for a property he rents out. Mr R states this resulted in him losing earnings in order to attend court.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
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 council tax liability and council tax support or reduction.
5. 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’. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I have considered Mr R’s and the Council’s comments. I invited Mr R to provide his comments regarding the draft decision.

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What I found

7. Mr R rents out a property he owns. He says he tells the Council whenever there is a change of tenants at the address but the Council can be slow to update its records so sometimes send council tax bills to him rather than the tenants.

Mr R told the Council in December 2018 of a change of tenants. Mr R says despite this he received a Council Tax bill for the property and reminder letters. Mr R says he ignored these because he thought the Council would check its information before escalating matters. The Council says it sent Mr R five letters before issuing a court summons.

8. Mr R says he attended court, where a Council employee confirmed the Council had made an error and he was not liable.
9. In response to Mr R’s complaint, the Council accepted it had not dealt correctly with the information Mr R provided. The Council apologised for the error but declined to provide any compensation for Mr R taking time off work to attend court.
10. The Council was at fault for not dealing correctly with the information Mr R supplied. However, we expect complainants to take reasonable steps to protect their position if they have reason to believe a mistake has occurred. The Council’s letters before the summons gave Mr R several opportunities to contact the Council and ask it again to correct its records. Mr R could reasonably have contacted the Council but chose not to. Had he done so, the Council might not have issued the summons. So I do not consider there is a direct link between the fault of the Council failing to correctly deal with the information provided in December 2018 and Mr R attending court.
11. Also, Mr R could have appealed to the Valuation Tribunal, which is independent of the Council and decides disputes about whether someone is liable for council tax. I consider it would have been reasonable for him to do so.

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Final decision

12. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because there is no direct link between the fault of the Council and the injustice to Mr R, and because Mr R could have appealed to the Valuation Tribunal.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman