Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about the Council starting enforcement action for the late payment of Council tax. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council, so an investigation is not warranted.

The complaint

1. Ms C has complained she told the council that she could only pay her instalments on the 25th of each month. However, it failed to accept this and told her the instalments were due on the 1st of each month. This meant that when she missed a payment because she was abroad, the Council obtained a liability order through the courts. This was even though she paid all her outstanding payments as soon as she came back home.

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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. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)
4. 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 it is unlikely we would find fault. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered the complaint and supporting documents provided by Ms C. I also sent Ms C a draft and considered her response before reaching a final decision.

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What I found

6. In September 2019 Ms C complained to the Council it had sent her an enforcement letter despite all her payments being up to date. She also complained the payments she had missed were due to her being away from home for a month.
7. The Council responded in November 2019 to say Ms C’s council tax instalments for the year 2019-2020 were due on the 1st of each month as set out in the council tax bill. However, when Ms C missed her instalment for May she was sent a reminder asking her to pay this and the remainder owed for the April payment. The reminder asked that she pay before 23 May 2019 and if the payment was not made by this date then she would lose the right to pay by instalments. It went on to say if this was not paid after a further seven days a Council Tax summons would be issued which would incur extra costs.
8. When Ms C failed to pay the council tax the Council issued a summons on 11 June 2019. It was not until 18 June 2019 that Ms C contacted the Council to pay the two instalments that she had missed. When the Council asked her to pay the rest in full, she refused.
9. The Council has said it was at this point it issued a Notice Before Action advising Ms C the Council had obtained a liability order for outstanding Council tax arrears. This was eventually referred to the enforcement agent for recovery.
10. The Council concluded by saying it had a legal duty to collect council tax and advised her to contact the enforcement agent to arrange a payment plan.
11. Ms C responded to this stage one complaint by launching a stage 2 complaint.
12. The Council responded by upholding its original response but advised that as a gesture of goodwill it would be willing to waive the enforcement agent fees. However, if she failed to pay the outstanding amount, the council would consider further recovery action.
13. The Council also said it could not find her previous request to pay her monthly instalments on the 25th but it would amend the date as requested.
14. On the information we have, the Council followed the correct procedure set out in law for handling unpaid council tax. Even if we could find evidence that Ms C had told the Council that she wanted to pay on the 25th of each month, she still would have been late with her May 2019 payment and with part of the April payment 2019. As a result, the Council would still have applied for a liability order. In any case the Council waived the enforcement agent fees and has agreed to allow her to pay her instalments on the 25th of each month in future.

Final decision

15. The Ombudsman will not investigate Ms C’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council so an investigation is not warranted.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman