Summary: The Ombudsman should not pursue this complaint about council tax recovery action. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains the Council did not contact her by email or telephone about council tax arrears. She states this resulted in the Council taking recovery action, meaning she owed court and enforcement agent costs in addition to the council tax.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered the information Mrs X provided. I gave Mrs X the opportunity to comment on a draft of this decision.

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What I found

5. Mrs X owns and rents out a property in the Council’s area. She lives abroad. Mrs X became liable for the property’s council tax for July and August 2019. The Council sent a reminder, then a court summons and liability order to the last contact address it had for Mrs X. That address was out of date so Mrs X did not receive the communications. Mrs X accepts responsibility for not updating her postal address.
6. The Council passed the debt to enforcement agents, who emailed Mrs X. Mrs X immediately paid the council tax. However, £200 of court and enforcement agent costs had been added to the council tax debt. Mrs X argues the Council should have contacted her by telephone or email (it had those contact details), in which case she would have paid the debt before it got as far as court action or enforcement agents. So she wants the Council to deduct those costs.
7. The Council must serve notices, including council tax reminders, liability orders and so on, in accordance with the law. The law states notice is properly served if it is sent by post to the person’s last known address. (Local Government Act 1972, section 233) Mrs X says that law pre-dates the existence of email. That is irrelevant. The Council must follow the law and I do not fault it for doing so.
8. In October 2019, the Council adopted a new practice and its website stated it would ‘send text messages, emails and recorded voice messages to you if your Council Tax account falls into arrears.’ The Council says this was an extra service, separate to the requirement to send formal notices by post. I agree.
9. The council tax arrears arose in July and August 2019. The Council sent the reminder in August 2019. That was before its new policy so there was no expectation the Council should contact Mrs X by email or telephone about the arrears. While the Council had Mrs X’s telephone and email details, that does not mean the Council was at fault for issuing the reminder by post as that is the usual method. Issuing reminders and taking recovery action is a heavily automated process as the Council deals with many cases of unpaid council tax each month.
10. The Council issued the summons in September 2019, also before its policy changed. Anyway, the restriction in paragraph 3 means the Ombudsman cannot consider any Council actions from the issuing of the summons (which legally is the start of court action) to the end of the court hearing.
11. After that, the court received the liability order. The Council sent the order by post in October 2019. While the Council’s new policy of email and telephone notifications of arrears was in force by then, a liability order is a formal legal document, unlike an informal reminder that arrears have arisen. So I do not fault the Council for sending the order by post in line with the law. When the Council received no reply, it passed the matter to enforcement agents. I do not fault that.
12. It is unfortunate that the Council did not have Mrs X’s current contact address. It is also unfortunate that court and enforcement agent costs were added to the bill. However, the evidence I have seen does not suggest the addition of those costs resulted from any fault by the Council, for the reasons I have given.

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Final decision

13. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because, on the evidence I have seen, the Council was not at fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman