Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council (19 020 662)

Category : Benefits and tax > Council tax

Decision : Upheld

Decision date : 11 Feb 2021

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: The Council failed to update Mrs B’s address on its council tax database. This led to unnecessary enforcement action. The Council has agreed to reimburse half of the enforcement fees Mrs B paid and it will take action to prevent similar failings in future.

The complaint

  1. Mrs B complains that the Council sent council tax bills for a property she owns to her previous home address, after she told the Council she had moved. She says that because of this, she did not know about the council tax arrears until bailiffs were involved and she then had to pay the bailiffs’ fees.

Back to top

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)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

  1. I have:
    • considered the complaint and the documents provided by the complainant;
    • discussed the issues with the complainant;
    • made enquiries of the Council and considered the comments and documents the Council has provided; and
    • given the Council and the complainant the opportunity to comment on my draft decision.

Back to top

What I found

  1. Mrs B is the landlord of five residential properties. When the properties are empty, she is liable for the council tax.
  2. Four years ago, Mrs B told the Council that she had moved out of her home but still owned it and would be renting it out. She provided the Council with her new address.
  3. In January 2020, a tenant living at Mrs B’s former home told Mrs B that a letter had arrived for her. It was from bailiffs and related to council tax for one of her other properties. Mrs B discovered that the Council had sent other notices to her previous home address about council tax arrears but her tenant had not passed them on to her.
  4. Mrs B contacted the Council and was advised to pay the outstanding council tax and enforcement fees to the bailiffs, which she did.
  5. Mrs B considers the Council should refund the enforcement fees because it sent the notices to her old address and she was not aware of the debt until bailiffs were involved.

Analysis

  1. The Council says that it allocates landlords a personal identification number (PIN) which is recorded next to any rental addresses the landlord declares. If the landlord changes address, the address is updated on all the rental properties too.
  2. Mrs B informed the Council that she was the landlord of two of the properties (which are flats within one building) on the same day in 2011. These two properties should have been linked to Mrs B’s PIN.
  3. The Council’s records show that Mrs B notified the council tax team in July 2016 that she had moved and would be renting out her old address. At the same time, Mrs B paid to redirect any post from her previous home address to her new address for one year.
  4. During that year, the Council wrote to Mrs B because she had become liable for council tax at one of the flats. Mrs B told the Council in March 2017 that it had sent the notice to her previous address and she provided her new address. The Council updated the landlord address for that flat but it did not change the landlord address for the other flat. This was fault. Both flats should have been linked to Mrs B’s PIN.
  5. If the Council had changed the landlord address on both flats at the same time, as it should have done, Mrs B would not have incurred enforcement fees in 2020. However, Mrs B was responsible for providing her new address for each of her rental properties. By not doing so, I consider Mrs B contributed to her own injustice. I have taken this into account when making my recommendations.
  6. The Council has confirmed that it has now linked all of Mrs B’s rental properties to her PIN.

Agreed action

  1. Within four weeks, the Council will reimburse half of the enforcement fees Mrs B paid.
  2. Within eight weeks, the Council will check its council tax database to ensure that known landlords have each been allocated a PIN, and that the PIN is associated with each of their declared rental addresses. This is to ensure that when a landlord changes address, the address is changed on all linked properties.

Back to top

Final decision

  1. I have completed my investigation and uphold Mrs B’s complaint. There was fault by the Council which caused injustice to Mrs B. The action the Council has agreed to take is sufficient to remedy that injustice.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

Print this page

LGO logogram

Review your privacy settings

Required cookies

These cookies enable the website to function properly. You can only disable these by changing your browser preferences, but this will affect how the website performs.

View required cookies

Analytical cookies

Google Analytics cookies help us improve the performance of the website by understanding how visitors use the site.
We recommend you set these 'ON'.

View analytical cookies

In using Google Analytics, we do not collect or store personal information that could identify you (for example your name or address). We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data. Google has developed a tool to help you opt out of Google Analytics cookies.

Privacy settings