Birmingham City Council (20 008 795)
Category : Benefits and tax > Council tax
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 14 Jan 2021
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: Mr X’s complains that the Council wrongly sent him a reminder notice about council tax due on his rental property. We will not investigate as the Council has withdrawn the reminder and the dispute on the account is resolved.
The complaint
- Mr X complains the Council was wrong to send him a reminder about council tax due on his rental property, and to demand payment within 7 days, when he had previously informed it that a tenant was due to move in.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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 could add to any previous investigation by the Council (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
- 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)
How I considered this complaint
- I have considered what Mr X said in his complaint and sent him my draft decision on it for his comments.
What I found
- Mr X complains about receiving a reminder notice from the Council after he had advised it he would make payment on the council tax owed for his rental property, once he had the date for when his next tenant was moving in.
- In its complaint response to Mr X, the Council explained the reminder was issued as it is unable to place accounts on hold. The Council has though, withdrawn the reminder notice and Mr X has brought his account up to date.
Analysis
- The complaint is now resolved and I can see no grounds for us to investigate. We cannot add to what the Council has already said or change the outcome of Mr X’s complaint.
Final decision
- My decision is that we will not investigate this complaint. The complaint is resolved and we cannot add to what the Council has already said or change the outcome of the complaint.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman