Summary: We will not exercise discretion to investigate this complaint about council tax support which was received outside the normal 12-month period for investigating complaints. There is no evidence to suggest that Mr X could not have complained to us sooner.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council charging him full liability for his home from 2015 when he believes he should receive a discount in the form of council tax support. As a result, he owes a significant amount of arrears for which the Council has obtained interim charging orders from the court against his property.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mr X has been charged the full council tax liability for his property since 2015. In 2018 the Council applied for charging orders against him, and he told it he believed he was entitled to an automatic council tax exemption because he receives pension credit. The Council advised him in July 2018 that he needed to apply for council tax support to obtain any reductio on the annual bill.
6. Mr X did not apply for the benefit at the time and in 2020 the Council took further recovery action. Mr X later told the Council he had started an online application, but it had timed out before he could complete it. The Council advised him that he would need to start a new application because the 31days timescale for retaining data had expired. It accepted some delay in advising him about this and offered to reduce the outstanding debt by a small amount to reflect this.
7. The Council says the bulk of the debt which is over £10,000 covers several years and it will not remove this because Mr X had an opportunity to apply for support in previous years but ignored its advice.
8. We will not exercise discretion to consider Mr X’s complaint now. Mr X could have complained to us in previous years when he was aware of the full charge being made. I have seen no evidence to suggest he could not have complained to us sooner, although as he had not submitted a claim it is unlikely we could have found fault when there has been no decision on a claim made by the Council.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman