Summary: Mrs X complained about the Council’s handling of her council tax account and poor communication. The Council was at fault for not processing Mrs X’s direct debit which resulted in avoidable enforcement action. The Council will apologise and pay Mrs X £100 for the distress caused and reimburse £195 for the court and enforcement action fees. The Council will review its processes for dealing with direct debits. The Council was not at fault for communications being blocked or delayed.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained the Council delayed setting up a direct debit for her council tax account despite confirming it had done so. This meant her council tax was not paid. The Council began enforcement action, which led to Mrs X receiving a bailiff’s letter. Mrs X also complained the Council did not respond to her emails asking for clarification, delayed responding to her complaint and blocked communications from her and continues to do so. Mrs X says this caused avoidable stress, and meant she had to pay enforcement costs as well as the council tax due. She was also put to the time and trouble of pursuing the Council to put matters right.

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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’. 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)
3. When considering complaints, if there is a conflict of evidence, we make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we will weigh up the available relevant evidence and base our findings on what we think was more likely to have happened.
4. If we are satisfied with an organisation’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)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I spoke to Mrs X about her complaint and considered the information she provided.
6. I spoke to the Council and considered the Council's comments about the complaint and the supporting documents it provided.
7. I considered the Council's policies and relevant law and guidance and the Ombudsman's guidance on remedies.
8. Mrs X and the Council had the opportunity to comment on the draft decision. We considered their comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Relevant law and guidance

9. The Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992 cover both the way councils collect council tax, and the way councils can recover council tax debt.
10. Under council tax law a person occupying a property is usually liable for paying council tax. Council tax is usually paid by monthly instalments. If the person does not pay an instalment the council will issue a reminder. If a payment is still not made or a further payment missed, then the entire outstanding balance will be due (that is the full amount for the rest of the year).
11. A council must issue at least one reminder before issuing a summons for a liability order hearing at the magistrates' court, which is the start of the formal court process to recover the outstanding sum.
12. A liability order gives a council the legal powers to take enforcement action to collect the money owed. This may include asking bailiffs (also called enforcement agents) to collect the debt. The council can add enforcement costs to the person’s debt.

What happened

13. In late October 2019 Mrs X moved into a new property.
14. Mrs X completed an online form through the Council portal in late October or early November 2019 to set up a direct debit to pay her council tax. Mrs X said the Council portal sent a response telling her the direct debit was being processed and she should not get in touch with the Council.
15. The Council says it does not have a record of Mrs X setting up a council tax direct debit in October or November 2019. It says it received Mrs X’s notice of a change of address and council tax direct debit details in early December 2019.
16. In mid-December 2019 the Council could not add Mrs X’s direct debit details for her new address through its usual automated process. The Council noted that an officer needed to input the information manually, but this did not happen within its usual timescales. On the same day the Council sent a council tax reminder notice letter to Mrs X’s address. I have seen the reminder notice and note the address was correct. Mrs X said she did not receive it but legally the Council can assume it was received, provided it is not returned as undelivered.
17. In early-January 2020 Mrs X realised the council tax direct debit had not been set up and no council tax money had left her account. She filled in the direct debit form again on the Councils online portal.
18. In mid-January 2020 the Council sent a summons letter to Mrs X’s address for non-payment of the council tax bill. Mrs X said she did not receive this. Again, I have seen the summons letter and can confirm the address was correct.
19. Two days later the Council said it issued Mrs X a council tax bill, following the change of payment method to direct debit on its system. The Council said this letter also advised the outstanding council tax payment was subject to court proceedings. Mrs X said she did not receive this.
20. The day after that the Council sent Mrs X a letter confirming it had set up the direct debit. Mrs X said the letter explained she did not need to do anything further. In response to our enquiries the Council said in January 2020 it changed its portal service provider and cannot provide the acknowledgement sent to Mrs X but an automatic message would have been sent. The Council says it would have read: “Dear X Thank you for submitting a Direct Debit form. Your reference number for this form is HARXXXX You will soon receive an amended bill showing your new payment and when the first instalment is due.”
21. The Council sent a tax notification liability order to Mrs Y’s address in mid-February 2020, after obtaining a liability order. I can confirm it was sent to the correct address, but Mrs X said she did not receive it. The Council says it provided proof of postage at the liability order hearing.
22. In mid-March 2020 Mrs X received a council tax bill. Mrs X looked at the Council online portal which said her council tax account was pending. Mrs X said the letter she received from mid-January 2020 told her to ‘do nothing’ so she assumed the Council online portal was wrong.
23. In late March 2020 Mrs X received a letter from the enforcement agents. This said it was instructed by the Council to remove property from her home. Mrs X was confused, in light of the letter in January 2020 telling her she did not need to take any action. The enforcement agents called Mrs X. They said she had not attended court and they would attend her home to remove items unless the outstanding debt was paid. At this point, Mrs X was suffering from an illness and was worried about the enforcement agents calling at her home.
24. In April 2020 Mrs X recovered from her illness and contacted the Council by telephone and email. She said she always paid her council tax bills on time and had tried to set up a direct debit for this account twice. She said she did not want to talk to the enforcement agents and asked the Council to contact her about the situation.
25. Mrs X said the Council did not answer the telephone or reply to her email. She then paid the enforcement agents debt. By this stage, the sum she owed was more than the £755 council tax originally due as enforcement costs of £195 had been added (total £950).
26. Mrs X emailed the Council in May, July and August 2020 with no response until December 2021 after she contacted her local councillor.
27. Mrs X said in December 2021 the Council blocked her email. The email response said: ‘Message blocked, recipient address rejected: Access denied’. Mrs X said the Council sent the same message on non-council tax matters. The Council said she received this automatic response because she had used a Council email address which was no longer used and had not been in use for several years. This meant the Council did not receive Mrs X’s emails because they were not delivered. The Council says it does not block email addresses and does not have a policy on restricting communication with its customers.
28. In late December 2021 Mrs X complained to a local councillor that her complaints had not been responded to. Mrs X was due to move property again and did not want the same issue to happen again.
29. In Mid-January 2022 the Council responded to this complaint. The Council said it sent the summons letter two days before the direct debit was set up. Once a summons is sent the whole year balance becomes payable and the right to pay in instalments is lost.
30. Mrs X responded to the Council the following day. She said she had filled in the direct debit forms when she moved into the house in late October 2019 and the Council told her ‘not to do anything else’. Mrs X said the enforcement agents involvement caused her severe anxiety.
31. The Council replied to Mrs X the same day. It said issuing the summons was an automated process and it advised customers filling out forms on the website ‘that you don’t need to do anything else’. The Council apologised and confirmed ‘due to a back log the direct debit was not actioned until the summons had been issued’.
32. Mrs X remained unhappy with the Council’s handling of the matter and asked the Ombudsman to consider her complaint.
33. In response to our enquiries the Council said:
• it prioritises direct debit applications that need processing manually, and these are generally processed within 10 days;
• in this case the application was processed, two days after the summons was issued;
• it did issue a reminder notice, summons and liability order;
• it did not receive Mrs X’s emails of complaint and enforcement had already started before the local councillor became involved;
• Mrs X used an incorrect email address twice and one email was addressed to a staff member who had left the Council which was not read. The Council said it was an unfortunate set of circumstances and had already removed the old Council email address Mrs X used from the website so the link no longer works. It did not consider it needed to change its communication policy;
• it had not blocked communication from Mrs X; and
• it proposed actions to prevent recurrence of the difficulties that arose in this case.
34. The Council previously offered to refund Mrs X £120 court costs and it said it will also refund Mrs X the £75.00 civil enforcement agent compliance fee. It also said it would make changes to its processes.

My findings

Council tax bill

35. Mrs X tried to set up a direct debit to pay her council tax bill on two occasions, through the Council’s portal. The Council confirmed it had received the direct debit details in December 2019 but did not set up the direct debit on its system until mid-January 2020. This delay was fault.
36. By the time the Council set up the direct debit, the enforcement action had already begun.
37. We do not have evidence to show what the Council’s automatic response said at the time Mrs X set up her direct debit. However, the Council did tell Mrs X in January 2022 it advised customers filling out forms online ‘not to do anything else’. On balance the Councils communications were misleading which was fault.
38. The Council sent Mrs X a reminder letter, summons and liability notification. Mrs X said she did not receive these. I have confirmed these were sent to the correct address. The law says these are deemed to be properly served provided they are not returned as undelivered, and none of these were. I cannot explain why Mrs X did not receive them, nor can I say this was due to fault by the Council.
39. The Council has offered to refund Mrs X £195.00 for the enforcement action costs, which is appropriate. I will also recommend a payment for the distress caused by receiving the letter from the enforcement agent. This was unexpected because Mrs X did not receive the notification issued by the Council and had expected council tax payments to be collected by direct debit.

Communication

40. Mrs X contacted the Council in April, May, July and August 2020, following which she contacted her local councillor. However, as explained above, the Council did not receive her emails and so was not aware of her concerns until the councillor became involved. Therefore, although it took 18 months for the Council to respond to her concerns, this was not due to faults by the Council.
41. Mrs X said her emails about council tax and other authority matters were blocked by the Council. The Council has explained this was an automatic response sent from an email account that was no longer in use and the Council has already removed it from its website. Although I appreciate this will have caused Mrs X frustration and upset, the Council had not blocked her emails, and was not at fault.

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Agreed action

42. Within one month of the final decision the Council will:
• apologise to Mrs X and pay her a distress payment of £100; and
• pay Mrs X the court and enforcement action costs of £195.
43. Within three months of the final decision the Council will review its processes to ensure:
• its customer portal "auto response" for direct debit notifications and the commencement of enforcement action, issued to direct debit customers, includes specific reference that the account may have already been subject to court proceedings;
• it reminds staff to carefully check and review all aspects of any exception reports from the customer portal and review a greater sample of them to ensure that compliance with its target timescales is achieved;
• it revises its practices for reported exceptions from automated e-form portal submissions to ensure it advises customers applying for direct debit payments where court proceedings have already started that the direct debit does not include enforcement costs and these will need to be paid separately; and
• it promotes the use of the Council's e-forms to contact it rather than a single point email address.

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Final decision

44. I have completed my investigation, finding fault causing injustice. I have recommended actions to remedy the injustice and prevent reoccurrence of the fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman