Summary: Mr X complains about the Council’s threat of enforcement action against him for no payment of council tax. We will not investigate this complaint because there is no evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council’s threat of enforcement action against him for no payment of Council tax.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
5. I considered the complainant’s comments on my draft decision.

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My assessment

6. Mr X owed a number of properties and became in arrears with council tax payments on them. Mr X says that he has been very ill in the past few years and has been unable to make the payments.
7. Councils have a legal obligation to collect council tax from those liable.
8. To use the various powers available to it to recover unpaid council tax, a council has to apply to the Magistrates Court for a liability order against those it believes are liable. Once a council has obtained a liability order it can take recovery action.
9. A liability order gives a council legal powers to take enforcement action to collect the money owed. This can include taking deductions from benefits, getting an attachment of earnings (by which deductions are taken directly from earnings by an employer and passed to the Council) or using bailiffs. The Council can decide which recovery method it wishes to use but it can only use one method for one liability order at one time.
10. The correspondence between Mr X and the Council shows that the Council has made reasonable efforts to secure payment from Mr X for the council tax arrears. They are entitled to choose which method of enforcement is appropriate in this case (it is not for the Ombudsman to decide this).
11. If Mr X finds correspondence with the Council difficult, he could appoint another person to do this. Ultimately, however, he has a responsibility to pay and any enforcement action by the Council is not, in my view administrative fault.

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Final decision

12. I do not intend to investigate this complaint because there is no evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman