Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about notification of a Council tax liability because there is no evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains that the Council did not tell him of a Council tax debt which led to increased costs by the Council’s enforcement.

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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, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

(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.

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My assessment

5. Mr X says that he was contacted by bailiffs who were enforcing a Council tax debt on a property Mr X owns. He says that he was not aware of any outstanding debt on the property and the Council should have told him before enforcement measures were taken.
6. The Council says that they were not told by Mr X of his change of address and so bills and reminders were sent to his previous property. Mr X says that he sent an email to the Council and his agent would have told the Council of the change.
7. The Council says it has no record of the email (and suggests it may have been sent in a response to a “do not reply” email). The Council says that specific authorisation is needed to allow the Council to accept information from agents in such cases.
8. An investigation by the Ombudsman would be unlikely to result in any definitive decision as to whether the Council was aware of Mr X’s email. If the agent did not have authorisation then the Council’s view that such information could not be accepted is not fault.
9. Further, it would reasonable as a landlord to check that no outstanding Council tax liability exists on a property after a change has been made to liability. In this case a Council tax payment had been made on the property in May 2021 but the property changed liability in August so no presumption that the Council tax was fully paid could be made.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman