Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to take recovery action on Ms X’s council tax account. This is because we would be unlikely to find fault with the Council’s actions.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained the Council passed debt on her Council tax account to an enforcement agency. She said the agency did not try hard enough to alert her to the outstanding debt on the account before applying additional charges.
2. Ms X said this issue has caused her stress and financial loss.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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.

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

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Ms X and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. In cases where council tax arrears remain unpaid, councils can apply to the magistrates court for a liability order. The council can charge costs for the issue of the order. The council can then pass the account to an enforcement agency (EA) to recover the debt. At this point, the agency acts to recover the outstanding monies.
7. After Ms X’s council tax account fell into arrears, she entered a payment arrangement with the Council. Ms X failed to keep to the agreed payments, so the Council applied for a liability order and referred the account to an EA to recoup the outstanding balance. Additional fees were added to the balance.
8. An EA agent visited Ms X’s home and delivered a letter informing Ms X it would soon be taking recovery action against her if she did not make payments to the account. Ms X did not initially respond to the letter and further fees were added to the outstanding debt.
9. Ms X contacted the EA and explained she did not receive the letter. She said the EA should have given the letter to her directly and it was unfair she incurred additional fees. The EA agreed to suspend recovery action but would not remove the additional fees.
10. Ms X wants us to find the Council at fault for passing her account to an EA and for adding fees to her account. The Council successfully applied for a liability order and passed the account to the EA due to repeated non payment on Ms X’s part. The Council followed the law in taking this action. The EA applied further fees after Ms X did not respond to its letter, which was in line with the law. Ms X states she did not receive the letter. However, there is evidence the EA did send the letter to Ms X’s address. We do not expect councils to show proof of receipt, only proof of postage. There is no evidence of fault in the recovery action taken on Ms X’s account.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because we would be unlikely to find fault with the Council’s actions.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman