Summary: Miss K complained about the Council’s handling of her council tax account. Miss K said this caused her great distress. We found fault with the Council’s actions which caused injustice to Miss K. The Council will apologise to Miss K and make a financial remedy to her.

The complaint

1. Miss K complains about the Council’s handling of her council tax account. In particular she says the Council:

• failed to calculate correctly how much council tax was owed;
• took recovery action despite her paying more than owed;
• refused her council tax support application;
• delayed responding to her complaints; and
• refused to return telephone calls.

2. Miss K says this has caused her great distress and she was admitted to hospital twice while pregnant as a direct result of actions by the Council.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
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)
5. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone has a right of appeal, reference or review to a tribunal about the same matter. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to use this right. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
6. The Valuation Tribunal deals with appeals against decisions on council tax liability and council tax support or reduction.
7. 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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What I have and have not investigated

8. I have investigated Miss K’s complaint that the council failed to calculate how much council tax was owed, that it took recovery despite her paying more than owed, that it delayed responding to her complaints and that it refused to return telephone calls.
9. I have not investigated Miss K’s complaint about the Council refusing her council tax support application. This is because Miss K had a right of appeal against this decision to the Valuation Tribunal. The tribunal is an independent expert body whose decisions are binding on the Council. It would be reasonable for Miss K to make an appeal and therefore I have not investigated this part of the complaint.
10. In addition to this, I have not investigated events that happened prior to September 2022, apart from those that Miss K only became aware of after this date. This is because it would have been reasonable for Miss K to have complained about these matters to the Ombudsman before September 2023 and I have not seen a good reason to use my discretion to investigate.

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How I considered this complaint

11. I have considered the information Miss K provided. I also considered the information the Council provided in response to my enquiries.
12. Miss K and the Council have the opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I have considered these comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Legislation and Guidance

Council tax - recovery summary

13. The Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992 cover both the way councils collect payments of council tax and the way councils can recover council tax debt. The Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 and associated regulations cover the way enforcement agents may recover debts.
14. The council tax bill for the year is due on 1 April. A council will usually collect payment through monthly instalments. If the liable person misses any instalment, the council will send them 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).
15. To use the various powers available to it to recover unpaid council tax, a council must apply to a magistrate’s court for a liability order against those it believes are liable. Once a council has a liability order it can take recovery action.
16. A liability order gives a council the legal power to take enforcement action to collect the council tax and court costs owed. The most commonly used powers are asking for deductions from benefits, getting an attachment of earnings (this means deductions are taken directly from earnings by an employer and passed to the council) or using enforcement agents. The council can decide which recovery method to use but it can only use one method for one liability order at one time.
17. The ‘Taking Control of Goods (Fees) Regulations 2014’ sets out the fees an enforcement agent can charge when recovering debt.

Council’s Council Tax Collection and Recovery Policy

18. The Council’s council tax collection and recovery policy states that the Council will “ensure that we take account of known vulnerabilities of residents and that recovery actions taken are proportionate to a person’s circumstances”.

Council’s Complaints Procedure

19. The Council states it will respond to stage one complaints within 20 working days. If a person is unhappy with the stage one complaint response, this can be escalated to stage two. The Council states it will investigate and respond to stage two complaints within 25 working days.

Background

20. In April 2021, the Council issued a backdated council tax bill for 2020/21 and bill for 2021/22. This was because Miss K moved into a new property in July 2020 and did not tell the Council this.
21. Miss K contacted the Council which told her she could apply for council tax support and single person discount due to her personal circumstances. Miss K stated she could not afford to pay the backdated amount alongside the payments due for the council tax year 2021/22.
22. Throughout 2021, Miss K disputed the amount the Council said she had paid as she believed she had paid more. In December 2021, two liability orders were issued for council tax year 2020/21 and 2021/22.
23. In May 2022, the Council passed the arrears for 2021/22 to the enforcement agency as it says Miss K had not paid in line with an agreed payment arrangement. However, Miss K disputes this and says the Council took an unarranged amount and so she retrieved the money and paid the correct amount once this was returned to her. The Council also told her the balance for 2022/23 council tax year had reached final reminder stage.

24. In late August, Miss K telephoned the Council. In this call she stated she was in the late stages of pregnancy. Miss K was again disputing the payments made compared to bills that she had received. The Council stated it would investigate this and call her back.
25. In August, the Council issued a summons for 2022/23 council tax year.
26. The following day, the Council contacted Miss K. Miss K stated she was in hospital as she had just had a baby. She stated she believed she had paid more to the Council than had been assigned to the arrears. The Council again stated it would investigate this and get back to her within days.

My investigation – council tax account

27. At the end of September, a further liability order was issued for financial year 2022/23 due to arrears on Miss K’s account.
28. Throughout September and October, Miss K contacted the Council on several occasions to ask for an update on her complaint and the requested return phone calls. The Council told Miss K to await a callback.
29. On 5 October, Miss K contacted the Council to ask what she owed on her account. The Council offered to set up a payment arrangement. Miss K stated she could not afford this and declined to set up an arrangement.
30. The following day, Miss K submitted a further complaint. She complained that she had not received a response from her stage one complaint and the Council had failed to return her call. Miss K also complained that she had set up a payment arrangement in 2021 and had told the Council she would not be able to pay the 2022/23 bill until this arrangement had finished. Miss K again stated she had paid more than the Council had recorded. Miss K stated that this situation had caused her undue stress during her pregnancy.
31. On 7 October, Miss K contacted the Council, and a payment arrangement was agreed.
32. On 1 November, Miss K emailed the Council again stating that she believed she had overpaid her council tax. The Council asked Miss K to provide evidence of the payments which she thought the Council were missing.
33. The Council responded over a week later saying that payments can be allocated to any year where there are arrears. The Council sent Miss K a link so she could view payments received online.
34. The Council replied to Miss K’s stage one response in a letter dated 10 October. It did not uphold her complaint. The Council said the confusion arose because payments were allocated to different financial years due to the arrears, instead of one year being cleared at a time.
35. The Council explained it passed the account to the enforcement agency in May 2022. However, Miss K made a payment directly to the Council at the end of May, and the Council failed to tell the enforcement agency about this payment. Therefore, the enforcement agency was still seeking the full amount from Miss K. The Council apologised for this oversight.
36. The Council confirmed the account was referred to the enforcement agency correctly because Miss K did not adhere to the payment arrangement in place.
37. In May 2023, the Council withdrew Miss K’s single person discount. The Council said this was because Miss K did not respond to the review or reminder letters it had sent. The Council sent a new bill to reflect this.
38. Miss K contacted the Council in June disputing the removal of the single person discount. She said she did not receive the review or reminder. The Council told her to fill in the appeals form. The Council’s records say that Miss K also stated she would now only pay £100 per month and not the required instalments and would cancel her direct debit. The Council told this would mean it would start debt recovery.
39. The Council responded to Miss K’s stage two complaint in June. This response agreed with the findings in stage one and did not uphold the complaint. The Council stated although there was an error in communication with the enforcement agency, the council tax account remained in the same overall position. The Council concluded it found no evidence of service failure in the way it collected outstanding council tax.
40. Council records from July and August related to a ‘system error’ where there was a discrepancy about an amount of £117.83. Miss K contacted the Council about this issue. The Council explained that the error occurred when it reapplied Miss K’s single person discount to the account. This created a system error and to fix this error the Council needed to transfer payments from one financial year to another.
41. In November and December, Miss K telephoned the Council on two occasions. She stated she was upset about the amount showing left to pay for the 2022/23 financial year and believed this was more than she owed. Miss K complained the Council had ignored her emails and proof of payments.
42. Miss K sent a further complaint to the Council on 7 December referring to the “continual errors and miscalculation” of her council tax.
43. The Council responded to this in January 2024 and provided a chronology of events.
44. The Council apologised for the confusion Miss K had experienced in receiving correspondence with varying amounts due. The Council stated there had been an error in its recording of payments in July 2023. The Council explained Miss K’s account was incorrectly debited the sum of £516.90 twice. The Council confirmed it had now credited £516.90 which had corrected the error. The Council upheld this complaint.
45. The Council confirmed that from 25 January 2024 Miss K had no council tax arrears.

My investigation – complaint handling

46. Miss K made a stage one complaint to the Council in July 2022.
47. As the Council did not respond to this, Miss K submitted a stage two complaint on 6 October.
48. The Council responded to Miss K’s complaints in a letter dated 10 October, however, did not send this until 10 November. The Council stated it was responding to Miss K’s complaints from July and October together within the stage one process.
49. As Miss K did not agree with the findings of the stage one complaint, she submitted a stage two complaint on 12 December.
50. On 6 June 2023, the Council responded to Miss K’s stage two complaint. The Council apologised for the delay and stated it was dealing with a high caseload which impacted on its ability to meet published timeframes. The Council also apologised for the delay in dealing with the stage one complaint and cited the same reasons. The Council apologised for not accepting Miss K’s previous stage two complaint and said this was because it had not then had the opportunity to respond to the stage one complaint.

Analysis

The Council failed to calculate correctly how much council tax is owed

51. Miss K complained the Council failed to calculate correctly how much council tax was owed.
52. As Miss K did not set up a council tax account when she moved into the property, the council requested she paid the outstanding amount when it became aware of her liability. The onus is on the occupier to set up a council tax account.
53. Miss K had arrears covering a number of financial years, it was not fault for the Council to take recovery action.
54. The Council has however acknowledged and apologised for two errors it made about Miss K’s council tax account.
55. In the stage one complaint response letter that Miss K received in November 2022, the Council explained it had made an error in May 2022 as it failed to inform the enforcement agency that Miss K had made a payment directly to it and so the enforcement agency continued to ask for the full amount. As Miss K did not become aware of this issue until November 2022, I have included this error in this investigation. The Council admitted fault in relation to this which caused Miss K frustration. However, the error did not result in Miss K paying more than she owed overall across all financial years.
56. In addition to this, in January 2024, the Council admitted that it had made a further error in recording payments in July 2023. It explained that Miss K’s account was incorrectly debited the sum of £516.90 twice in error. This is fault. The Council have already apologised for this fault. The fault caused Miss K further frustration. However, it is clear from the documents that this error did not result in Miss K paying more than she owed.
57. I also note that from September 2022 to November 2023 the Council sent Miss K 22 separate pieces of correspondence about her council tax account. This correspondence included billing, reminders and liability documents. I accept this could have been confusing for Miss K. However, the council tax regulations say a Council must provide correspondence related to billing, reminders and liability documents. So, there is no fault here. Also, some of these documents were sent as a direct result of Miss K’s actions; for example, when she cancelled her direct debit or did not complete the single person discount review forms. I find no fault here.

The Council took recovery action despite Miss K paying more than owed

58. As I have explained above, there is no evidence that Miss K paid more than she owed over the total arrears that were due covering all financial years.
59. Miss K stated the actions of the Council, including recovery actions caused her so much distress that she was admitted to hospital twice while heavily pregnant. I am unable to investigate this point as this is related to a personal injury complaint, which the courts are best placed to rule on. We cannot make clinical findings and so we are unable to say if this was a direct result of the Council’s actions.
60. However, I have considered whether the Council considered Miss K’s personal circumstances when handling her council tax account.
61. The Council stated it first became aware of Miss K’s potential vulnerability at the end of August during two phone calls where she said she was pregnant and on one occasion in hospital having just had a baby. However, Miss K disputes this as she says she contacted the Council in June and told it she was pregnant. In October 2022 Miss K also complained to the Council that she felt she had been “mistreated and neglected by the authority”.
62. It must be noted that having a vulnerability does not mean a person cannot be subject to debt enforcement. The Council’s council tax collection and recovery policy states that the Council will “ensure that we take account of known vulnerabilities of residents and that recovery actions taken are proportionate to a person’s circumstances”.
63. The Council responded to this point saying that it gave Miss K the opportunity to pay by arrangement on many occasions and no enforcement visits were made.
64. Also, around the time that Miss K shared with the Council that she was pregnant, the courts granted a further liability order. The Council did not refer the arrears to the enforcement agency at this time, instead it provided Miss K with the opportunity to repay the arrears by way of a payment arrangement.
65. The Council had a duty to recover the council tax arrears, however it had tried to do this using the least intrusive option which was a payment arrangement. Therefore, there is no evidence of fault about this matter.

The Council delayed responding to Miss K’s complaints

66. Miss K complained that the Council delayed responding to her complaints.
67. Following Miss K’s stage one complaint, it took the Council over 15 weeks to respond. The Council’s policy says it will respond to stage one complaints within 20 working days. This did not happen, and this is fault.
68. Miss K then made a stage two complaint. The Council stated it received this on 13 December 2022. It took the Council over 25 weeks to respond to this complaint. The Council’s policy says it will respond to stage two complaints within 25 working days. The Council took considerably longer than this, and this is fault.
69. I have viewed both the stage one and stage two complaint responses. Neither of these upheld Miss K’s complaints. If the Council had responded on time, it would not have prevented further recovery or enforcement action being taken as Miss K had not paid more than was owed. However, I recognise that there was a significant delay in responding to these complaints which resulted in avoidable frustration.

The Council refused to return telephone calls

70. Miss K complained the Council refused to return her telephone calls.
71. Miss K also complained to the Council about this in one of her complaints, however the Council failed to respond to this point in its complaint response.
72. There is evidence that Miss K contacted the Council on several occasions and was told that she would receive a call back. In September and October 2022 Miss K called the Council six times and did not receive a call back.
73. The Council does not have a policy around returning telephone calls. However, in 2018 the Ombudsman published a guidance document setting out the standards we expect from bodies in jurisdiction called ‘Principles of Good Administrative Practice’. This includes “dealing with people helpfully, promptly and sensitively, taking account of their individual circumstances” and “taking responsibility for actions”.
74. I find fault in failure of the Council to return Miss K’s telephone calls. This caused Miss K further frustration.

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Agreed action

75. Within one month of my final decision the Council have agreed to:

• apologise to Miss K for the faults and injustice identified in this statement and
• make a payment of £150 to Miss K to reflect her frustration.

76. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

77. I have completed my investigation with a finding of fault causing injustice.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman