Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council has dealt with the recovery of council tax. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains that the Council has refused to remove recovery costs from his council tax bill. Mr X says the costs were incurred after he moved out of a property and the Council failed to correspond with him appropriately about an outstanding balance.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate 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 continue 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.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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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 moved out of a property and provided the Council with his parents address so a cheque for a council tax overpayment could be forwarded to him whilst he found a new address. The Council made the payment but later received information that Mr X vacated the property later than originally believed.
6. The Council issued a new amended bill showing the balance owed and as Mr X had opted for electronic billing emails were sent to Mr X advising him to log onto the council tax online portal, a reminder was also sent electronically. No payment was received, so the Council sent a summons to Mr X’s parents address which incurred additional costs.
7. I will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. The Council listened back to recording of phone calls between Mr X and an advisor and noted that he told them that he had received emails alerting him to log on to its council tax portal and therefore I see no evidence that the Council did not inform Mr X of the new council tax bill before it issued its summons. There is no evidence of fault with the Council’s decision to send the summons to Mr X’s parents address, because this was the most recent address it had on file for Mr X. This also did not cause Mr X an injustice because the summons fee had already been incurred and so the delay in him seeing the summons did not lead to any additional costs being added.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman