Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of Mr X’s Council Tax account. This is because we are unlikely to find evidence of fault by the Council sufficient to warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council mishandled his Council Tax account and failed to cancel a summons which had been incorrectly issued and which he had been told would be cancelled.

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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 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), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant, including the Council’s response to his complaint.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mr X moved into his property in May 2023 and he received an amended Council Tax bill which contained the 25% single person discount in July. This bill required Mr X to make a set monthly payments from September 2023 to March 2024. He paid the first instalment due in September and then two further payments in November and December. As he did not pay the October payment the Council sent him two reminders.
6. As this was still not paid, the Council issued a final notice in January 2024. When this was returned by Royal Mail with an addressee gone away sticker, the Council carried out a search and sent the summons for outstanding Council Tax to Mr X at his new address on 22 February.
7. Mr X then contacted the Council on 28 February and advised he had moved out the property in January 2024. The Council sent a revised bill out to him in April but confirmed the summons and the costs would not be removed. It explained while he had lived at his old address, he had not made the payments due.
8. It did acknowledge that it had delayed in issuing the final bill sent to him in April 2024 and that in error it had passed his case on to bailiffs although it recalled it when the error was discovered. It confirmed that contrary to Mr X’s claim, it had no record of staff telling Mr X when he called in February 2024 that the summons would be cancelled.
9. The summons was not inaccurate based on the information the Council had at the time it was issued. It had been issued to his new address on 22 February and he did not call to discuss payment until 28 February. That the bill was reduced once it was established when he had moved out does not change the fact that he had an outstanding debt for a time prior to when he moved out.
10. We do not investigate every complaint we receive and while I understand Mr X is dissatisfied with the outcome of the Council’s investigation of his complaint, I see no grounds sufficient to warrant an investigation by the Ombudsman. Mr X says he was told the summons would be cancelled but I have seen no evidence to support this claim and the Council has said it would not have been its policy to do so when the issue of the summons and the amount owed was correct based on the information it had at the time.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we are unlikely to find evidence of fault by the Council sufficient to warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman