Summary: We will not exercise discretion to investigate this complaint about the Council taking court action to recover unpaid council tax from 2022. This complaint was received outside the normal 12-month period for investigating complaints. There is no evidence to suggest that Mr X could not have complained to us sooner. We cannot investigate matters which have been subject to court proceedings.

The complaint

Mr X complained about the Council delaying notifying of council tax due in 2022 when he moved to a new address. He says the Council delayed 10 months before notifying him. Since then, he has received four court liability orders and is being pursued by enforcement agents from two different agencies. He wants the Council to remove the debt from 2022 because he says it is unreasonable to pursue him for it.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

1. 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)
2. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the 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 he notified the Council in May 2022 that he had vacated his address in March. The Council closed his account but did not find out about his new address until August when it sent a form for him to complete. The Council says this form and another sent in October were not returned by Mr X and it only found he had occupied in March from the property developer and the Valuation Office Agency.
6. Since this time the Council has taken court action and obtained liability orders on four occasions for both addresses and orders have been passed to enforcement agents for recovery after instalment arrangements were broken.
7. Mr X made a formal complaint to the Council in 2024 and then to us. We will not investigate matters which the complainant has been aware of more than 12 months before they made a complaint to us. The time for receiving complaints is from when someone became aware of the matter they wish to complain about, not when they complained to the Council or it issued its final response. We would expect someone to complain to us within a year, even if they were dissatisfied with the time the complaints procedure was taking.
8. We have some discretion to consider older complaints but in this case the separate debts have been subject to proceedings in the magistrates court and we cannot investigate decisions made by the court about council tax arrears and liability. It was reasonable for Mr X to challenge the court hearings at the time.

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Final decision

9. We will not exercise discretion to investigate this complaint about the Council taking court action to recover unpaid council tax from 2022. This complaint was received outside the normal 12-month period for investigating complaints. There is no evidence to suggest that Mr X could not have complained to us sooner. We cannot investigate matters which have been subject to court proceedings.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman