Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the allocation of council tax payments. This because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, says the Council allocated payments to his council tax arrears rather than using them to pay his current council tax. Mr X did not know the payments were being used for the arrears and could not understand why he was accruing further arrears and costs. Mr X wants the Council to remove the fees, reduce the arrears, and pay compensation.

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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 an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (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 Mr X and the Council. This includes the complaint correspondence. I also considered our Assessment Code.

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My assessment

4. Council tax is a largely automated system. If someone has arrears and makes a payment that does not specifically reflect the amount on the current bill, then the system will allocate the payment to the oldest debt, unless the person requests the payment is used for the current year. If the person pays exactly as billed the payment will be used for the current bill.
5. Mr X has council tax arrears going back to about 2017. In 2021 he made regular payments although the payments were not on the date specified on the bill. He had arrears with the bailiffs and Mr X sent the 2021 payments to the bailiffs, using their reference number. The bailiffs used the payments for the arrears they were collecting. This meant Mr X did not pay enough to cover his current council tax; it was a similar situation in 2022 and 2023 although in the later years he did make more payments to the Council rather than to the bailiffs. However, the payments to the Council were not paid as billed and there were late or missing payments.
6. Following Mr X’s complaint, the Council explained why his payments were used for the arrears. The Council confirmed the fees were correct. To try to help Mr X, it offered a different payment date and offered to recall the debt from the bailiffs so he could make a single payment for the arrears without incurring further costs.
7. I will not start an investigation because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council. I do not doubt Mr X intended to make payments for the current year and thought that was what he was doing. But, as he was sending the payments to the bailiffs, using their reference, then it was not fault for the payments to be used for the arrears. In addition, his payments did not match the bills. Each year when he got the new annual bill, it would have shown that he had not been making payments for the previous year – for example, the bill for 2022/23 would have shown substantial arrears for 2021/22. I appreciate council tax can be confusing but the annual bill was an opportunity for Mr X to have realised he was not paying his current council tax.
8. There is nothing to indicate the Council has done anything wrong but, instead, it tried to help by recalling the debt from the bailiffs and changing Mr X’s payment date. Mr X has been making regular payments, and it must be frustrating when further fees accrued; but I have not seen any suggestion of fault by the Council and there is no reason to start an investigation.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman