Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s decision to start recovery action for unpaid council tax. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to justify an investigation. The law prevents us investigating the Council’s court action.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains the Council wrongly started recovery action for unpaid council tax.
2. Mrs X says the Council has also added fees to her account, including enforcement fees, a court summons fee and a liability order fee.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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.
4. 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

5. I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. If a council has a liability order from the magistrates’ court, it can ask an enforcement agent to visit a person’s property and take goods worth up to the amount of council tax debt and costs. Regulations set out how much an enforcement agent can charge when recovering debt and the three stages they must follow. These are the compliance stage, the enforcement stage and the sale or disposal stage.
8. The law prevents us from investigating the start and conduct of court action, as set out in paragraph 4. We cannot investigate the Council’s conduct between it issuing the summons and the court granting the Council a liability order.
9. Mrs X is a landlord, and the council tax is for the property she rents out. Mrs X is liable for paying the council tax when there are no tenants living in the property.
10. Mrs X believes the Council was wrong to start recovery action as she had paid council tax every month. The Council said in September 2024 Mrs X should pay £167.07 per month by the fifth day of each month. Mrs X paid that amount each month for the next three months. However, she made those payments on 21 October, 29 November and 9 December 2024. Those payments were all later than the date the Council had specified.
11. We recognise that Mrs X said some occasions were due to potential tenants withdrawing at late notice. However, the Council is entitled to expect specified council tax payments to be made by the specified date. When the Council decided to consider recovery action, which was on or just before 13 November 2024, Mrs X’s account was in arrears. So, the Council was not at fault for moving to recovery action.
12. Mrs X said the Council knew she was a landlord, the property would be rented out and the council tax was being paid. Mrs X believes the Council could have used that knowledge and its discretion to not use enforcement agents. However, the Council cannot assume a change of circumstances will happen that will remove someone’s liability for council tax. The relevant points were that Mrs X was liable to pay and the expected payments had repeatedly been late. Therefore, there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council for us to investigate this point.
13. Mrs X said she did not owe anything when the Council passed the case to enforcement agents. It appears Mrs X paid that month’s instalment on the same day as the Council passed the case to enforcement agents. The court order would have required Mrs X to pay the whole remaining council tax for the year, not just a particular month’s instalment. Mrs X had not paid the remaining council tax for the year at that time. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council considering Mrs X owed this debt and passing the case to enforcement agents.
14. On the point about the Council adding fees to Mrs X’s account, I have seen no evidence to suggest the first two stages of enforcement action did not happen. So, there is no evidence the Council is at fault for asking Mrs X to pay these fees.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to justify an investigation. The law prevents us investigating the Council starting court action.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman