Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about a council tax single person discount. Most of the complaint is late, and more recently there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to justify investigation. It was reasonable to expect Ms X to appeal regarding the Council’s single person discount decision.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains she asked the Council for a single person discount six years ago and assumed it had applied it. However, she says the Council sent her council tax bills to the wrong address for five years, so she did not know it failed to apply the discount. When she found out and raised this with the Council in 2025, it decided to backdate the discount to 2024 but refused to backdate it further.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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).
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, (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B)).

4. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone has a right of appeal, reference or review to a tribunal about the same matter. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to use this right. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended).
5. The Valuation Tribunal deals with appeals against decisions on council tax liability and council tax support or reduction.

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council. I also considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Ms X complained to the Council regarding the matters in paragraph 1.
8. The Council replied it received her move in form in August 2019, but this did not include a single person discount request. The Council said it had now backdated a single person discount to April 2024 as a goodwill gesture. But it said it could not backdate further than this in accordance with its policy. The Council said it had sent bills to Ms X’s new address from 2019.
9. Ms X complained further a Council officer told her it sent bills to her previous address. She also said the Council had not sent bills to her current address as she had not received any until recently.
10. The Council repeated it had sent all bills to her current address. It advised her she could appeal to the Valuation Tribunal within two months of its decision.
11. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint the Council was at fault because it did not send bills for six years. This complaint is late as Ms X was aware of the claimed fault more than 12 months before she brought her complaint to the Ombudsman in May 2025. It was reasonable to expect Ms X to complain in late 2019 or early 2020. There are no good reasons for Ms X’s complaint being late.
12. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint that the Council sent bills to the wrong address. Ms X says she found out about this in March 2025 because a Council officer advised her. The complaint is not late as Ms X has complained within time. However, there is not enough evidence the Council sent bills to the wrong address to justify investigation.
13. Ms X complains the Council should backdate the single person discount to 2019. It is reasonable to have expected Ms X to appeal to the Valuation Tribunal as that is the body set up to consider these appeals.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about not receiving bills because it is late. We will not investigation her complaint about the Council using the wrong address. Ms X could have appealed to the Valuation Tribunal, and it was reasonable to have expected her to do this.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman