London Borough of Sutton (25 024 757)
Category : Benefits and tax > Council tax
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 12 May 2026
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s delay in responding to his email. A further investigation is unlikely to achieve anything worthwhile.
The complaint
- Mr X says he emailed the Council in April 2025 to ask for old copies of his council tax bills. He complains the Council took about two months to respond. Mr X said this is not a reasonable timeframe to respond to a query.
- He says the Council’s delay also caused a delay in him being able to put his father’s property on the market. He said he therefore narrowly missed the six-month deadline for completion and avoiding council tax.
- Mr X says he now owes council tax because of the Council’s delay. He would like the Council to cancel the council tax due or pay him compensation for the delay.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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 no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B)).
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- The Council has already apologised for its delay and explained that April is its busiest month of the year. It said it receives large volumes of correspondence in April, and this sometimes leads to delays in response times.
- The Council said it replied to Mr X’s query as soon as it could. However, it also explained it had amended the autoreply on its email systems to tell customers about potential delays in responding to correspondence.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because a further investigation is unlikely to achieve anything worthwhile.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman