Summary: Mr X complains that the Council sent his council tax debt to bailiffs when he had already paid. He says this caused stress, distress, and took him time and trouble to resolve. The Ombudsman does not find the Council at fault.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to as Mr X, complains that the Council sent his council tax debt to bailiffs when he had already paid. He says this caused stress, distress, and sleepless nights, and took him time and trouble to resolve.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the information and documents provided by Mr X and the Council. I spoke to Mr X about his complaint. Mr X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on an earlier draft of this statement. I considered all comments and further information received before I reached a final decision.
4. I considered the relevant legislation, set out below.

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What I found

What should have happened

5. The primary legislation for council tax is the Local Government Finance Act 1992. The main secondary legislation concerned with collection and recovery is The Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992 (“the Regulations”). Councils are responsible for collecting council tax.
6. If a council tax payment is missed, a council must issue a reminder notice (at least seven days after the missed payment). If the arrears are not paid, the balance for the full year then becomes due. A council can then complain to the Magistrates Court and issue a summons. A liability order hearing is then heard in the Magistrates Court (at least 14 days after the service of the summons). The court can then grant a liability order.
7. Once a council has obtained a liability order it can take steps to recover the debt without any obligation to inform the debtor. This usually involves a council passing the debt to enforcement agents, known as bailiffs.
8. Councils’ computer systems will allocate payments according to some simple rules. Usually payments which are exactly equal to instalments or exact multiples of instalments will be allocated to the current year’s liability. After a summons is issued the computer system may then allocate instalment payments to any arrears, usually the oldest first, because the right to pay by instalments is lost once a final notice has been issued.

What happened

9. Mr X is in arrears with his council tax. The Council passed several years’ worth of council tax arrears to bailiffs to recover the debt. Mr X made regular payments to the bailiffs to pay off the arrears.
10. In 2019, the Council cross-matched its records of outstanding council tax debt with the bailiffs’ records. The Council’s records showed that Mr X’s arrears for the 2014/15 year were still outstanding, but the bailiffs’ records did not. The Council re-referred this debt to the bailiffs in September.
11. Mr X called the Council to ask about this debt because he believed he had paid it off. The Council sent Mr X a letter which said that payments are allocated to the oldest outstanding arrears first. It gave details of Mr X’s outstanding arrears for other years, and outlined what years’ debts he had paid off.
12. Mr X called the Council, and the Council agreed to take his debt back from the bailiffs. Mr X then complained to the Council.
13. The Council sent its stage one response to Mr X’s complaint. It said it had already told Mr X that payments are allocated to the oldest debt first. It confirmed that Mr X had paid off five years’ worth of arrears but that he still had several years’ worth of outstanding arrears.
14. The Council accepted that Mr X had been given conflicting information from the bailiffs and from the Council. It apologised for the distress caused by sending a duplicate bill for 2014/15 and said it had asked the bailiffs to refund Mr X the costs for the duplicated bill.
15. Mr X asked for his complaint to be dealt with at stage two.
16. In December, the Council sent its stage two complaint response. It repeated what it said in the stage one response. It again apologised for the frustration and confusion caused when the 2014/15 account error was not identified earlier. It said it had taken action to rectify the situation and was doing checks to make sure this would not happen again in future.
17. The Council said it had taken all of Mr X’s debts back from the bailiffs because of his concerns about the way payments were allocated against his arrears. It said to avoid any further confusion, Mr X’s arrears would stay with the Council.

Analysis

18. Mr X believes he paid off the 2014/15 debt because of his records. He says the Council moved money around and generated a new bill, which he felt he had already paid off.
19. The Council says when it cross-matched its records with bailiffs’ records, it found an error in how the money collected by bailiffs had been transferred to the arrears on the Council’s system. It appears that the bailiffs had not been recovering the oldest debts first, which was not in line with the Council’s policy. The Council has since asked bailiffs to recover oldest debts first, in line with its policy.
20. Mr X’s complaint is that the Council sent his 2014/15 debt back to bailiffs when he had already paid it. I do not find that he had already paid it, because the money he paid towards this debt should have been credited to his oldest debt first (the 2012/13 debt). Just because Mr X’s records show him that he paid it, does not mean that he paid it.
21. The Council is entitled to send any council tax debts to bailiffs. I therefore find that the Council was within its rights to send Mr X’s 2014/15 arrears to bailiffs.
22. I accept that Mr X was told conflicting things by the Council and the bailiffs. However, this does not mean that Mr X was caused an injustice. The bailiffs did not allocate Mr X’s payments to his oldest arrears first, but Mr X still owes arrears to the Council. The Council’s complaint responses show that Mr X is still in arrears for earlier council tax years (2012/13 and 2013/14) as well as later years.
23. Also, the costs associated with passing this debt back to bailiffs have been refunded to Mr X, so he is not out of pocket.
24. Mr X says the Council never told him it would allocate payments to the oldest years’ debts first. This is not fault. Furthermore, once Mr X contacted the Council to ask about the new bill for the 2014/15 debt, it told him how it allocates payments.

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Final decision

25. I have completed my investigation and I do not uphold Mr X’s complaint. This is because there is no fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman