Summary: Mr X complains the Council took enforcement action wrongly, and recovered funds for the debt from the wrong company. The Ombudsman finds no fault with the Council for the process of enforcement action. The Ombudsman has not investigated the part of the complaint about recovered funds, as the Council has already provided a remedy.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council wrongly took payment from his company to recover a debt towards a different company
2. Mr X complains the Council failed to issue enforcement notices, which lead to enforcement action he was not aware of and caused his company to incur debt.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

5. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered Mr X’s complaint and information he provided. I also considered information from the Council.
7. I considered comments received on a draft of my decision.

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What I found

What happened

8. Mr X is the director of two companies, I shall refer to these as Company A and Company B.
9. The Council took enforcement action on Company A for unpaid business rates. Enforcement officers attended the property for Company A to carry out enforcement action. Mr X was at the property, and settled the debt with funds from Company B.
10. Mr X complained to the Council that it had levied the unpaid debt of Company A against Company B. He complained the Council had not properly communicated about the debt and had not followed the process for taking enforcement action.
11. In the Councils response, it explained how it had calculated the debt, and the action taken was against Company A, and not an individual. It said that it had taken the correct method when arranging enforcement action and had evidence of following the process.
12. The Council later refunded Mr X the funds for Company B.

Analysis

Recovery of funds

13. Part of Mr X’s complaint is the Council took funds from Company B for the debt of Company A.
14. At first the Council said it would refund Company B once Company A settled the debt. Mr X says that this is essentially levying Company A debt against Company B.
15. The Council has since refunded the funds to Company B. The Ombudsman would not be able to achieve an alternative remedy to this outcome. Therefore, I will not consider this part of the complaint further.

Evidence of enforcement action

16. Part of Mr X’s complaint is the Council did not follow the process for enforcement.
17. The Council has been able to evidence the process it took, including providing liability orders, proof of postage of enforcement action, and the communication sent to Company A.
18. We may not question the merits of decisions which have been properly made. We do not comment on judgements councils make unless they are affected by fault in the decision-making process. In this case the summons and liability order used the registered company address, and this was a valid address according to the guidance on recovery.
19. I consider there to be no fault in how the Council communicated about enforcement action.

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Final decision

20. I have now completed my investigation. I find no fault with the Council for how it managed enforcement action. This is because there is no further remedy the Ombudsman could make, and the Council has showed it followed the enforcement process.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman