Summary: The complainant complains she paid the Council to change name of her property. The Council should have contacted organisations to advise them of the change. But organisations she contacted advised they had not received notification. She says she experienced inconvenience and avoidable time and trouble as a result. Our decision is the Council contacted organisations about the change of address. So there was no fault by it.

The complaint

1. The complainant (Ms S) complains she paid the Council to assist her with a change in the name of her property. The Council said it contacted a range of third parties about the name change. But four of the five organisations she contacted said they had not heard from the Council. The Royal Mail said the Council had used a little monitored email address.
2. The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) had an incorrect address for her property, put there by the Council in 2017. This meant it could not change an address they did not have.
3. Ms S says she had to visit the Council’s reception to get a postal authority letter for the Land Registry. That they needed a letter is proof that, twice, they had not heard from the Council.
4. Ms S says she experienced inconvenience and avoidable time and trouble as a result of the Council’s administrative faults. The Council should have been more proactive in confirming organisations had received its emails.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

5. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
6. 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)
7. 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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What I have and have not investigated

8. I have not investigated what happened with the VOA in 2017. That is over 12 months ago. Even if there were good reasons why Ms S did not complain within 12 months (see paragraph 6), I am not confident that there is a realistic prospect of reaching a sound, fair, and meaningful decision, given the passage of time.

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How I considered this complaint

9. The information I have seen includes the documents Ms S supplied with her complaint and the Council’s responses to the Ombudsman’s initial enquires. I have discussed the complaint with Ms S and considered further information from her.
10. I sent Ms S and the Council a copy of my draft decision and invited their comments.

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What I found

Legal and administrative background

11. The Local Government Act 2003 gives councils the power to charge for discretionary services, as long as the charge does not exceed the cost of providing the service.
12. Street naming and numbering is the legal responsibility of local authorities (Borough or District Councils in two tier areas).
13. The Council’s policy for changing the name or number of a property:
• charges a £25 fee for each application;
• names a list of internal and external departments it would contact as part of the name changing process.
14. The Land Registry has its own form for updating its register. It also needs an applicant to send it evidence form the local council’s street name and numbering department.

What happened

15. Ms S reports she has had problems over several years with a neighbour regarding the names used for their properties.
16. In August 2023 she asked the Council’s Street Naming and Numbering Team to change the name of her home. She paid the Council a £25 fee.
17. A few days later, the Council emailed various organisations to advise them of the change to Ms S’s address. The Council has supplied us with copies of these emails. Amongst the recipients were the Royal Mail, Land Registry and the VOA.
18. Towards the end of August the Royal Mail advised Ms F that its address file and on-line service showed her property’s new name in its files.
19. In October 2023 Ms S complained to the Council that organisations she had contacted were not aware of the change of address.
20. The Council responded by sending further emails to some of the organisations confirming Ms S’s change of address.
21. Ms S has sent us communications with the Land Registry’s customer support. This advises her that, to change her property’s description on the register, it would need her to complete its form and send evidence from the Council advising of the new address.
22. In February 2024 Ms S complained to the Council, listing organisations that still did not have the details of her address.
23. The Council’s complaint responses advised:
• it had emailed several organisations in August, some to multiple email addresses. It gave Ms S a list of the organisations it contacted;
• if any email addresses were incorrect, changed, or not being used by an organisation, the email would not have been delivered and its system would have logged that. It had not had any notice that any of these emails had not reached their recipient;
• it had investigated whether there were other instances of emails not reaching their recipient. It found, in the last year, only four examples when it received delivery failure reports.
24. Ms S has reported that:
• she had had to go to Council offices on the Land Registry’s instruction, to get a letter so she could change the register. She says this shows the Council had not contacted the Registry;
• the Royal Mail was able to swiftly change her address after she contacted it. It advised it told her the email addresses the Council used were not regularly monitored.

Analysis

25. The Council has sent us evidence it contacted several organisations on processing Ms S’s application. It says it did not receive any notification of non-delivery.
26. Contrary to Ms S’s expectations of what it should have done, the Council was under no obligation, either through the law or its own policy, to check with organisations they had received its contacts. So I cannot fault the Council for not doing so.
27. In October, after Ms S’s complaint, the Council did send a further emails to some organisations. It was good practice for the Council to do this, but it was under no obligation to do so.
28. So my decision is that, while acknowledging Ms S’s frustration with the process, this was not due to any fault by the Council. In regard to the specific complaints about the Land Registry and Royal Mail, I am satisfied it did contact these organisations. That was all it required to do.

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Final decision

29. I do not uphold the complaint and make a finding of no fault. I have completed my investigation.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman