The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the authority charging congestion charge for a vehicle which the owner had sold two years previously. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.
The complaint
Mr X says he sold a van which was subject to an automatic payment agreement for Congestion Charge. He sold the van in 2020 but the monthly payments continued to be charged until January 2022. He says the authority should have been aware the van had been sold and that it must have accepted payments from his company and the new owners which is unlawful. He wants the authority to refund him £425 in payments he made during the period after the van was sold.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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 we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Authority.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr X says he sold a van in early 2020 but the authority continued to collect the monthly automatic payment for the Congestion charge which his company had registered it for. He says he was unaware of the charge until 2022 because the employee who had access to the account left the company previously. He believes the authority should have been aware of the change in ownership and ended his payments. He also believes the authority may have collected duplicate payments for the same vehicle.
The authority publishes its terms and conditions for anyone signing for the automatic payments system. The details make it clear that the owner is responsible for: “ Providing us with the correct details and notifying us of any changes to those details;, including but not limited to changes in your personal contact details and the assignment or other transfer of a private/personalised vehicle registration number plate to any of your Registered Vehicle(s)” Mr X or his company accepted responsibility for informing the authority about the sale of the vehicle and ensuring the automatic payment was discontinued. He did not do so and continued to allow payments to be collected for almost two years even though these debits must have shown on his accounts.
The authority has confirmed to us that only one automatic payment arrangement can be made for a particular vehicle and as the arrangement was not cancelled it would not have been able to accept duplicate payments from the new owners.
There is insufficient evidence of any fault on the authority’s part in this matter.
Final decision
We will not investigate this complaint about the authority charging congestion charge for a vehicle which the owner had sold two years previously. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman