The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about Council tax enforcement as the matter is out of time and there is no evidence of fault by the Council.
The complaint
Mr X complains that the Council failed to contact him about a Council tax debt which led to a Liability Order and costs.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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) 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 not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr X notified the Council in August 2021 that he was moving house and to communicate only by email for any Council tax debt, The Council sent him a final bill for £291 in September 2021 by email. The debt was not paid and so the Council obtained a summons in December 2021 and the debt was passed to bailiffs in February 2022. The bailiffs contacted Mr X in October 2023.
Mr X says that he instructed the Council to only communicate by email as he was abroad.
The Council says that it has to notify in writing of any legal enforcement but Mr X did not provide an address or permit the Council to do so. As a result, enforcement communication was sent to the last known address.
Mr X was aware in September 2021 of a Council tax bill and should therefore have been aware that enforcement action would follow any non-payment. As such the complaint is out of time.
Notwithstanding this, there is no evidence that the Council acted with fault in its communication with Mr X. The Council was not permitted to send enforcement notices via email and so their alleged failure to do so was not fault.
Our role is not to ask whether an organisation could have done things better, or whether we agree or disagree with what it did. Instead, we look at whether there was fault in how it made its decisions. If we decide there was no fault in how it did so, we cannot ask whether it should have made a particular decision or say it should have reached a different outcome.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is out of time and there is no evidence of fault by the Council.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman