The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of Miss X’s council tax account as there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council to warrant our involvement.
The complaint
Miss X complains the Council wrongly took recovery action for council tax arrears which has resulted in extra costs being added to the account and has caused Miss X stress.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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 (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Miss X complains she did not know about recovery action the Council took in respect of council tax arrears as the Council sent notices about this to her old address. Miss X says that prior to moving, she had telephoned the Council to provide it with her new address.
The Council says it has no record of the telephone call in question and was not provided with a forwarding address. It therefore sent notices to the address on file, and says none of these were returned as undelivered.
Miss X is unable to provide a record of the telephone call as she says due to the length of time since the call was made, that record is no longer available.
As there is no record available of the call, there is no corroborating evidence to support Miss X’s case that she gave the Council her forwarding address and, on balance, therefore insufficient evidence that the Council acted with fault by sending notices to Miss X’s old address. For this reason, we will not investigate.
Final decision
We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council in respect of the recovery action it took.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman