The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about liability for business rates which the Council has billed him for. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.
The complaint
Mr X complained about the Council billing him for a business unit which he occupies part of but for which he has been made liable for business rates for the whole space. He wants the Council to recognise that the unit has been divided and that he is only liable for the space which he is using.
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, 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), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered the information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr X says he is using a business unit for his operations but that he only occupies part of a unit which has been previously divided. The Council has billed him for occupation of the whole unit and he says this is incorrect and that he is being made liable for space which he is not using.
Mr X challenged the Council’s rates demands and it informed him that as billing authority it can only send demands for the unit as described in the rating list produced by the Valuation Office Agency. Mr X says he has contacted the Agency without receiving any response.The Council also contacted the Agency on his behalf and it confirmed that it is processing his challenge to the listing.
The Council says it will not take recovery action against him until the outcome for the listing challenge has been decided by the Agency. It has no authority to ask the Agency to accelerate the procedure.
I can see no fault in the Council’s actions in this matter. As the billing authority it is required to recover the rates for the liability in the Valuation Office Agency’s listing. We have no jurisdiction to investigate the Agency which has its own complaints procedure and is a government body accountable to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about liability for business rates which the Council has billed him for. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman