Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council issuing a council tax demand in the year following the death of Mrs X’s father. The Council apologised for the distress caused and the bill was cancelled shortly afterwards. There is insufficient remaining injustice to warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained about the Council issuing a council tax demand in 2024 for the council tax year when her father had died the previous year and she had notified the Council with a general notification to al of its departments involved with his affairs. She says this caused her distress and she was required to provide additional information related to his time in a care home to qualify for exemptions to his account.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the information provided by the complainant and the Council’s response.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mrs X says her father died in 2023 and in August of that year she submitted a ‘Tell us Once’ form to the Council which is intended to be sufficient to inform all the relevant Council departments of a resident’s death. She has provided confirmation from the Electoral Registration department that it had received the notification.
6. In March 2024 Mrs X sold her father’s home and afterwards received a council tax demand in his name. She was upset by this and was required to provide a copy of the death certificate to prove this was correct. She complained to the Council because she says the form she completed in 2023 was designed to notify all departments and the council tax authority told her it had not received any notification.
7. The Council did apologise and it asked for details of the form’s acknowledgement so that it could investigate what had gone wrong with the notification process. We have provided the Council with the code which was sent to Mrs X when she completed the form and it should be able to investigate the failure from this information.
8. The Local Government Ombudsman must use the resources available to her as effectively as possible. Those resources are limited and we have to prioritise for investigation those complaints which are likely to result in significant injustice to the individual. This means we will normally only investigate a complaint where the complainant has suffered serious loss, harm, or distress as a direct result of faults or failures. We will not normally investigate a complaint where the alleged loss or injustice is not a serious or significant matter.
9. In this case the Council has apologised for the distress caused by the failure to close the council tax account and it has asked Mrs X for information which will enable it to identify the source of the failure.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council issuing a council tax demand in the year following the death of Mrs X’s father. The Council apologised for the distress caused and the bill was cancelled shortly afterwards. There is insufficient remaining injustice to warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman