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Valuation Office Agency Case summary
Mrs A purchased a property, believing the Council Tax band to be correct. She was concerned to receive a letter from a VOA Listing Officer (LO), who said that he wanted to inspect the property because alterations had been carried out by the previous occupiers (Mr and Mrs B). He said that these alterations could result in an alteration to the Council Tax band.
Mr and Mrs B had not carried out any alterations themselves. The previous owners, a firm of property developers, were responsible for the changes. When the developers sold the property to Mr and Mrs B, the LO should have conducted an inspection to see if there was any need to alter the Council Tax band. Unfortunately, as a result of shortcomings with the VOA's computer system, together with misleading information provided by the local council, the LO did not realise that the transaction involved a newly altered property.
The LO subsequently increased the Council Tax band from B to F, which meant that Mrs A, a pensioner, faced a backdated bill of £450 that she was not expecting. She was also faced with the prospect of substantially higher bills in the future.
Mrs A spent many hours writing letters and making telephone calls to the VOA, the Council and the Valuation Tribunal, before the VOA agreed that the correct Council Tax band for her house was D and not F. She also had the added inconvenience of three appointments made by the LO to inspect her house, including one where Mrs A waited in all day for an officer who did not arrive because he went to the wrong property.
Mrs A felt that she had suffered considerably as a result of the VOA's mistakes and delays. In addition to the time she spent in dealing with these difficulties, Mrs A felt that her health had suffered as a result of the worry that she experienced. She also believed that the VOA had questioned her honesty because they did not have accurate records of every contact she had made, which meant that they asked her for further details.
The VOA accepted that they made mistakes and delays and offered Mrs A a total of £175 in compensation, to cover costs, worry and distress and poor complaints handling. Mrs A refused to accept the offer of compensation and said that she considered it to be insulting.
We partially upheld this complaint.
We could not conclude that the LO's initial decision to place Mrs A's property in band F, rather than in band D, was a mistake. Our remit does not extend to commenting on decisions concerning appropriate Council Tax bands.
In addition, we could not ask the VOA to pay for Mrs A's time spent in dealing with her Council Tax affairs because she could not demonstrate that this had resulted in her suffering a direct and quantifiable financial loss. Similarly, we could not conclude that Mrs A's health problems, which continued after the VOA had corrected the Council Tax band and offered redress, were a direct result of the VOA's actions.
We did, however, conclude that the VOA's offers of compensation, prior to Mrs A contacting this office, did not fully recognise the worry and distress that she experienced. Following discussions with this office, the VOA increased their offer by £50, which we thought was reasonable. Mrs A accepted this offer and her complaint was resolved through mediation.
