The complaint

The complainant, to whom I will refer as Mr B, says enforcement agents removed his car in pursuit of a debt which was not his. He complains that he has been required to pay storage fees which accrued because he was unable to collect the car for some time.

What I found

5. Mr B’s nephews, Mr C and Mr D, owned a business property in the Council’s area. They were liable to pay a levy of £1316.55 to the Council on this property for the financial year 2017/18, but had not done so.
6. The Council obtained a liability order, and on 28 March 2018 passed it to an enforcement agency (‘the Agency’). The Agency served a Notice of Enforcement letter on the business property, and added a £75 compliance fee to the debt. The letter gave Mr C and Mr D 14 days to pay the debt.
7. The Agency visited the business property on 25 April, serving another letter and adding a further £235 enforcement fee to the debt. The Agency visited three more times, but on 23 May, received information to confirm that Mr C and Mr D no longer had any connection to the business property. The information also provided Mr B’s address in relation to Mr C, which was in a different local authority area some distance away.
8. On 29 May and 6 June, the Agency visited Mr B’s property. No-one was present, so the Agency left a letter each time. On 7 June, the Agency attempted to contacted Mr C and/or Mr D by phone but received no response.
9. On 15 June, the Agency visited again. There was again no-one at the property. The Agency clamped a car parked on the driveway at the front of the property, left another letter, and again contacted Mr C or Mr D by phone with no response.
10. On 18 June, the Agency visited a fourth time. It spoke to Mr B’s neighbour, who advised that ‘the family’ was on holiday and were due back on 19 or 20 June. The Agency decided to wait until then before taking further action.
11. On 21 June, Mr C or Mr D emailed the Agency from abroad. He said he would pay the debt but asked the Agency to send an email to confirm the details. The Agency emailed an invoice to Mr C or Mr D, and noted it would put removal of the car on hold until 25 June.
12. But by 25 June, the Agency had heard nothing further from Mr C or Mr D. It visited Mr B’s property and removed the car. It added a £110 sale fee to the outstanding debt, which was now £1736.55.
13. On 26 June, Mr C and Mr D contacted the Agency and paid the full debt. They also paid the two days’ storage fee (£36) for the car. The Agency confirmed that the car could now be collected.
14. On 28 June, Mr C or Mr D contacted the Agency to say he could not collect the car. He asked if the car’s owner, which he said was Mr B’s son (Mr E), could do so. The Agency confirmed that only the people named on the account (Mr C and Mr D), or the car’s registered keeper, could collect it. Mr C or Mr D said that the car belonged to Mr E, but that it was still registered to Mr B.
15. On 29 June, the Agency increased its outstanding fees. On the same day, Mr B provided a photograph of the vehicle’s logbook to the Agency, showing that it was registered to him. He also made a complaint against the Agency and threatened to take legal action. The Agency’s notes record that it received this information on 2 July.
16. The Agency responded to Mr B’s complaint on 4 July. It did not uphold his complaint, and advised Mr B that the car remained in storage and continued to accrue a £38 daily fee.
17. On 9 July, Mr B submitted a second complaint to the Agency. The Agency responded on 16 July and again did not uphold it.
18. On 24 July, Mr B paid the storage fees, which were now £468. Later that day, Mr C collected the car from storage.
19. Mr B had made a separate complaint to the Council. It responded on 24 July, and said that it considered the Agency’s responses to his complaints to be correct.
20. Mr B submitted a stage 2 complaint to the Council on 24 July. He asked why he was being held responsible for a debt incurred by other people.
21. The Council responded on 16 August. It explained that, under the Taking Control of Goods Regulations 2013, the Agency was lawfully entitled to clamp, and then remove, the car, and retain it until it was proven that it did not belong to the debtor(s). The Agency had received confirmation that Mr B owned the car on 2 July, but as no-one had been able to collect it until 24 July, storage fees continued to accrue. The Council refused to compensate Mr B.
22. Mr B then approached the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman noted there was a third-stage to the Council’s complaint procedure, and Mr B confirmed he would allow this to be completed before pursuing his complaint with the Ombudsman.
23. The Council responded at stage 3 on 16 October. It acknowledged the frustration and inconvenience Mr B had suffered, but said the responsibility for this lay with Mr C and Mr D. The Council reiterated that the Agency was lawfully entitled to remove the car.
24. The Council said it was unfortunate that Mr E had failed to update the car’s logbook, which meant that he was unable to collect the car while Mr B, Mr C and Mr D were all unavailable to do so. However, the Council said that neither it nor the Agency could be held responsible for this.
25. The Ombudsman then confirmed it would investigate the complaint on 19 Novemb
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        Legislation and guidance

        26. The Taking Control of Goods Regulations 2013 (‘the Regulations’) set out the rules by which enforcement agents can take control of goods in pursuit of a debt.
        27. Paragraph 14 of the Regulations says that “an enforcement agent may enter relevant premises to search for and take control of goods … [Premises] are relevant if the enforcement agent reasonably believes that they are the place, or one of the places, where the debtor (a) usually lives, or (b) carries on a trade or business.”
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    Analysis

    28. Mr C and Mr D had an unpaid debt with the Council. After obtaining a liability order, the Council was entitled to pass this to enforcement agents to pursue.
    29. Mr B asks why his address was linked to his nephews, when he says they have never lived there. This may be the case, but the Council’s evidence shows Mr B’s address was returned when the Agency used a tracing service. This appears to have been because Mr C had used it as a correspondence address in the past.
    30. Under the Regulations, enforcement agents may enter any premises where they have reason to believe a debtor lives or works. The information the Agency received from its tracing did not give any indication that Mr C might not live at the address, and so I do not consider it fault for it to have visited there on the strength of this information.
    31. The Agency then visited the property, and noticed Mr B’s car parked on the private driveway outside. After several failed visits to the house, it clamped, and subsequently removed, the car.
    32. When enforcement agents pursue a debt relating to a violation by a vehicle – for example, a parking ticket – they will usually have quick access to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) records which will show to whom a vehicle is registered. Unfortunately, when pursuing a debt related to local taxation – such as in this case – they do not have quick access to the same records.
    33. The Council has explained that, for the Agency to have undertaken a DVLA check before removing Mr B’s vehicle, it would have taken six to eight weeks before it received a response. As the owner of the vehicle will usually be able to provide evidence much more quickly, the Council considers it would “unreasonable” to wait for the outcome of a DVLA check.
    34. I do not disagree with the Council’s reasoning. It is very unfortunate that Mr B and his family were abroad at the time of the Agency’s visits, and so could not provide evidence that it was Mr B’s car until after it had been removed.
    35. I do note that, after the car was clamped, but before it was removed, the Agency had some brief contact with either Mr C or Mr D. This, I assume, was because Mr B’s neighbour had contacted them after the Agency had spoken to her.
    36. There is nothing in the Agency’s notes to suggest that the ownership of the car was discussed at that point. It may be that Mr C and/or Mr D were unaware that the car had been clamped, or it may be that they failed to tell the Agency that it was not theirs. Alternatively, it may be that they did tell the Agency this, but the Agency failed to recognise the significance of the information.
    37. In the absence of evidence, I cannot draw a conclusion on this. But it appears possible this was a missed opportunity to avoid the subsequent removal of the car.
    38. In either case, I do not consider there to be any fault in the Agency’s actions up to this point. It had reason to link Mr B’s address to Mr C, and it was logical to assume that he owned or had some interest in the car parked in front. The Agency visited several times before clamping the car, and then put removal on hold when Mr C or Mr D contacted it and said he would pay the debt.
    39. However, shortly after removing the car, the Agency was then informed that it belonged to neither Mr C nor Mr D.
    40. There appears to have been some confusion over this issue at first. Mr C or Mr D contacted the Agency the day after the car was removed and paid the debt in full, including the first days’ storage fee. They then arranged to collect the car, but did not.
    41. Two days later, Mr C or Mr D contacted the Agency to say they could not pick up the car, and asked if Mr B’s son, Mr E, could do so instead. Mr B had apparently given the car to Mr E, but Mr E had not updated the logbook. The Agency advised, correctly, that the car could only be collected by the registered keeper (Mr B) or the debtors.
    42. There is a discrepancy in the date that Mr B provided a copy of the logbook, showing the car was in his name. The Agency’s record show that Mr B’s email was dated 29 June, but its own note is dated 2 July. But in either case, by 2 July, the Agency was aware that it had removed a car which did not belong to either of the debtors.
    43. This being the case, I can see no justification at all for the Agency to have continued adding storage fees for the car.
    44. Mr B was not responsible for the debt, and had no knowledge of it, or the Agency’s involvement, until after it had removed the car. This was through no fault of his own. Mr B was entirely blameless, and it is an injustice that he was required to pay money to retrieve his property.
    45. The Council says that it was Mr E’s fault for not updating the car’s logbook when Mr B gave it to him. Had he done so, as the law requires, he would have been able to collect the car much earlier, reducing the storage fees, and as a result the Council does not consider a financial remedy is due.
    46. While it is true that Mr E should have updated the car’s logbook, I consider this to be entirely irrelevant to the question of storage fees. Mr E was not responsible for the debt either. Even if he had been able to collect the car, this still would not justify the Agency charging fees to store property it (now) knew it should not have taken in the first place.
    47. For the avoidance of doubt, I do not consider it fault the Agency removed the car, on the information available to it at the time. However, I do consider it fault that it continued to charge storage fees once it was aware the car did not belong to the debtors.
    48. I understand that there may have been some cost to the Agency to store the car. However, this cost should have been met either by the Council or by the Agency itself, not by Mr B. The fact that it was some time before anyone was available to collect the car does not change this.
    49. I consider that the Council should refund the money Mr B paid in storage fees. By the Agency’s record, this was £468.
    50. Mr B says the removal of the car caused inconvenience to him and his family, and also that he was put to significant unwarranted time and trouble pursuing the matter from abroad.
    51. It goes without saying that the removal of the car would cause inconvenience to those who wished to use it. However, for the reasons given, I do not consider it fault that the Agency removed the car under the circumstances. It is also not the fault of the Agency that no-one was able to collect it for an extended period.
    52. This does not justify the additional storage costs. But even if Mr B had not been charged for this, and there had been no fault, the car would have remained unavailable for the same period. And so I cannot say this inconvenience was the result of fault.
    53. However, I do agree that the Council should recognise the time and trouble Mr B went to. He submitted complaints on five occasions – two direct to the Agency, and three to the Council. It should have been recognised much sooner that it was fault to expect Mr B to pay storage fees, and he should not have had to approach the Ombudsman to pursue his complaint.

    Agreed action

    54. The Council has agreed to refund the £468 Mr B paid in storage fees, and also offer to pay him £150 to recognise his time and trouble in pursuing the complaint.