Rundles Complaints: Their Process and the ECB Deadline

Rundles enforce council tax, business rates and traffic penalties for local authorities, alongside commercial rent arrears and warrants of arrest connected to council tax committal. That mix matters less here than it does for some firms, because Rundles' published escalation route does not split by client the way some competitors' do: it names one external body, the Enforcement Conduct Board, for conduct once its own process has run its course.

How to reach Rundles, and what happens next

Rundles asks you to raise a complaint as soon as you have reason to, using whichever of email (complaints@rundles.org.uk), post (PO Box 11113, Market Harborough, Leicestershire, LE16 0JF), its website contact form, or a callback requested through its 0800 081 6000 line usually suits you best, and to include any supporting evidence you have. The firm says it will conduct a full investigation where relevant, including case notes, telephone recordings and bodyworn video footage, before answering.

The timescales are specific enough to hold Rundles to. It acknowledges a written complaint within 2 working days, and at the informal stage aims to respond within 5 working days of that acknowledgement, after a manager has reviewed the case notes and any recordings and discussed the complaint internally. If that response does not satisfy you, Rundles asks that you come back within 10 working days explaining why, at which point the complaint is passed to the Customer Service Manager for a formal, second-stage review of whether the right procedures were followed, whether the investigation was thorough enough, and whether the outcome was fair. Rundles aims to complete that stage within 10 working days of acknowledging it, and says it will keep you updated with an expected date if an investigation runs longer than planned.

Rundles' one-month window for the ECB

Once Rundles' own two stages are exhausted, its published procedure points to one place: the Enforcement Conduct Board, and only for events that took place on or after 1 January 2025. Rundles states its own deadline for that step, that a complaint to the Board at this stage should be made within 1 month of getting the complaint outcome from Rundles, so do not let time pass once that final response has arrived. Rundles adds that if the Board decides it cannot consider a complaint, it will say so and point you towards whichever body it thinks is a better fit.

Rundles is a corporate member of the Civil Enforcement Association and its managing director has held office there, but that association's own complaints page states plainly that it is unable to consider complaints about its members and that the Enforcement Conduct Board is now the body that investigates them, so CIVEA membership is not, in practice, a separate complaints route to try.

For the council tax, business rates and traffic penalty work that makes up most of Rundles' caseload, the council or transport authority that instructed the case also has a role: it can recall the case at any point, and once its own complaints process has been tried, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman can look at how the enforcement agent acted, because the agent is acting on the council's behalf for those debt types. That is a route about the council-instructed debt itself, running alongside rather than instead of a complaint to Rundles about the agent's conduct.

What a complaint to Rundles will not fix

If your real objection is to the council tax or rates bill rather than to Rundles' handling of it, that belongs with the council, since Rundles only enforces what it has been instructed to collect, unless the fee itself is what is in dispute, in which case it is usually a query against the statutory scale rather than a conduct complaint. The warrants of arrest Rundles serve in connection with council tax committal are a separate court process about a person attending a hearing, not enforcement action against goods, so a complaint about that process may need a different route from a complaint about a doorstep visit.

Separately from any complaint, paragraph 66 of Schedule 12 to the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 lets a court order goods to be returned, and award damages, where an enforcement agent has breached the rules in that Schedule or acted under a liability order or other instrument that turns out to be defective. That remedy can reach further than an apology or a corrected fee, but the underlying paperwork needs checking properly first, so take advice before issuing anything.

Where to go next

The complaint ladder that applies whichever firm enforced the debt, including how to word a complaint and what evidence carries weight, is in our guide to how to complain about a bailiff. What Rundles can and cannot do, their fee stages and the warrant of arrest work are on the Rundles profile.