A FORMER York guest house owner blasted council chiefs after he was hit with a "double whammy" by blundering officers.

Will Lefebve, who ran the Bentley Guest House, in Grosvenor Terrace, off Bootham, branded City of York Council a "bunch of incompetent bandits" following a nightmare move to Sussex.

Mr Lefebve, who lived in York and North Yorkshire for almost 25 years, said he had suffered at the hands of the council, which botched up administrative tasks and even threatened him with legal action. He was threatened with court over a refuse bill of £17.27 - despite officers telling him to ignore warning letters until a revised bill arrived. And the council topped that by sending his business rate rebate of more than £200 to the wrong bank.

Council chiefs have apologised, saying the problems were caused by "human error".

Mr Lefebve said his troubles began when he informed the council in January that he would be moving to Worthing.

"I asked the council what I should do about our quarterly commercial waste bill covering the period until the end of March," he said.

"I was told to ignore the latest bill and any reminders and wait for the revised notice. I did as he suggested and ignored a final reminder for payment of a £32.08 bill. Yet a letter is sent to our old address threatening us with legal action for non-payment of what was the revised account £17.27. On the same day, the first request, in the form of a final reminder, was delivered to Sussex."

Mr Lefebve said he was then amazed when he did not receive his business rate rebate of £232.74.

"I phoned for an explanation. They were puzzled like me until, surprise, surprise, they spotted that they had used the wrong sort code and apparently the money had temporarily gone missing. I am still waiting for the cheque. I will always have fond memories of my time in Huby, Easingwold and York. But the events of the past few weeks have left me convinced that City of York Council is a bunch of incompetent bandits."

A City of York Council spokeswoman said: "We would like to apologise to Mr Lefebve for these incidents, which have been caused by human error while processing payments. As requested, a cheque for the business and council tax rebates was posted out the day after Mr Lefebve's call and he should receive it very shortly."

Updated: 09:26 Friday, March 07, 2003