If you don't pay your council tax
You must pay your council tax when it’s due. We’ll take action to get the money that is owed.
If you’re struggling to pay your council tax, visit the help to pay your council tax page.
Please do not ignore the notices we send you, as it’ll only make matters worse.
Reminder notices
If you do not pay an instalment when it is due, the following stages take place until payment is received.
Reminder
If you miss paying a council tax instalment, we’ll send you a reminder. You must bring your payments up to date within seven days of the reminder.
You can continue to pay by instalments if you pay what is owed.
If you make a payment but later miss another payment, we’ll send you a second reminder. You must bring your payments up to date within seven days of this reminder.
This will be the last reminder that you receive during the council tax year.
Final notice
If you pay the two reminders but miss another payment, we’ll send a final notice and your right to pay by instalments will be cancelled.
The balance of your account to the end of the council tax year must be paid immediately otherwise a summons may be issued.
You should contact us immediately if you are unable to make the payment in full. We may consider making a special arrangement for repayment at this stage.
Court summons
If you do not keep up with your payment arrangement, we’ll request the Magistrates Court to issue a summons.
This will tell you when the court hearing date will be and how much money you owe.
You do not need to attend court.
If you pay the full amount before your court hearing date or if you agree to a payment arrangement no further action will be taken.
Liability order
If you do not pay the full amount on the summons before the court hearing date, we’ll apply to the Magistrates Court for permission to collect the debt from you. This is known as a liability order.
A liability order gives us powers to:
- request information from you about your finances
- directly deduct money from your wages or benefits
- use enforcement agents to collect the debt
- apply to make you bankrupt
- place a charging order on your property so that when the property is sold you’ll have to pay that debt off first before any of the proceeds are given to you
An extra cost of £141.50 will be added to your bill.
If you do not pay the amount on the summons or arrange a payment plan, you’ll get a 14 day notice. Ignoring this notice will lead to further action.
Enforcement agents (bailiffs)
If you’ve still not paid your council tax debts after receiving a liability order, an enforcement agent will visit your property.
We use three enforcement agent firms to collect council tax debt for us:
Any agent visiting your property on our behalf will:
- always carry official identification
- have written permission from us
- provide a receipt for cash payments and for other payments if requested
The fees you could incur are:
- Compliance stage - £75 (this will apply in all cases)
- Enforcement stage - £235 (plus 7.5% of any amount above £1,500)
- Sale or disposal stage - £110 (plus 7.5% of any amount above £1,500)
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy means telling your creditors that you cannot repay your debt.
If you owe more than £5,000 in council tax and have been summoned, we may start bankruptcy proceedings against you.
If we do this, our solicitors will send you a statutory demand. A statutory demand gives you 21 days to pay us the full amount.
If you get a statutory demand, you should contact our solicitors immediately. Details on how to do this will be on the statutory demand.
If you do not settle the statutory demand, we’ll present a petition for bankruptcy to the County Court.
