Help may be available if you are having problems with paying your Council Tax.
Council Tax payments are due on a particular date. If you do not to pay on time, you will be sent a reminder or final notice. Our recovery process is mostly automated and follows what the law tells us to do as well as our debt management policy. However, if you contact us, we can discuss more suitable payment dates or look to extend your payments. If you're struggling to afford the payments and have received a recovery notice, please contact us to discuss your options.
Reminders
If you fall into arrears on your Council Tax, we may send you a reminder notice stating the level of arrears. You will be given 7 days to bring your account up to date. If you do not bring your account up to date within 14 days, you may receive a final notice. A maximum of 2 reminder notices will be issued.
Final notice
If you do not bring your account up to date following a reminder notice, you lose your right to pay by instalments. If there are no instalments left and you do not pay by the due date, a final notice will be sent requesting the balance is paid within 7 days. If you are unable to pay the balance, you should contact us immediately, because if the balance is not paid, the next recovery stage is a summons, which may include additional costs.
Summons
If a final notice has been issued and you do not pay, a magistrate’s court summons may be issued. The court authorises us to issue this summons. The issuing of a summons immediately incurs a court cost of £90 which is added to your account. You do not have to attend the court hearing, but the hearing will still go ahead if you do not attend. If a balance is still outstanding at the time of the hearing, the Magistrates may grant a Liability Order.
Liability Order
If the Magistrate agrees you are liable for Council Tax, they will grant a Liability Order against you and we will request a further £35 cost. We will send you a Liability Order Notice confirming that a Liability Order has been granted.
Once a Liability Order has been granted, we are able to take additional recovery action against you. If you have received a summons or a Liability Order Notice, you must contact us about your debt. This may avoid more fees and unnecessary recovery action being taken against you.
Once a Liability Order has been granted, we may take one or more of the following recovery actions:
- attachment of benefit, earnings or allowances: we can collect unpaid Council Tax by serving an order on your employer or the Department for Work and Pensions to deduct payments before you are paid
- enforcement agents: we can pass the debt to an enforcement agent to recover on our behalf - you incur a £75 fee immediately and a further fee of £235 if you fail to engage, these costs are detailed within the Taking Control of Goods Act 2014
- charging order: if you own your home, we can apply for a charge to be placed on your property to the value of the debt, when the value exceeds £5,000, we will charge 8% interest on the debt and we may ask the court to sell your property to recover the debt
- committal to prison: if other recovery methods have been unsuccessful, we can apply for you to be committed to prison for up to 3 months
- bankruptcy: if other recovery methods have been unsuccessful, we can start bankruptcy proceedings against you