Find out what happens if you do not pay your Council Tax. You should not ignore notices.
Contact us as soon as possible If you're struggling to pay your Council Tax.
We'll need your Council Tax account number.
We can take legal action if you do not pay your Council Tax.
If you pay late or miss a payment, we'll send you a reminder notice.
You should never ignore notices from us as it will make matters worse.
Get in touch as soon as you get one. We may be able to come to an arrangement that you can afford.
If you do not pay the money you owe within 7 days you'll lose your right to pay in instalments.
After another 7 days you'll need to pay any remaining Council Tax for the whole year.
We'll only send 2 reminder notices in a tax year.
If you miss a third payment, we'll send you a final notice.
If you still do not pay, we'll take legal action.
We can ask the Magistrate’s Court to issue a liability order if you owe Council Tax.
This allows us to take action to collect (recover):
The magistrates can also make you pay extra costs.
Before the court hearing, you can:
You do not have to attend the court hearing but you can if you want to give your reasons for not paying.
In most cases we can deal with any enquiries before the court hearing.
To avoid a liability order you’ll need to have a defence such as:
If you still do not pay in full or make an arrangement to pay after the hearing, we'll take the following further action.
We can ask the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to take money from the following benefits:
It will be a set amount taken from the benefit and given directly to us until your debt is paid. This amount could go up every year.
You can also ask us to take deductions from these benefits to pay what you owe.
We cannot apply to DWP to take money from Universal Credit.
If you receive Universal Credit, get in touch to make an arrangement to pay your Council Tax.
We can order your employer to give money to us from your pay using an attachment of earnings order.
This is a legal document and we can prosecute your employer if they do not deduct the money.
We’ll tell your employer to stop deducting when the money is paid in full.
The amount we deduct depends on your take home pay and is set by the government.
If we have to take the following further action it will seriously affect your credit score.
You'll also be charged high legal costs.
We can tell enforcement agents to take some of the things you own from your home. They'll sell them to pay off your debt.
If we use an enforcement agent, we'll add a £420 fee to the money you already owe. This fee is set by the government.
We can ask the court to make you bankrupt if you do not pay the money you owe.
If you own your home, we can apply to the court for a charging order and an order for sale.
This secures the debt against your home and can force you to sell it.
We can apply for a court order to send you to prison for up to 90 days.
Find out more: