If you do not pay

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.

Reminder notices

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.

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 full amount of money you owe us
• legal costs of up to £95

The magistrates can also make you pay extra costs.

Before the court hearing, you can:

• make a Council Tax payment
• set up a payment arrangement for the amount you owe
• make an enquiry about your account

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:

• you’ve paid the amount owed in full
• you did not get a reminder notice
• you think an unauthorised officer of the council is asking for the liability order
• you think your bill has been calculated incorrectly
• you believe that fewer than 14 days have passed from the issue of your demand notice and your first instalment being due
• you suspect the council has incorrect computer evidence
• you have an administration order in progress through the County Court, which includes your outstanding Council Tax
• you think documents have been served incorrectly
• you're going through bankruptcy proceedings
• the bill payer or person who pays Council Tax has died

If you still do not pay in full or make an arrangement to pay after the hearing, we'll take the following further action.

Deducting from your benefits or earnings

We can ask the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to take money from the following benefits:

• Employment and Support Allowance
• Income Support
• Jobseeker’s Allowance
• Pension Credit Guarantee Credit

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.

If you're employed

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.

How much can we deduct?

The amount we deduct depends on your take home pay and is set by the government. 

Taking further action

If we have to take the following further action it will seriously affect your credit score. 

You'll also be charged high legal costs.

Enforcement agents (bailiffs)

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.

Forced bankruptcy

We can ask the court to make you bankrupt if you do not pay the money you owe. 

Forced sale of your home

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.

Prison

We can apply for a court order to send you to prison for up to 90 days.

Our policies

Find out more:

• Council Tax recovery policy (PDF, 176KB)

• enforcement agent policy (PDF, 559KB)