What happens if you don't pay
If you pay late we will send you a reminder, advising you to bring your instalments up to date, if you fail to do this, you will lose your right to pay by instalments and the full balance will fall due.
You must then pay the full balance outstanding and if you do not pay this we will send you a summons to appear in the Magistrates Court, for which you will incur additional costs.
Liability Order
The magistrate will grant a liability order if the full amount on the summons including costs remains unpaid.
The magistrate cannot decide whether you are the correct liable person or make any decisions about your council tax benefit or your entitlement to a discount or exemption.
These are matters which must be dealt with via the appeal process and you must continue to pay pending resolution.
A liability order enables us to collect the unpaid council tax from you using the following options:
- deduct payments from your salary or from your benefits
- appoint enforcement agents (previously known as bailiffs) to remove and sell your possessions. Enforcement agent fees payable by you are set out below:
- a compliance fee of £75.00 which is payable on receipt of a liability order being passed to the enforcement agents for collection
- an enforcement fee of £235.00 which is payable when the enforcement agent visits the property
- for debts above £1,500 a fee of 7.5% is applied to the value of the debt which is higher than £1,500
- a sale fee is charged if goods are removed for sale.
- start court proceedings to make you bankrupt. This is extremely serious action and will badly affect your ability to get credit for a long time afterwards. Substantial additional costs will be payable by you. Any properties, or other assets you own can be sold to pay your debt
- apply for a charging order on your property, to repay your council tax out of the proceeds of any future sale. We may choose to force the sale of your property to pay the outstanding debt. Additional fees will be payable by you
- as a method of last resort, we may apply for a warrant of commitment to send you to prison. Additional fees will be payable by you.
If the magistrates think that you have the money to pay but are deliberately not paying they may decide to send you to prison for up to 90 days.