If you dispute liability after receiving a summons call Council Tax recovery, there are no face to face interviews at this present time.

If you wish to attend court you must make an appointment with us. The court may refuse entry if you do not have one.

Magistrates can only stop a liability order if you prove you’re not liable.

If you do not pay your Council Tax overview

If you fall behind with payments, this will start the recovery process. Please get in touch with us if you are having difficulty paying.

Reminder

If you are behind with your Council Tax payments we will post a reminder to you. If you arrange to pay the outstanding balance and keep up to date with further payments we will not take any further action.

If you do not bring the account up to date, or if it is brought up to date but you fail to pay a later payment on time, then we will post a final reminder to you.

Final reminder

The final reminder tells that you if you do not pay the outstanding balance within 7 days we will send you a final notice and you will lose the right to pay in instalments.

If you have already received a final reminder in the current financial year the next time you fall behind with a payment you will not receive a reminder, the system will send a final notice.

Final notice

If you have not brought your account up to date or if you miss a later payment, we will issue a final notice.

The final notice means you have lost the right to pay by instalments and you must pay the balance in full within 7 days. If you do not pay your account in full within 7 days of the final notice being issued, then we will apply for a court summons and you are responsible for any extra costs.

Court summons

If you receive a court summons, this means that we have applied to the magistrates’ court for the legal power to take further action against you to recover unpaid Council Tax. At the hearing we will ask the court to grant us a liability order. This will allow us to recover your Council Tax debt in a variety of ways.

What we can do after a court hearing

If you do not pay in full, a liability order gives us the power 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 when you sell your property you must pay the Council Tax debt before you receive any of the sale proceeds