Council tax recovery
You must pay your council tax bill if you are the bill payer.
If you're struggling to pay your council tax, you must let us know as soon as possible. We may be able to spread your payment out over a longer time. You may also be entitled to a council tax reduction, called council tax support.
How we recover council tax
By law, we must send you a bill showing the council tax amount and how you can pay it.
You can check how much you owe at any time by using our My Account service. If you claim housing benefit or council tax support, you can also use My Account to check what you get.
Login to My Account below. You can create an account if you don't already have one.
We have to go through a number of procedures if you don't pay the council tax you owe:
- we must send you a reminder
- if you get in arrears again after you bring yourself up to date, we must send you a second reminder
- if you do not pay, we will issue you a final notice
- if we send you a second reminder and you pay the arrears and then fall in arrears again, we must send you a final notice
- if you do not pay, we will issue a summons
Final notice
In this procedure:
- if we send you a final notice, you can no longer pay by instalments
- if you do not pay in full, we will send you a summons
- if we send you a summons, unless you pay the full amount, including the summons costs before the hearing, we will apply for a liability order
- once a liability order has been obtained, incurring costs, we will instruct enforcement agents to act on our behalf to recover the arrears
You don't have to attend the hearing but you must contact us to arrange payment.
For more information, go to GOV.UK: council tax arrears.