What happens if I don't pay my council tax

What happens if I don't pay my council tax

Council tax fact sheet

You must pay your council tax installments on time - the dates we should receive them by are listed on your council tax bill.

If you have problems paying your installment on time, you should contact us immediately.

If you do not pay your installment when it is due, we will send you a reminder which says you must pay all the installments you owe within seven days. If you do not, you will lose the right to pay by installments and you will have to pay the full amount on your account immediately.

We will only send you two reminders a year
If you do not pay the amount on the reminder, we will start legal proceedings to get back the money you owe us.

If we do this, you will have to pay a lot of extra costs. You will then receive a summons. We will apply to the West London Magistrates' Court for a summons to be issued against you for the full amount of council tax you owe. This costs us £86.00 which we will add to the amount you owe.

If we still don't receive a payment, a liability order will be granted against you, this costs another £22.00. The total costs you now have to pay will be £108.00.

We will only agree payment arrangements with you after a summons has been issued if you either pay by direct debit or send us your employment details.

Please do not ignore the summons because if you do not pay the council tax we will send a bailiff to collect the debt.

The bailiff will write to you and come to your property to collect the amount you owe or take your property to sell at auction. We will add the bailiff's fees to the amount you owe. This could be as much as £250.

If none of these methods are successful, we will apply to the court for you to go to prison.

We would prefer not to do any of these things to collect the money you owe us because they will only increase the outstanding amount.

If you have financial difficulties, please contact us.

Do not ignore the notices we send you. It will only make matters worse.

Ways to contact us about council tax.