What happens if I dont pay my council tax
Council tax fact sheet
You must pay your council tax in installments (up to ten) and your council tax bill tells you when your payments are due.
If you have problems paying your installment on time, you should contact us immediately (see below).
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 £75.30 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 £97.30.
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 £150.
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 get back the money you owe because they will only increase the amount you already owe.
If you have financial difficulties, please contact the local taxation office where staff are ready to help you.
Do not ignore the notices we send you. It will only make matters worse.
You can contact us:
- by phone on 020 8600 7777;
- by fax on 020 8753 1578;
- by typetalk on 0800 95 95 98; or
- by email at localtaxation@lbhf.gov.uk
