What happens if you do not pay your Council Tax

Before we contact enforcement agents 

Before we refer your Council Tax debt to an enforcement agent, we will first try to recover the money in other ways.

If you are employed, we can issue an attachment of earnings order.  This means your employer will deduct money from your wages and send it directly to us. The amount deducted depends on your net pay and is set out in national regulations.  

If you receive Income Support, Jobseeker’s Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance or Universal Credit, we can ask the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to take deductions directly from your benefit. 

After we contact enforcement agents

If we are unable to recover the money through deductions, we will pass your account to an enforcement agent (bailiff) to collect the debt on our behalf. We ask enforcement agents (bailiffs) to collect debts on our behalf. 

The enforcement agencies we work with are: 

If you have received a letter, visit, or telephone call from one of the enforcement agencies we deal with, you must contact them straight away. 

You must deal with the enforcement agency directly to pay what you owe. They may be able to make an arrangement with you to spread the payment of your outstanding balance over a longer period of time. 

The enforcement agents will charge you a fee of £75 once we instruct them to collect your debt. If you don't contact them within 7 days, you will be charged an enforcement fee of £235. If you owe more than £1,500, you'll be charged an additional 7.5%. 

Enforcement agents can seize some of your personal possessions and sell them at public auction. The money collected from the auction will be used to pay the enforcement fees and the Council Tax that you owe.