Council Tax and business rates recovery procedure policy

Reminders and final notices

We follow a strict recovery programme, and reminders are timetabled monthly. We can amend this timetable, adding to or removing dates as required. This enables us to manage workloads, resources and collection requirements more effectively.

If a customer does not pay an instalment by the due date we will issue a reminder. The reminder will request payment of the overdue instalment within 7 days.

If the missed instalment is received within 7 days we will not take any further action; but if it remains unpaid we may cancel the instalments and issue a summons for the full year’s tax.

If the instalment is received within 7 days, but another instalment is not paid then we will issue a second reminder. If the missed instalment is received within 7 days we will not take any further action; but if it remains unpaid we may cancel the instalments and issue a summons for the full year’s tax.

If the account is brought up to date but falls behind a third time, we may send a final notice, at this point the full outstanding amount will become payable as the right to pay by instalments has been lost.

Failure to pay the final notice will result in a summons, which will incur costs.

The individual circumstances of the customer will be considered to see if there any special or mitigating factors to be taken in account.