As soon as you realise there's a problem paying your bill, contact us. We might be able to offer a reduction or help you by rescheduling your payments.
Do not ignore the bill completely. Failing to pay and not making arrangements with us will lead to recovery action being taken. This could result in additional costs being added to your bill, ultimately increasing the amount you'll have to pay.
If you miss a council tax payment you will be sent a reminder notice asking you to bring your payments up to date within seven days.
If you do not do so within the time, or if you fall behind with your payments again, we will issue you with a final notice.
The final notice will require you to pay the full balance outstanding for the remainder of the year within seven days. If the balance is not paid, a summons to appear before a magistrate's court will be issued. This will cost you £100.
If you receive a summons, you can still make an arrangement to pay the balance outstanding. This arrangement will usually be made on the basis that the balance should be cleared within the current financial year. You do not need to appear at court, unless you wish to dispute the issue of the summons. Defences against the issue may be that you are not liable to the charge.
At court, we will ask the magistrates to award us a Liability Order. We can then demand certain information from you about your employment and earnings to determine the most appropriate course of action should you still not pay.
For some customers we know that a simple, managed payment plan is a helpful way to clear debts in affordable payments.
We have partnered with Payment Plan to offer customers a straightforward plan. We use a portal to provide eligible customers with a text message or email link to quickly set up a plan with a choice of payment terms that suit them best.
Payment Plan do not have access to your details and will not charge you a fee for using this service.
We can request that your employer make deductions from you wages and pay it straight to us.
The amount deducted will be a set proportion of your pay after income tax and national insurance. Your employer may also deduct a further £1 towards their costs in making the deductions and sending it to us.
We may be able to apply to take your council tax payments from your income support, job seekers allowance, employment support allowance or universal credit. The amount we can take is up to £3.70 per week, or up to fifteen per cent of the universal credit standard allowance.
We can apply for you to be made bankrupt if you owe more than £5000. This would mean that you may lose your home to pay your debt and there would be other financial restrictions placed upon you.
If you owe more than £1000 and are a homeowner we could apply to have a charge put on your home. This would mean that when you sell your house, the debt would be paid out of the proceeds. Any mortgage would be repaid first.
We can pass your account to enforcement agents to collect the debt on our behalf. If this happens you will be charged extra fees, which can be considerable. These fees are set out in the Taking Control of Goods (Fees) Regulations 2014.
If you are unable to pay the outstanding debt in full, the enforcement agent has three options;
The council uses Bristow and Sutor and Dukes Limited as its enforcement agents.
Our enforcement agents can charge the following fees:
| Fee stage | Fixed fee | Per cent fee on debt over £1500 |
| Compliance stage | £75 | 0% |
| Enforcement stage | £235 | 7.5% |
| Sale or disposal | £110 | 7.5% |
If we are unable to recover your council tax from you by another means, we can apply to a magistrate for a warrant committing you to prison. A warrant will be issued if the court is satisfied that the failure to pay is the result of wilful refusal or culpable neglect. The maximum period in prison is three months.
The court may decide to fix a term of imprisonment and postpone the warrant on certain terms, normally relating to the payment of the debt over a period of time.
The Freeman on the Land movement, along with similar groups, believe that individuals must explicitly consent to a contract or law to be bound by it.
However, contract law and alleged rights under common law sit outside the legislation related to the administration and collection of council tax.
Claiming to be a 'freeman' does not exclude you from paying council tax, as your liability for council tax has been determined by the Local Government Finance Act 1992.
The constitutional arguments on common law, individual consent and the contractual relationships in paying your council tax were considered in the High Court as recently as March 2024 in the case of Kofa v Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council.
Mr Justice Fordham ruled paying council tax was not a contractual requirement and an individual gives consent to an elected Member of Parliament, regardless of who the individual voted for or whether the individual voted at all.
Rugby Borough Council takes legal action against individuals who refuse to pay council tax. We advise anyone with concerns about council tax charges to seek legal advice.