Council Tax liability orders and debt recovery

If you receive a court summons and don't pay your debt in full before the hearing date, we'll obtain a liability order at court. 

We obtain a liability order even if we've agreed a payment arrangement with you after a summons was issued. If you stick to the payment plan, we won't take any further action.

How a liability order works

A liability order means that the court agrees that you owe the money, and that we can take steps to collect it. 

After we obtain a liability order at court, you will be sent a letter.

The letter includes a form which asks you to tell us your income and expenditure details. 

An additional £28 will be added to your bill if a liability order is issued.

Credit rating

Any action taken by the magistrates court will not automatically affect your credit rating.

Request a special payment arrangement

The letter explains that you can make a special payment arrangement. 

You can complete our online form to do this. You will need:

• Your Council Tax account reference
• Your National Insurance number and benefit office details - if you claim benefits
• Your employer address and payroll number - if you’re employed

Request a special payment arrangement

The form only calculates an estimated instalment plan. Once we’ve set up the instalments, we’ll send you full details. 

If your debt is with enforcement agents, you should not complete this form.

How we recover debt

If you don't pay the amount due on your liability order, we can take a range of steps.

Take money from your salary or benefits

We can contact your employer to arrange for them to take the money you owe from your salary each month.

We can also arrange for the money that you owe to be taken from your income support and other state benefits, if you claim them. 

Use enforcement agents 

We can ask enforcement agents to make a payment arrangement with you. If this fails, they can take some of your valuables and sell them to pay what you owe. 

Enforcement agents will charge you fees on top of what you owe us.

If your debt has been passed to our enforcement agents, you can contact them online, or one of the following telephone numbers:

• Bristow & Sutor: 0330 390 2010
• Chandlers: 0208 290 5055
• Dukes: 01785 825 500
• Marston: 0333 320 1822

Force you to sell your property

If you owe more than £1,000 and you own a property, we can apply to the court for a charging order and an order for sale.

This secures the debt against your home and can force you to sell it.

Make you bankrupt

Where the total debt is £5,000 or more, we can take action to have you declared 
bankrupt.

Send you to prison

If we have been unable to recover the debt from you, we could begin legal proceedings to have you sent to prison for up to 90 days.

We can only do this if a further court hearing finds you have not paid the Council Tax due to wilful refusal or culpable neglect.

Support services

These services can help you with budgeting and debt.

Citizens Advice Wandsworth

You can get free, independent, confidential and impartial advice about paying your Council Tax from Citizens Advice Wandsworth.

Debt advice

If you have debts and are struggling to prioritise your bills, Step Change Debt Charity can help you. They provide free and impartial advice and can make you a plan to deal with your debts.

We have also put together a list of other services that provide general debt and financial guidance.