Each year we send you a Council Tax bill which tells you how much you have to pay and the date your payment is due.
In most cases, your Council Tax is payable in monthly instalments on the 1st day of each month unless you pay by direct debit where you are allowed a choice of 4 payment dates in the month.
Reply to a court summons
If you have received a court summons and have an issue, complete our summons contact form.
If you receive an SMS text message, an email, or a letter about arrears and have an issue with the amount due, complete a reply to an arrears notification form.
We will look into your enquiry and tell the next steps. We will take no further recovery action until we resolve your enquiry.
Hackney Citizens Advice Bureau (reception), tel 020 8525 6350
Toynbee Hall, tel 020 7247 6943
National Debtline, tel 0808 808 4000
Step Change, tel 0800 138 1111
Hackney Credit Union, tel 020 7729 9218
Fair Finance, tel 020 8988 0627
You can also view our money matters and advice page for a range of help and advice on issues that might be affecting you.
If you are struggling with the rising cost of living see our Help at hand guide.
Stages
Reminder notices
If you’re paying each month after the date shown on your Council Tax bill, we will send you a reminder notice because your payment has not been paid on the date it is was due.
We’re only required to send you one reminder notice so if you pay late on a further occasion, no further notice will be issued and you will be served with a court summons.
It’s very important that you pay your Council Tax on or before the date it is due or you could get summoned to court for not doing so.
Court summons
You must pay the full amount shown on your reminder notice within 7 days from the date on the notice.
If you pay the full amount as shown on the notice, your account will have been brought up to date and all future payments should be made on time.
If you don’t pay the full amount on the notice or pay any further instalment later than the due date, a magistrates court summons will be issued for non-payment of Council Tax.
The summons will be served with an explanatory leaflet, which provides information on defences to the issuing of a court liability order, but in truth there are very few.
The following are not defences against the issue of the order:
you don’t have enough money to pay the Council Tax
you have applied for Council Tax reduction, or a discount, exemption or other reduction and are waiting to hear from the Council
you have an outstanding appeal with the Council or a tribunal
When the summons has been issued, we will apply to the magistrates court for a liability order for the full amount of Council Tax including the costs associated with serving the summons.
Unless the amount is paid in full before the hearing additional costs will be added for the court hearing. To save you any additional costs, you should pay the full amount shown on your summons before the court hearing
If you aren’t able to pay the full amount before the hearing, you should contact us to discuss if a repayment arrangement can be considered.
You should be aware that the option to pay by instalments has already been lost and won’t be reinstated at this stage. You may, however, avoid the need to attend the court hearing.
Liability order
Where you have not paid in full before the hearing or agreed repayment with us, we will apply to the magistrates court for a liability order.
The liability order, once granted, gives us the power to implement a number of different actions and recovery remedies including:
requiring you, upon request, to provide information about your work or benefits
deduct money from your pay or benefits to settle your Council Tax
secure a ‘charging order’ on your property
apply for your bankruptcy where the debt is over a prescribed amount
instruct an enforcement agent to collect on our behalf, which may result in removing your goods and selling them to pay your Council Tax
apply for you to be put in prison for non-payment
Attachment to earnings
An attachment to earnings means that your employer will deduct amounts directly from your pay. Your employer can charge you £1 for each deduction for their administration costs.
We can send a maximum of 2 orders at any one time. This means we could deduct 2 amounts each time.
Where we’ve obtained a liability order and no arrangement has been agreed to repay the debt, the order will normally be passed to the Council’s certificated enforcement agents who will visit you to enforce payment of the debt.
The enforcement agents may be instructed to remove any goods that you own and sell them at auction. If the liability order is passed to the enforcement agents, you will incur costs which can be considerable.
Should enforcement reach this stage, the Council will not intervene in any action taken by the enforcement agents to enforce payment unless the circumstances are exceptional.
Committal to prison
If the enforcement agents are unsuccessful in enforcing the debt and receiving payment in full (including any costs), the liability order will be returned to the Council for further enforcement action.
At this stage, should any part of the debt remain unpaid, we will apply to the magistrates court for your committal to prison. The sentence for non-payment of Council Tax can be up to 90 days.
If you require any further information which is not covered here, contact us on 020 8356 3990.
Arrangements
Make an arrangement request
If you’ve received a bill requesting immediate payment in full that you can’t afford, reminder notice or final notice, complete this form:
If you’re proposing a long term arrangement, for example, over 12 months, it would help us to agree an affordable amount if you complete our financial information form:
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday – 9am to 5pm (telephone)
Wednesday – 9am to 4pm (telephone)
Notes
At busy times you may be waiting as long as 30 minutes or more on the telephone.
To help our telephone staff concentrate on helping those less able to use the internet, check for the answer to your question on our website or contact us using the online forms.
You can save time by reporting a change of address or applying for discounts or exemptions. If you think your bill is wrong or have any other queries, use our enquiry form.