If you do not pay your business rates

If you do not pay your instalments on time you could face court action leading to additional fees of £227.50.

Your bill shows the dates your payments are due by. 

If you pay by cash or card: the funds must reach your Business Rates account by the 5th of each month.

If you pay at a bank, post office, by post or at a PayPoint outlet: allow a few days for the payment to reach us.

If you pay by Direct Debit: you must ensure the funds are in your bank account on the date you usually pay.

Pay now

If you miss a payment

If you miss your payments, we will start the following Business Rates recovery process. Missing your payment, even if it is late, will start the following Business Rates arrears recovery process.

A reminder letter is sent 

If you are more than 7 days late with your payment, you will get a reminder letter advising how much you should pay to bring your account up to date. 

After receiving the reminder letter

If you bring your account up to date within 7 days of receiving the reminder letter, you will go back to the regular monthly instalments stated in your latest bill. We will take no further action. 

If you do not respond to our reminder letter

If you do not pay the outstanding amount, or contact us about your bill within 7 days of receiving the reminder you will:

• lose your right to pay by instalments
• be issued with a court summons
• incur an additional cost of £207.50 

We do not issue second reminder letters.

Final notice

If you are late with a business rates payment more than once in the same financial year (1 April to 31 March) we may issue a final notice. You will lose the right to make future payments by instalments. If this happens, you must then pay the full year's balance within the next 7 days.

Alternatively, you can call us within 7 days, to bring your account up to date and set up a Direct Debit. This will allow us to reinstate your instalment plan.

If you do not pay

We will issue a court summons to recover the debt. You will be charged additional costs which will be added to your Business Rates account. 

Court summons

If you do not pay after receiving your reminder or final notice, we will issue you a court summons to recover the balance. You will then be liable to pay the full amount outstanding, plus costs of £207.50.

Summons notice

Failure to pay the total amount, including the summons costs, before the court hearing will result in the issuing of a liability order. This  will incur further costs of £20.00 payable by you; this will be added to your business rates balance.

If you are unable to pay the amount shown on the summons you should contact us immediately to discuss your account.

We will advise you on the best course of action and we may be able to make a payment arrangement with you.

Court hearing

You do not have to attend the court hearing, but you must complete and return the summons arrangement form, or you can contact us on the number below to help set up the arrangement before your hearing date.

After the hearing

If no payment arrangement has been agreed and you do nothing, we will enforce the liability order. This means we can recover the arrears in the following ways:

• instruct an enforcement agent to collect the money. This will incur additional costs which could be in excess of £500 and could lead to your belongings being removed
• initiating personal bankruptcy or corporate insolvency proceedings
• a committal hearing at Court which could lead to a three-month prison sentence

You may be charged additional fees if we need to use an enforcement agency for the collection of your arrears. These are payable directly to the enforcement agency.

Contact Us 

If you receive any notice from us regarding non-payment of your business rates, do not ignore it.  Doing so may mean that further action will be taken and additional costs incurred.

If you are unable to pay your business rates, contact our business rates section to discuss the situation and make a mutually suitable payment arrangement.

Debts passed to an enforcement agency service

Find out about what to do if you have received a notice from our enforcement agents. 

We use several enforcement agencies. You need to contact all other enforcement agencies directly.