If you are unable to make a payment or have missed an instalment, it is important for you to contact us as soon as possible to prevent further action. In most cases your business rates are payable in monthly instalments on the 1st of each month.
Payment difficulties
If you get into payment difficulties and you cannot afford to pay your instalments, contact us immediately to see if we can help you. We don’t promise to be able to help everyone, but the sooner you contact us, the better our chances of being able to help.
To contact us, complete an enquiry:
Business rates general enquiry on My Account
When a payment is missed
If a payment is missed and you do not contact us, we will begin recovery action.
Initially we will send you a reminder letter.
Reminder letters
The reminder letter will request you pay any missing payments as well as any payment due within 7 days of the reminder. This is a lawful requirement and the total shown must be paid within 7 days to stop further recovery action.
If you are unable to pay the amount on your reminder, you must contact us to prevent further recovery action. To contact us, complete an enquiry:
Business rates general enquiry on My Account
If you do not make payment or contact us, the whole outstanding charge for the year will become due and we will issue you a Court Summons.
We will only issue one reminder each rate year. If you pay a reminder but fall into arrears a second time no reminder will be sent. We will instead send you a Final Notice.
Final Notice
If you fall into arrears a second time during a year, the whole outstanding charge for the year will become due and we will issue a Final Notice. The amount on the Final Notice must be paid within 7 days to stop further recovery action.
If you are unable to pay the amount on your Final Notice you must contact us to prevent further recovery action. To contact us, complete an enquiry:
Business rates general enquiry on My Account
If you do not make payment or contact us, we will issue you a Court Summons.
Court Summons
If you have not fully paid or contacted us regarding a Final Notice or reminder we will issue you a Court Summons and seek a liability order from the Magistrates Court.
Court costs of £81.50 are added to your bill when the summons is issued and must be paid in addition to the outstanding balance of your business rates.
If you do not pay the balance demanded in full before the court hearing date shown on the summons, we will apply for a Liability Order at the hearing. The cost of the liability order is £35 and is added to your bill, in addition to the summons cost of £81.50.
If the court issues a liability order to recover the unpaid business rates, we can:
- make a payment arrangement with you to pay off the debt which will also include court costs
- consider making you bankruptor petition for winding up proceedings against your company
Contact us about a Court Summons
To contact us about a business rates summons, book a telephone appointment:
Book a telephone appointment on My Account
If you do not contact us about your arrears after receiving a summons, your debt may be passed to enforcement agents (bailiffs). At this point you will also become liable for substantial statutory enforcement agent fees.