What happens if you don't pay your business rates?

Once a Liability Order has been granted we will add further costs of £10 to your outstanding business rates debt.

Arrangements

At any stage before we send the liability order to an enforcement agent, you can contact us to make an arrangement to pay.

The arrangement will include court costs of £65.00

Recovery proceedings will continue if you do not keep strictly to the terms of an arrangement.

Liability Order

Once an account has been to court there are various courses of action that we may take, depending on what we believe is the best way to secure payment. These are:

• asking our enforcement agents to collect the debt by removing and selling some of your possessions which will result in you having to pay their fees
• commencing insolvency proceedings through the County Court
• applying to the County Court for a charging order on your property that enables us to force its sale or repay your business rates out of the proceeds of any future sale. This will also result in you paying additional fees.

In some cases, if you continue not to pay we can return to court. The court may decide to send you to prison, order you to pay, or tell us to write off part or all of the debt.

If you are a business and struggling with debt you can find help and information here

Enforcement Agent action

If  we do not hear from you following a Liability Order being granted, we may pass your debt to our Enforcement Agents to collect. If this happens you will have to pay additional fees on top of the original debt. The enforcement process has three clear stages:

Stage One - Compliance Stage

Once a case has been passed to the Enforcement Agent by the Council, a £75.00 fee is payable by the ratepayer. The Enforcement Agent will attempt to make contact with the ratepayer by phone, text, or e-mail but will not call at the property at this stage.  If the ratepayer pays, or makes an arrangement to pay, and maintains payment, they will not hear from the enforcement agent again. The £75.00 costs incurred will be collected and cleared first.

Stage Two - Enforcement Stage

If stage one is not successful the account will be moved on to the Enforcement Stage. This stage will involve a visit to the premises. The cost to the ratepayer is an additional £235.00 plus 7.5% of the proportion of the debt above £1,500 if the debt is more than £1,500. There is only one enforcement charge, regardless of how many visits are made for the same debt. At this stage, the enforcement agent can still make an arrangement with the ratepayer without taking control of goods, although the costs will be included. At this stage the enforcement agent must issue an Enforcement Notice. This a statutory document and the information enclosed will be in accordance with legislation.

Stage Three - Sale or Disposal of Goods

This is the final stage of the recovery process as far as the enforcement agents are involved. An additional charge of £110 will be applied to the debt.

Summary of Fees for Enforcement