The process of recovering unpaid money
The process of recovering unpaid money is governed by legislation and is outlined below:
Reminder
Business Rates payments should be made in accordance with the instalment due date on your NNDR bill.
If you fail to pay on time, we will send you a Reminder notice asking you to bring your account up to date within 7 days. If you are unable to make payment immediately, we may be able to agree alternative payment arrangements.
If you fail to make contact and don't bring your account up to date, we will not issue any further reminders. You will lose your right to pay by instalments and we will take court action against you
Final Notice
If you pay the amount required by the Reminder notice, and you are late with your payments again, you will lose the right to pay by instalments and you will be issued with a Final notice. This means that the remainder of your full yearly amount becomes due and payable.
If you do not pay in full, we will take court action against you.
Summons
If you have failed to pay money owed on your account after a reminder has been sent to you, details of your account will be passed to the Recovery Section. At this stage we will issue a summons to appear at North East Derbyshire and Dales Magistrates Court. As a result, you will lose the right to pay by instalments and the summons will request that you pay the full outstanding balance, including an additional amount for court costs.
Arrangements
Once a summons has been issued, the Recovery Section will be happy to discuss making an arrangement for you to pay off your outstanding balance. This could be through a Direct Debit, three-monthly payments or based on your income and expenditure.
We will still apply for a Liability Order with costs at the court hearing, but we will not take any further recovery action, as long as you keep to your arrangement.
Further Action
If you do not make an arrangement to pay, or fail to keep to the arrangement you have made, then the Recovery Section can take the following action:
- pass your account to an enforcement agent's company to recover; you may be charged additional costs for this by the company
- start insolvency proceedings
- apply for your committal to prison
Contact us to make arrangements
Of course we would like to avoid all of these options, if at all possible, by making an acceptable arrangement with you. Please contact the Revenues Section to discuss your options:
- Telephone: 01246 217114
- Email:
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Appeals
Full details and guidance on the appeals process can be found on the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) website.