The amount(s) you have to pay are shown on your Council Tax Demand Notice (bill), or on other Council Tax payment notices that Sefton Council issue, for example a reminder/final notice or summons.
Payment must be made no later than the dates shown on the notice.
To make sure your payments are allocated correctly to your Council Tax account it's important that you pay the exact instalment amount due (together with any legal costs shown where relevant).
If you have a separate arrangement for outstanding arrears on your account, you must pay the exact amount that has been requested in order to make sure that your payment is allocated correctly.
The Council’s software has built-in allocation rules to determine where a payment is posted, when there are debts for more than one year.
Payments will be allocated as follows:-
- An amount equal to an instalment on your current years bill will be allocated to that instalment.
- An amount that is equal to multiple instalments on your current bill will be allocated to the current years balance due. For example, you have £200 arrears for a previous years charge and the instalments for the current year are £100 per month. If you make a payment of £200 it will be allocated to the current year not the outstanding arrears.
- The oldest outstanding debt if the payment does not match an instalment.
- If your current instalments are up to date but you still have outstanding arrears from a previous year, the above rules will still be applied when any additional payments are made that match future instalment dates.
If you are paying an amount towards arrears for a particular year, you should advise the Council when making the payment which debt you want the payment allocated to.