We send you a bill every March for year beginning 1st April or if you move. We will send you an adjusted bill called anu00a0Adjustmentu00a0Notice, if you move or if your council tax changes. This section explains the information shown on your bill.
The content of your bill is explained below:
Date of issue
This is the date that your bill was produced
Account reference
This is your unique council tax account reference number. You must give us this number when you want to speak to us about your bill, or when you want to make a payment.
Name and address
This is the name and address of the person that we are asking to pay the council tax. In most cases this will also be the address that the council tax bill is for. But, if the bill is for a different address it will appear in the second box on the right hand side.
Council tax charge
This shows you the amount of council tax that you will need to pay from 1 April to 31 March.
Your Council tax band
The Valuation Office Agency calculates the band for your property and the amount that you pay us will depend on what band your property is in.
Council tax collected on behalf of your County Council, Fire and Police Authorities and your District and Town/Parish Councils
Although you pay your council tax to us, we do not keep all of the money. The total amount that you pay is split between five different authorities that all provide different services in your area. You can see here how much council tax goes to each authority and how much your council tax has changed from the previous year.
Method of payment
This will tell you how we are expecting to receive payments from you. Please remember that you can change your method of payment whenever you like.
Your payments
Council tax is normally paid in 10 instalments from April to January. These two columns show you the date that the payment is due and the amount that you need to pay. You can pay in 12 instalments from April to March. If you would like this option, you will need to write to us, or send us an email.
When we send you a bill at the start of the financial year we must give you 10 instalments to pay your council tax, from April to January. u00a0If you register for council tax after 1st April, the number of instalments we can give you may be less than 10, because we have fewer months left in the year to collect the charge.u00a0
However you may find that your new bill has instalments spread through to February and perhaps even March, instead of finishing in January. u00a0But this really depends on when you move in the year.
The same thing could happen if you had a change in your circumstances. For example, if you started the financial year with discount on your bill. Then your circumstances changed and we had to cancel it. There would be a new calculation of your charge, so we would send you a new bill with new instalments. And you may find that that your new instalments end after January