Twenty years. Council tax is expressly excluded from the 5-year short negative prescription and falls under the 20-year long negative prescription in section 7 of the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973.

The two clocks in Scots law

The 1973 Act runs two clocks: five years under section 6, which catches most consumer debt, and 20 years under section 7. Council tax sits on the longer one.

What Schedule 1 paragraph 2(fd) takes out

The exclusion covers council tax under Part 2 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992, non-domestic rates, and the surcharges, fees and enforcement expenses that go with them.

So the 10% summary warrant surcharge and any sheriff officer fees sit on the same 20-year period as the tax. No part of the account runs out ahead of the rest.

Which time limit applies to which debt

Two debts from the same year can be in completely different positions. The table shows where each sits and what does or does not affect the period.

A catalogue account and a council tax bill from the same year behave nothing alike. Our guide to what debts can lead to a wage arrestment covers the other balances that reach your pay.

No, not since 28 February 2025. A relevant claim now extends the twenty-year period until that claim is finally disposed of, and a payment or a written acknowledgement has no effect on it at all.

What changed on 28 February 2025

Enforcement does not send the clock back to the start. Since 28 February 2025 a relevant claim, which includes executing diligence, extends the twenty-year period until that claim is finally disposed of.

Before that date it restarted the period, and a great deal of published advice has not caught up.

A payment or an acknowledgement no longer touches it

A payment or a written acknowledgement does not affect the twenty-year period at all. Section 10(1) of the 1973 Act now applies only for the purposes of sections 6 and 8A, and section 7 is not among them, so acknowledgement has no part in the twenty-year rule.

The five-year rule is different and has not changed. Under section 6 a payment or a written acknowledgement still interrupts the period and sends it back to the start, which is why the advice to take advice before paying an old debt still holds for ordinary consumer debt.

Who has to prove an old balance survived

Section 13A, inserted on the same date, puts the burden on the creditor. Where a question arises about whether an obligation has been extinguished, it is presumed to have been extinguished unless the creditor proves otherwise.

None of that makes an old council tax balance safe to ignore. Twenty years is a long period, the council does not need to sue you to enforce, and a live claim holds the period open.

That middle column is about the twenty-year period only. On a five-year consumer debt a payment or a written acknowledgement still sends the period back to the start.

Prescription and statute barred are not the same idea

Prescription extinguishes the obligation itself, while English limitation only bars the remedy. If a page mentions the Limitation Act 1980, bailiffs or liability orders, it is not about Scotland.

No. Schedule 8 paragraph 2 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 is the council tax summary warrant power, and it contains no time limit for applying, no duration and no expiry.

What the warrant power actually says

A summary warrant is granted by the sheriff court on the council’s application, supported by a certificate, with no hearing and no chance to contest liability at that point.

The procedure sits in the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) (Scotland) Regulations 1992, particularly regulation 30.

The clock people confuse it with

A charge for payment is a different document, valid for diligence for two years from service under section 90 of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987.

For council tax under a summary warrant, the council can move to an earnings arrestment without serving a charge first. A charge is required for ordinary court decrees.

When does the 20-year clock start?

The twenty years run from the date the obligation became enforceable, on the wording substituted into section 7(1) on 28 February 2025.

We deliberately do not print a trigger date, because the starting point turns on your own account’s history. If a balance may be old enough to have prescribed, ask a money adviser to work through the dates.

Old arrears are a balance you were billed for and did not clear. Backdated liability is a charge for an earlier period the council has only now made you responsible for, and the two are challenged differently.

Two different letters, two different questions

A recovery letter about a 2018 balance says an account you had was never settled. A backdated bill says you were liable for dates you were never billed for, so start with our council tax liability guide.

What a backdated bill is saying

A backdated bill says the council has decided you were liable for dates it had not billed you for. Ask what it relied on to reach that decision.

Backdating cuts both ways. There is no statutory maximum backdating period for discounts, disregards and exemptions, and how far back a council goes is discretionary, so ask yours.

Ask in writing for a full account history by financial year, showing the property, the dates you were held liable, every payment received and every charge added. Writing gives you a dated record.

What to ask for, line by line

A single outstanding figure tells you nothing you can check.

• The financial years covered, and the amount outstanding on each.
• The property, and the exact dates you were held liable at it.
• Every payment received, and the year each one was allocated to.
• Any discount or exemption applied, and any later removed.
• The date of any summary warrant, and the 10% surcharge added on grant.
• The dates of any diligence carried out, such as a wage or bank arrestment.

That last line decides whether the age of the debt helps you. Our council tax billing guide explains how a bill and its instalments are built.

What is worth checking on an old balance

An old balance can be a mixture of years, and part of the total may not survive a look.

• You moved out before the period billed, or in later than the council recorded.
• A single person discount of 25% was never applied to a period you lived alone.
• A student, apprentice, care leaver or live-in carer disregard was missed.
• Council Tax Reduction was never claimed for a period you would have qualified, though backdating runs to 6 months before the application at working age where there was continuous good cause, and 3 months at pension age.
• A disabled band reduction was never applied, which charges the bill one band lower.
• You are pursued as a jointly liable adult for dates you did not live there.

Which year your payments are going to

Payments are normally allocated to the oldest year of arrears first unless you specify otherwise, and policies vary. If you want a payment credited to a particular year, say so in writing.

That matters most where the oldest year is the one you dispute, because a payment allocated there is money spent on the part of the balance you were questioning.

Everything it can do about this year’s arrears. If a summary warrant was granted, the council can instruct sheriff officers to recover the balance by diligence, however old the balance is.

What can follow a summary warrant

The council instructs a sheriff officer firm, and the age of the debt changes nothing about what it can do. An account reaches that point through a reminder and a final notice in an earlier year, then a warrant.

• A wage arrestment, taking a banded deduction from net pay each pay period.
• A bank arrestment, freezing funds above a protected minimum balance of £1,000.
• Attachment of goods, which reaches only items outside a dwelling.
• An exceptional attachment order, which allows entry to a home but needs a sheriff to find exceptional circumstances.

Under a summary warrant, the council can move to an earnings arrestment without first serving a charge for payment. What happens if you do not pay your council tax sets out the whole sequence.

How much a wage arrestment takes

Deductions come off net pay, on the Schedule 2 tables in force since 6 April 2025, and monthly net pay of £750.00 or less produces a nil deduction.

Net pay of £1,800.00 produces £172.50 a month, £2,200.00 produces £252.50, and weekly net pay of £400.00 produces £36.85. Our wage arrestment calculator works out your own figure.

What an old balance does not do to you

Council tax arrears are not reported to credit reference agencies, and a summary warrant does not appear on a credit file. Age makes no difference.

Non-payment cannot lead to imprisonment in Scotland either. It is a civil debt rather than a criminal offence, so there is no criminal record.

Ask the council for an affordable arrangement first. If the total is beyond what you can spread, a Time to Pay Order, the Debt Arrangement Scheme, a trust deed and a statutory moratorium are all still open, however old the debt is.

An arrangement with the council

There is no statutory maximum period for spreading council tax arrears, and councils commonly work to the current financial year while considering longer on evidenced affordability. Ask for a special payment arrangement in writing.

Our council tax debt advice page covers what to ask a recovery team for.

A Time to Pay Order

A Time to Pay Order is competent against a summary warrant, and where the sheriff grants one the sheriff must recall any existing earnings arrestment. For other diligence the sheriff only may recall.

The debt has to be £25,000 or less excluding interest, and a Time to Pay Direction is not available, because a direction responds to a court action. It is not settled whether an earnings arrestment alone satisfies the conditions, so the sheriff clerk at your local sheriff court or a money adviser should confirm competency.

Formal debt solutions

An approved Debt Payment Programme under the Debt Arrangement Scheme stops an existing earnings arrestment, with interest, fees and charges frozen. It is run by the Accountant in Bankruptcy.

Council tax arrears can go into a programme, old years included. Your current-year liability cannot, so it is paid alongside.

A protected trust deed ends an earnings arrestment on the date of protection, not on signing, under section 173 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016. Money already deducted is credited against the debt rather than refunded.

A moratorium while you check the dates

A statutory moratorium gives six months of protection and you get one per rolling 12 months. It stops service of a charge for payment, stops new diligence and stops creditor petitions for sequestration.

It does not stop a creditor obtaining a decree, and interest and charges keep accruing throughout.

It does not stop an earnings arrestment that was already running. Section 197(5)(d) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016 lets a creditor carry on executing an earnings arrestment, a current maintenance arrestment or a conjoined arrestment order that came into effect before the moratorium began.