It is the earliest and most fixable point in the whole council tax recovery process. Nothing has been added to your bill, no court has been involved and no sheriff officer has been instructed.

One warning before you read anything else. Almost every page that ranks for this letter describes English law, which works nothing like the Scottish system.

Because an instalment did not reach the council by the date on your bill. The reminder normally follows about two weeks later.

The trigger is the missed payment rather than a view anyone has formed about you. Nobody at the council has assessed your finances at this stage.

What actually sets the reminder off

Council tax is normally billed as a set of instalments across the year, and the billing and collection rules treat each of those dates as a deadline. Miss one and the account is flagged.

The sequence itself sits in the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) (Scotland) Regulations 1992. Councils apply it with slightly different timings, so work to the dates printed on your own letter.

Common causes worth ruling out first

• A direct debit cancelled by the bank after a card or account change.
• A payment sent using an old council tax reference number.
• A revised bill issued part way through the year, changing the instalment amount.
• Council Tax Reduction ending or being reassessed.
• A move into or out of the property part way through the year.

Check these before you assume the money is genuinely owed. Where a payment was made but misapplied, one phone call with your reference number usually clears the lot.

A reminder is a warning, not enforcement

No surcharge has been added, no fee has been charged and no diligence has started. The letter exists to give you the chance to put it right before any of that becomes possible.

What escalates the position is silence. Every stage after this one costs more than the stage before it.

Completely, from the court step onwards. Scotland has no liability order, no magistrates’ court hearing, no bailiffs and no power to send anyone to prison for council tax arrears.

This matters more than any other point on the page. Search the term and you will mostly be reading English council websites and English advice pages.

The two systems side by side

Read down the Scotland column. The right hand column is there only to mark where England and Wales run a different procedure under different law, so those pages do not apply to you.

The Scottish court step is a summary warrant, which is granted on the council’s certificate without a hearing. You are not summoned and you do not attend.

A council can also apply to the DWP for a deduction of 5% of the Universal Credit standard allowance, but in Scotland only once it already holds a summary warrant or a decree.

Can you be sent to prison for council tax in Scotland?

No. Non-payment of council tax cannot lead to imprisonment in Scotland, because it is a civil debt and the committal power that exists in England and Wales does not apply in Scots law.

It is not a criminal offence either, so there is no criminal record attached to arrears.

Does a reminder notice touch your credit file?

No. Council tax arrears are not reported to credit reference agencies, so neither a reminder nor a later summary warrant shows up on your credit record.

Ordinary debts behave differently, because a court decree is recorded for six years in the Register of Decrees. Which debts can lead to a wage arrestment is a separate question from which of them show on a credit search.

Your account goes back on track and your right to pay by instalments carries on untouched. No surcharge is added, no sheriff officers are instructed and nothing follows you afterwards.

Councils differ slightly on the exact count, so treat the date printed on the letter as the real deadline.

Make the payment traceable

Use the council tax reference exactly as it is printed on the notice. A payment landing on the wrong reference can leave a cleared account still generating a second letter.

Where you are paying more than one year of arrears, say in writing which year the payment is meant for. Payments are normally allocated to the oldest year of arrears first unless the payer specifies otherwise.

What is not added at this stage

There is no penalty for a first missed instalment that gets put right. The 10% surcharge only attaches when a summary warrant is granted, which is several stages away.

Sheriff officer expenses are set by the court and added to the balance, and they only arise once a sheriff officer firm has been instructed. None of that is in play while a reminder is live.

Up to two in a financial year. After that, a further default produces a final notice rather than a third reminder.

That is the detail most people miss. The second reminder is the last letter before the process changes character entirely.

Reminder notice against final notice

Both letters give you roughly a week. What differs is the size of what you are being asked to pay and what happens if you leave it.

The bottom row is the one that matters most once a final notice has arrived. Our guide to the final notice for council tax goes through what a council will and will not agree to once instalments have been lost.

Why the second reminder is not a second chance

It carries the same short window as the first, so on the surface it looks identical.

Once both reminders in a year have been used, the next default takes you straight to a final notice. Treat the second letter as the point to pick up the phone.

The account moves on to a final notice, and if that goes unpaid the right to pay by instalments is lost. The whole remaining year’s balance then becomes due, and the council can apply for a summary warrant.

Nothing in that sequence moves fast on its own.

The Scottish council tax recovery timeline

Every stage below has an exit. The cost of using that exit rises sharply the further down the table you go.

Day counts vary a little between the 32 councils, so the timings above are the usual pattern rather than a rule. How quickly a council can take action sets out where the slack in that sequence really sits.

What enforcement can and cannot involve

Once a warrant is granted the council can instruct sheriff officers, who are officers of the court rather than private bailiffs. They can arrest wages or a bank account, or attach goods outside a dwelling.

They cannot force entry into your home for ordinary council tax arrears. They also cannot start any of this while you are still inside a reminder window.

What a wage arrestment at the end of that road looks like

A wage arrestment is the diligence that reaches a working household, and it is why people end up asking why they have been given a wage arrestment months after a letter they barely read.

On monthly net pay of £1,800.00 the deduction under the tables in force since 6 April 2025 is £172.50, leaving £1,627.50 before your employer’s charge. Our wage arrestment calculator does the same sum on your own figures.

Ring the council before the window on the letter runs out and ask about a payment arrangement. Councils would generally rather agree something they will actually receive than move the account on towards a summary warrant.

Be blunt about what you can afford. An arrangement you can keep is worth far more than a generous one that breaks in month two.

Asking for a special payment arrangement

A special payment arrangement spreads the missed amount over the rest of the year, or over a period the council agrees. Ask for it in writing and keep the reply.

The same conversation is much harder after a warrant, which is why timing matters more than eloquence. Negotiating a payment arrangement covers what to say and what a creditor is actually weighing up.

Check whether the bill should be lower in the first place

Some readers of this page should not owe the full amount at all. Start with the council tax discounts that apply to your household.

• Single person discount of 25% where only one adult lives in the property.
• Council Tax Reduction, which can cover up to 100% of the liability in Scotland.
• Disregards for full-time students, apprentices, care leavers under 26, live-in carers and people who are severely mentally impaired.
• The disabled band reduction, charging the bill one band lower where a disabled resident needs an extra room, an additional bathroom or kitchen, or space to use a wheelchair indoors.

Water and sewerage charges are billed alongside council tax but handled separately, with their own reduction scheme. Ask about both in the same call.

If the arrears are bigger than one instalment

Free advice is available from Citizens Advice Scotland, StepChange, Money Advice Scotland and National Debtline, and mygov.scot covers debt and decrees in plain terms. Your council’s own money advice team is often the fastest route.

Where the wider debt picture is heavier, a Debt Payment Programme under the Debt Arrangement Scheme can include council tax arrears and freezes interest, fees and charges. It runs through the Accountant in Bankruptcy.

Your current-year council tax has to keep being paid alongside a programme. Our council tax debt advice page sets out how councils treat that split.

Compare the reference number, the property address, the instalment amount and the dates against your own bank statements. Errors cluster around house moves, joint liability and mid-year discount changes.

A reminder for a property you had already left is not unusual. Neither is one that ignores a discount you were awarded in month three.

Who is actually liable for the bill

Liability in Scotland runs down a hierarchy set by the Local Government Finance Act 1992, from resident owner, to resident tenant, to resident sub-tenant, to other resident, to non-resident owner.

Adults at the same level are jointly and severally liable, so the council can pursue any one of them for the whole bill. Our council tax liability page explains where a partner, a flatmate or a former tenant sits in that order.

Raising a dispute without making things worse

Put the challenge in writing straight away and keep a copy with the dates you are relying on. A phone call nobody logs is no use later.

Do not simply stop paying while it is being looked at. The recovery clock keeps running on the amount the council believes is due, and a disputed bill can still reach a final notice.