Sheriff officers are officers of the court, appointed by and accountable to the sheriff. Their powers come from statute, so the firm named on the letter does not change what can happen next.

This page is about the letter and the account behind it. Our Scott & Co advice page deals with getting help, and the sheriff officer hub covers the role itself.

Check it against your own council tax account rather than against the letter itself. Work out which creditor is named, which reference is quoted and which financial years are claimed, then put each of those to the council.

What to check, and where to check it

Work down the letter one item at a time. The right-hand column is the part that does the verifying, because it sends you to a source that is not the letter.

Checking without using the letter’s own details

Use the phone number on your council tax bill or on the council’s own website. Official guidance on council tax links to every Scottish council if you do not have a bill to hand.

Ask the council whether the account has been passed out for recovery, and for the reference it holds. Compare that reference with the one on the letter.

It tells you the creditor already holds the legal authority to enforce. For council tax that authority is a summary warrant, granted by the sheriff court on the council’s application without a hearing.

The summary warrant stage

A summary warrant is granted on an application supported by a certificate, under the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) (Scotland) Regulations 1992 and the Local Government Finance Act 1992.

You do not attend and you do not get the chance to contest liability at that point. That is why the first you hear of it can be a letter from a firm you have never dealt with.

What the letter is not

It is not a court summons and it is not a criminal matter. Council tax is a civil debt, non-payment cannot lead to imprisonment in Scotland, and there is no criminal record.

Council tax is also not reported to credit reference agencies, so the arrears do not appear on your credit file. A summary warrant is not a court decree obtained after a hearing.

It is not something you have to answer at a door or on a phone call either. Asking for the balance and the breakdown in writing is a reply.

Liability is decided by the council under a statutory hierarchy, and that is a question for the council rather than for the officers. Adults at the same level of the hierarchy are jointly and severally liable, so the whole balance can be asked of any one of them.

How liability is decided

The hierarchy in the Local Government Finance Act 1992 runs down from resident owner, to resident tenant, to resident sub-tenant, to another resident, to non-resident owner. Our council tax liability guide sets out how a council works down it.

Spouses, civil partners and cohabitees are jointly liable regardless of whose name is on the bill. Joint and several is a harder rule than an equal share, because one person can be asked for all of it.

If you had moved out, or a discount was missed

A single person discount is 25% where only one adult lives in the property, and other discounts and disregards cover full-time students, apprentices, care leavers under 26, live-in carers and people who are severely mentally impaired. Council Tax Reduction can go up to 100% of the liability.

Some of those can be applied to earlier periods, though the rules vary by council and by type. Ask the council what is possible on your own account rather than assuming a cut-off.

Council tax is billed by financial year, and each year is a separate liability with its own bill and its own recovery history. Ask for the balance broken down year by year before you agree to anything.

Why the year matters

Payments are normally allocated to the oldest year of arrears first unless you say otherwise, so a payment you made last month may have gone to a much older year. Our guide to council tax billing explains how a bill and its instalments are put together.

If you want a payment credited to a particular year, say so in writing at the time. Doing it afterwards is harder.

The year also decides which discount or reduction could have applied, because household circumstances change. A statement that shows each year separately is what makes that checkable.

How the account reached this stage

Day counts vary a little by council policy, so treat the timings as typical rather than fixed. The stage you are at tells you how much of the year has already been brought forward.

How far back the years can go

Council tax is excluded from the five-year short negative prescription, so it sits on the twenty-year long negative prescription instead. Old years are not automatically dead, and the dates on one particular account are what decide it.

Both, for different things. The council remains the creditor and decides liability, discounts, exemptions and Council Tax Reduction, while the officers carry out the enforcement steps.

Who decides what

This is the split that is worth getting straight before you pick up the phone. Asking the wrong body wastes the time you have.

Our council tax debt advice page covers what to put in an offer to a council, and what a council can and cannot vary on the account.

The council does not stop being the creditor

Instructing sheriff officers does not transfer the debt to the firm. The council is still the creditor, and an arrangement is still something to ask the council about.

Reinstating instalments after a final notice is at the council’s discretion rather than a right. Our guide to stopping enforcement once officers are involved sets out what a Time to Pay Order, the Debt Arrangement Scheme and a council arrangement each do.

They can carry out diligence, which includes an earnings arrestment on your wages, a bank arrestment on your account and attachment of goods outside a dwelling. Each further step carries its own court-set fee, added to the balance.

The steps that can follow

An earnings arrestment schedule is served on your employer, who then deducts from your net pay using the statutory tables in force since 6 April 2025. Monthly net pay of £750.00 or less produces no deduction at all.

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

Ordinary attachment reaches only goods outside a dwelling, such as a garden, a driveway or business premises. There is no power to force entry to a home for ordinary council tax arrears.

There are real limits on all of this, and what sheriff officers can and cannot do covers entry, protected goods and the complaints route.

What the further steps cost

Fees are set by an Act of Sederunt and added to what you owe, and the table of fees charges by the act performed rather than by the diligence. Our guide to why the balance is bigger than the bill you remember takes the total apart.

Ask the council for a year-by-year statement of the account, and ask the firm for an itemised breakdown of its charges. Send both in writing and keep a copy.

What to ask for

• The financial years the arrears cover, and the balance for each year.
• Every payment received, and how each one was allocated between years.
• The balance before the 10% surcharge, and the date the summary warrant was granted.
• Every charge added by the firm, with its date and the act it relates to.
• The name of the creditor instructing the firm, and the reference number.
• Any discount, exemption or reduction applied to each year.

Say that you are taking advice and ask for the reply in writing. That gives an adviser something to work from and gives you a dated record.

Then take it to an adviser

Free help is available from Citizens Advice Scotland, StepChange, Money Advice Scotland, National Debtline and your council’s own money advice team. Official guidance on debt and diligence in Scotland sets out the formal routes.

Applications and orders in diligence are dealt with by the sheriff court. An adviser is the person to take the paperwork to first.