There is a second cause that has nothing to do with enforcement at all. Losing the right to pay by instalments brings the rest of the year’s bill forward in one go.

This page takes the number apart. Our Stirling Park advice page deals with getting help, and the sheriff officer hub covers the role itself.

Three things move it. The rest of the financial year is brought forward, a 10% statutory surcharge is added on grant of the summary warrant, and a court-set fee attaches to each act the officer performs.

What is actually in the number

The parts joined the balance at different points, so a figure you were quoted months ago may not match one quoted today.

Two of those lines come from your council and two come from the court. Separating them is the first useful thing you can do with the letter.

None of it is the firm’s own price

Fees come from a table of fees in an Act of Sederunt rather than from the firm, so the same act costs the same whichever firm your council instructs. They are set by the court and added to what you owe.

Sheriff officers are officers of the court, appointed by and accountable to the sheriff. The authority for what they charge comes from the court rather than from the company.

Those fees are added to what you owe rather than met by the creditor alone. A file that is resolved before further steps are taken carries fewer of them.

It is a statutory surcharge of 10%, added to the outstanding council tax when the sheriff court grants the council a summary warrant. Your council adds it, before any sheriff officer is instructed.

When and how it is added

A summary warrant is granted on the council’s application, supported by a certificate and without a hearing, under the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) (Scotland) Regulations 1992 and the Local Government Finance Act 1992.

You do not attend the application and you do not get the chance to contest liability at that point. That is why the surcharge can appear on a balance you had no warning about.

The 10% is worked out on what was outstanding when the warrant was granted. So the date of the warrant, and the balance immediately before it, are the two things to ask the council for.

It is not a sheriff officer fee

The 10% is a council charge fixed by statute. It does not grow with the number of steps taken afterwards, and it is not affected by which firm is instructed.

Because the right to pay by instalments is lost where a final notice is not paid in time, and the whole remaining year’s balance then becomes due. That happens before the summary warrant rather than after it.

How the account got there

A missed instalment produces a reminder notice, usually around two weeks later, and paying within 7 days puts the account back on track. A council may issue up to two reminders in a financial year.

On a further default a final notice goes out, and the 7 days on that one is the point of no return for the instalment plan. Day counts vary a little by council policy, so treat them as typical rather than fixed.

Getting instalments back

Reinstating instalments after a final notice is at the council’s discretion rather than a right. Asking for a special payment arrangement in writing, with figures for what you can afford, is the way to put it.

There is no statutory maximum period for spreading arrears. Councils commonly work to the current financial year while considering longer where affordability is evidenced.

There is no single figure, because a fee attaches to each act the officer performs rather than to the file as a whole. The rates are published, and the table in force now has applied since 22 March 2024.

How the fees are structured

The table charges by the act rather than by the diligence, so serving a charge for payment, an earnings arrestment schedule and a bank arrestment schedule all fall in the same place on it. Our guide to the fees sheriff officers can charge reproduces the table with the Column A and Column B rule that decides which rate applies.

Outlays and VAT are added on top of the fee rather than included in it, and work outside normal business hours carries an uplift. So a published rate is a starting figure rather than a total.

Where the fees are recovered from

For an earnings arrestment, section 93(1) of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 makes the expenses recoverable by the diligence concerned and not by any other legal process. For a bank arrestment, section 93(2) takes them out of the arrested funds instead.

So the charges are met through the enforcement rather than billed to you as a separate account. Where the diligence is an attachment of goods, section 40 of the Debt Arrangement and Attachment (Scotland) Act 2002 governs it instead.

That section covers the expenses of an attachment, including any charge served before it and the auction following it. Expenses not recovered by the completion of the attachment cease to be chargeable against you, subject to the exceptions in the section.

Council tax, and the surcharges, fees and enforcement expenses that go with it, are excluded from the five-year short negative prescription, so they sit on the twenty-year long negative prescription instead. Since 28 February 2025 executing diligence extends that period until the claim is finally disposed of rather than restarting it, and a payment does not affect the twenty years at all.

Two things sit outside the balance itself. Your employer may take £1.00 per deduction while an earnings arrestment is running, and water and sewerage charges are billed alongside council tax but handled separately.

The employer’s administration charge

The £1.00 comes out of your pay on top of the arrested amount, so it does not reduce the debt and it is not a sheriff officer fee. What the arrestment itself takes is fixed by the statutory tables, and our wage arrestment calculator runs your own figure.

Monthly net pay of £750.00 or less produces no deduction at all. On £1,800.00 net a month the deduction is £172.50.

Water and sewerage charges

Water and sewerage charges are billed alongside council tax but are handled separately, with their own reduction scheme. Ask the council which part of the balance is council tax and which part is water.

That matters when you are checking a total against your own records. The two are collected together and are not the same liability.

Council Tax Reduction does not touch water and sewerage charges either. Those run through a separate scheme, so a reduction on one part of the bill does not reduce the other.

Each further act carries its own fee, so a file that runs through more steps costs more. What freezes or displaces the charges is a statutory route rather than anything negotiated with the firm.

What reaches the charges

A Debt Payment Programme under the Debt Arrangement Scheme freezes interest, fees and charges, which are written off on completion. It is run by the Accountant in Bankruptcy through the DAS Administrator.

A Time to Pay Order and a statutory moratorium each reach enforcement in a different way, and the routes that stop enforcement once officers are involved sets out what each one does to a diligence already running.

Council tax arrears can go into a programme, and current-year council tax cannot. The limits on what officers can do in the meantime are covered in what sheriff officers can and cannot do.

Ask in writing, and ask the council and the firm for different things. The council holds the year-by-year account and the surcharge, and the firm holds its own charges.

What to ask for, and who holds it

Keep a copy of both requests. A dated written record is what an adviser can work from later.

Put the requests in writing rather than making them on a call. You are asking for a breakdown rather than disputing anything, and a written reply is what you can check against your own bills.

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

Then get it checked

Take the breakdown to a free money adviser before agreeing a payment. Official guidance on debt and diligence in Scotland sets out the formal routes, and our council tax debt advice page covers what to put in an offer to a council.