How to Pay a Bill in Leicester

In Person
The Town Hall is open M,W,Th 8am-5pm, Tuesdays 8am-7pm and is closed Fridays.

By Mail
All tax bills are now addressed to the lockbox company Leicester uses in order to process payments.
That address is:
                                Town of Leicester
                                PO Box 861
                                Reading MA 01867-0407

PLEASE INCLUDE THE REMITTANCE PORTION OF YOUR BILL IN ORDER TO ENSURE THAT YOUR PAYMENT IS PROPERLY CREDITED.

Outside Drop Box
There is a locked metal box located outside the main entrance of the town hall (west parking lot). Payments may be left in the box at any time as it is checked throughout the day. If you would like a stamped receipt of your payment, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope with your payment. Please do not leave cash in the Drop Box. Payments left in the Drop Box at the end of the business day will be credited to your account as of the next business day.

Pay Bills Online
ADVISORY: When making payments online for town services (taxes, dog licenses, etc.), please be sure to use the Town's official and ONLY online payment vendor, Unipay.  The Town is not responsible for late payments made by third party vendors.

Real Estate, Personal Property, Motor Vehicle Excise may be paid online using a town-sponsored site that can be accessed from the Home Page of this website.  You may pay online either by having your payment electronically deducted from your checking account, or by using your MasterCard or Discover credit card.  If you wish to take advantage of this convenient method of paying your bills, go to the Home Page or the top of this page and click on the button marked “Pay Bills Online.”   The Town’s pay on-line system is run by UniBank and is a secure site.  Payment information is not stored by either the Town of Leicester or UniBank. To pay a bill online click here.   

Payment by Electronic Debit from Your Checking Account:  You should have your bill and your checkbook in front of you for reference before you begin the process.  You will be guided through a series of steps so that your payment is deducted directly from your checking account and sent electronically to the Town’s account.  If you wish, you may request that an e-mail be sent to your computer to confirm that the payment information has been received by the bank.  There is a .50 cent charge for this service.

Pay by Credit Card (MasterCard, Visa or Discover Card):  You may also pay by using your MasterCard or Discover card.  Be advised, however, that the “merchant fees” which the credit card companies charge for this service, and which would ordinarily be paid by a retail store as a part of the cost of doing business, must be paid by you as a “convenience fee” if you choose to make your payment by credit card.  If you choose “Pay by Credit Card” in the drop-down box, a separate box will display the amount of the convenience fee that will be charged and added to your payment.  If you choose to pay by Visa debit there will be fee of only $3.95.  In this way,  you will know ahead of time exactly how much the fee is so that you can decide if you want to complete the credit card transaction or use another method to pay your bill.

Real Estate bills may be paid on-line throughout most of the collection year.  After the processing for tax takings has begun, payments will be accepted only in cash, bank check, or certified check.  At that point, payments will no longer be accepted on-line.

Personal Property tax bills and Motor Vehicle Excise bills may be paid on-line up until the time that warrants are issued and they have been turned over to the Deputy Collector’s Office for collection.  If you have received a warrant for a delinquent Motor Vehicle Excise bill, you may pay on-line by clicking on the link for the Deputy Collector web site and following the instructions for on-line payments.

Partial Payments:  Partial payments MAY NOT be made for Motor Vehicle Excise bill.
Errors and/or Insufficient Funds:  The confirmation that you will receive from UniBank verifies only that the bank has received your payment information, but does not confirm the electronic transmission of funds.  Occasionally, we are notified that a transaction has been reversed because an invalid account or routing number was used.  In this situation, we must also reverse the payment, leaving your bill unpaid.  If this happens, we will notify you by e-mail and also by U.S. mail so that you can reissue the payment either on-line or by sending a check to the Collector’s Office.

Bank On-Line Payment Systems
IMPORTANT INFORMATION when making a payment using your personal bank's on-line bill payer system

Some residents prefer to pay their municipal bills by using on-line systems offered by their bank.

We do not recommend this type of payment because no bill is remitted with the payment.

We will accept these payments, provided that we can immediately determine for whom and for what type of bill the payment is being remitted.

Please include on the check:

  • The type of bill being paid (real estate, excise, personal property, etc)
  • The bill number and year or account number (remember bill numbers change from year to year)
  • The name and address should be on either the check or the check stub

If we cannot make such determination, we will mail your check back to you and ask that you return it with the appropriate remittance form.

Items returned may be subject to additional charges and interest.

Cash Payments
Please do not send cash by mail, either to the office or the lockbox.  Please do not leave cash in the outside mail box.  If you wish to pay in cash, the safest way to do so is to pay at the office during normal business hours.

Checks
The Town of Leicester accepts only checks that are made payable to “Town of Leicester”.  We do not accept checks made payable to a third party, even with an endorsement.  This is simply good business practice.

Most of the time, we can accept personal checks in payment of your bills.  The following occasions are exceptions.  In these cases, delinquents would have received letters advising them as to the acceptable methods of payment.

If your property is in the process of a tax taking, we will accept payment only by cash or bank check or certified personal check.  Please call if you are unsure.
 

Check Dates:  When you make a payment with any type of check, the check must be dated no later than the date on which you are tendering payment.  We cannot accept checks which are post-dated, that is, are dated in the future.  Please remember this when you make out your check.  If you send us a post-dated check, it will be returned to you, and we will ask you to change the date and to initial your change.

Insufficient Funds Checks
Any check which is returned to this office and, for whatever reason,  is not honored by the payer’s bank, will be subject to the statutory penalty as outlined in Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 60, Section 57A.  The penalty is 1% of the face value of the check with a minimum charge of $25.
If your check is returned to us, we will not redeposit it until we have collected the $25 penalty charge.  If the penalty is not paid, we will charge back the payment to the appropriate account (taxes, excise, utility).

If the insufficient funds check was in payment of a tax bill, and if the payment due date has passed, interest and all other applicable fees will be charged to the account. Only cash or certified funds will be accepted for repayment.

Credit Card Payments
Payment by credit card may be made only through the on-line payment system, and only using a MasterCard, Visa or Discover credit card.  A convenience fee will be charged by the credit card company and must be paid by the bill payer.  If you choose Visa debit there will be a fee of $3.95.

Timely Payments
Payments must be received in the Collector’s Office by the due date in order to be considered “on time.”  Postmarks are never accepted.  This policy is in accord with the ruling of the Massachusetts Department of Revenue on what constitutes “timely payments.”