Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hello

Hoping you can help me.  I'm afraid this has progressed to bailiff stage although I have only just become aware of it for the very first time in the past few days.

Situation is that a PCN was issued because I drove my car (leased by my private company) into a particular road in Camden, London that I didn't realise was restricted to motor vehicles.  I can see a fair bit of chat about this same road on other sites. Seems the restrictions were introduced in 2022. Anyhow, although I didn't see the signs (I was focused on trying to park around there to take the kids for a walk down to Camden market on a bank holiday), it seems clear to me that I must have driven into this zone, which is not for motor vehicles at certain times of the day. So let's say that my "fault" is not in question here. 

The real issue is that I had the car in question as a company car lease at the time, so it was actually just leased to my own service/consultancy company (I am a one-woman band but provide my services through a company). As a result of this, the PCN was sent to the registered office for my company, which registered office is provided by a service provider (one of those addresses where hundreds if not thousands of companies are registered) and not an actual physical office (at least, not an office that I have ever used to run my business out of).  Because I had not paid for mail forwarding, the only mail they were forwarding to me from that address was "official" post by which they generally mean Companies House or HMRC.  So I wouldn't have ever known about the PCN or, presumably, the follow-up letters from Camden Council about it, and subsequently from the debt enforcement agency to which Camden no doubt passed the matter at some point.  All of that post would have been sent to the registered office and then shredded by them after 14 days in line with their policy.

So the first time I actually became aware of the whole issue was two days ago when the registered office forwarded a "statutory letter" to me, a copy of which is attached. This is a notice from Equita stating that they will be attending the premises of my company to remove goods to cover the balance due of £515.00.  However, as the address given on the notice is the address of the registered office, I expect that if they try to attend that office to remove goods, they will be sent packing by whoever runs that business.

I really don't want to have to pay £515. Had I known about the PCN at the start, I would have tried to appeal to Camden then if that failed I would have just paid the £65.  My question, in short, is whether I can just ignore this bailiff's notice entirely and hope they will give up. When they see that the registered office is a third party service provider and not where my company actually resides, will they just give up at that point?  Or will they actually carry on and take my company to court to recover the £515 plus costs?  Do you know what these debt enforcement agencies would typically do such situations?  Do they just give up or do they keep going to the bitter end?  There is nothing on Companies House which tells them what my actual home address is, so I don't think they could find my house without some serious effort and digging on their part.

Alternatively, I could try to contact Camden and tell them what happened and offer to pay £65 or even £130, but I have a feeling that isn't going to work here as it has gone too far. Or do you think that is possible?

I know your guidance says I should post all details of the PCN except my name and address, however:

- I don't actually have the PCN or any other correspondence apart from the bailiff's enforcement notice

- I really don't want the bailiffs to identify me on here (of course I have no idea if they are in the habit of trawling through this chatroom!).

For that reason, I have attached a copy of the bailiffs notice with a lot of details redacted.  Sorry about that, but I'm really quite afraid about them catching up with me somehow.  I don't want to terrify my kids with people knocking on the door looking to take our stuff. I've never been in that position before and would never have been in that position had it not been for not wanting to pay £100 per year for mail forwarding. Just didn't think my little service company would get any mail apart from HMRC, and it just didn't occur to me to worry about PCNs which might be issued to my company for my car lease (I thought those PCNs would go to the lease company first, but obviously I was wrong about that). 

Some of the missing information on the bailiff's notice includes the date of the original contravention (which was May 2024) and the charges (which now amount to £515). And the notice is dated 13 April 2025.

Also, I don't have the car any more, as the lease ended about six months ago. Though that's probably not relevant.

Really, really appreciate your advice here. Tagging @cp8759 as I am guessing I don't have a lot of time (thank you again).

Kind regards
Chloe

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OP, pl explain.

The car is leased. From whom?

To whom? The company which you own but NOT to you in person?

And the lease company didn't notify the lessee(your company) that they'd received a PCN. Or perhaps they did but as they're neither the council, nor Govt. nor HMRC then the accommodation registered address provider didn't forward?

And the notice is addressed to the company which you own and also provide services under a director service agreement and not to you by name?

Hello everyone, thank you for your very helpful comments.  Just back after Easter, so apologies for the delay in replying back.

To answer the questions posed, in the order received:

1. I didn't pay for the post forwarding service for ordinary post because it was about £100, my company doesn't make a lot of money these days and I was looking to cut costs - also because I just wasn't expecting to receive any important mail that wasn't CH or HMRC.

2. The car was leased to my company by the leasing company who are exclusive leasing agents for the car manufacturer in question.  The lease ended about six months ago. So yes, it was leased to my company, not to me personally.

3. Not sure if the lease company tried to notify me of the PCN, but I doubt it because if, as I assume was the case, the car was registered at the DVLA to my company's registered office address, Camden (and then Equita) presumably wouldn't have had access to the lease company's details (or even known of their existence).  Also, the lease company corresponded with me by email so I expect they would have forwarded the PCN by email had they received it themselves.

4. Yes the PCN was issued in my company's name, not in my name.

Finally, Pressman, thank you so much for your incredibly helpful and clear advice. I did have a few questions, if ok:

- You say that I can apply to the Traffic Enforcement Centre to reset the process, on the basis that I did not receive the Notice to Owner or Charge Certificate because they were sent to my company’s registered office where no mail forwarding arrangement was in place, and that if this is accepted, it will revoke the warrant and roll the matter back to the stage where I can make formal representations to Camden Council. My questions on this:

- Isn't it possible that the TEC will respond simply to say that it was my responsibility to ensure that my company had a suitable arrangement in place for dealing with all mail and on that basis refuse to reset the process? 

- if I file a PE2/PE3, I assume I will have to give an address - could that address then become known to Equita resulting in their seeking to take enforcement against my company at that address? I don't want to give my home address on the PE2/PE3, and I don't have another obvious address to give them right now (unless I give the company's registered office address again, but first pay the £100 for the mail forwarding from that address - but then I am paying out another £100 for something that I don't need other than for dealing with this PCN!).

- if TEC do decide to reset the process by revoking the warrant, you say that Camden may then choose to issue a new PCN to the same address unless I promptly update the DVLA and Camden with a suitable service address for my company.  But is issuing a new PCN the only course of action that would be available to Camden at that point, ie does the revoking of the warrant also somehow revoke the validity of the original PCN or does the original PCN still have effect somehow?  Just wondering if Camden could somehow argue the the original PCN is still valid and simply resubmit the matter to their enforcement process?  Though query why they would do that as it would just seem to lead us back to the same place whereby Equita would then seek to enforce the warrant at an address where the company has no presence.  Unless Camden could give the address on the PE2/PE3 (if different to the company's registered office address) to Equita and instruct them to try to enforce it there?

Pressman, you also say that if my application to the TEC is refused, I can apply for a review at your local County Court by filing a form N244 with a witness statement, although a court fee applies.  To be honest, if my application is refused, at that point I think I would have to give up the appeal and try to pay the £515 as I can't afford the time, or really handle the stress, of taking out a County Court action.

Two last questions (sorry):

- Is the £515 a fair charge for where the matter is at currently?  It seems to have jumped considerably from £165.

- Could the £515 charge go up further from here, if I take no action and wait it out, hoping that they go away? Obviously I know it will go up if they look to start court proceedings against my company, what I mean is could it go up before that, eg if they send bailiffs to the registered office address and fail to collect any goods there, could they then charge further costs for that attempt?

Thanks so much again to all of you for all your help.

Kind regards
Chloe

Hi HC Anderson, and thank you (you guys are amazing).


I said: 'the car was registered at the DVLA to my company's registered office address,'.

You replied: No it wasn't. The lease company were the registered keeper and ALL info pertaining to the lessee had to be provided by the lease company.

So that presumably means that the lease company were the ones who gave Camden and/or Equita my company's address once they received the PCN?  It would have been good if the lease company had told me that, as I would then have known about the PCN, but anyhow they didn't for whatever reason.

You say: A cynic might take the view that it's been arranged to 'filter out' unwanted mail and then rely upon the 'not served' argument.

My reply: Understood, but that is definitely not the case here. With hindsight, of course it was a mistake not to pay for the mail forwarding but times have been very hard for my business with clients not paying up for services contractually rendered (but that's another matter, not relevant here).

You say: IMO, you need to see the docs which are missing before you submit anything to TEC to see whether your argument could be bolstered by process errors on the authority's part. Similarly with the lease company because at present everything prior to the Enforcement stage notice is an assumption.

My reply: But will the Council forward a copy of the PCN to me if I ask for it? If I contact them about it, won't they just forward my contact details (even if it's just an email address) to the bailiffs?

Overall, my gut feel is that you are right and TEC are unlikely to revoke the warrant for my mistake of not being in control of my company's post. And I also don't really think I will unearth any mistakes in the Council's original issue of a PCN as I believe I did go through a street that had restrictions on motor vehicles using it at certain times of the day, even though it was not really surprising that I didn't see the signs as I was really focused on trying to find a parking space at the time.  But I'm sure ignorance of the sign's existence is no defence to the PCN.

Thanks again.
Chloe

In conclusion, the safest and most cost-effective option is to file the PE2 and PE3 promptly.

But only the drebtor can do so, i.e. your company and signed appropriately by you as an officer of that company.

I still suggest you submit a Subject Access Request to Camden.

https://www.camden.gov.uk/your-rights

You are still flying blind without sight of these.

Personally, I think your chances of getting TEC to revoke the Order for Recovery etc. are slim. Therefore, you might have to consider alternative, non-procedural, approaches. To do which you need to see the trail of evidence i.e. SAR.

Correct. Pre-action protocols don't apply.

In any event, a SAR WOULD establish everything the OP needs(to a point) and it's not an either/or, it's a twin-pronged approach.

And the 'registered office' is something of a red herring. Registration in this sense is a requirement of Companies Acts but the address which is at issue here is the one given to the lease company by the OP's company for correspondence purposes. This does not have to be the company's registered address.

And if it was the registered address and the OP knows that only 'important' mail is forwarded then how on earth would routine correspondence regarding the lease be exchanged?

But we don't know that the registered address was used because we haven't seen any notices, including the one which the OP does have.

A SAR would show which address was used by the authority.