Free Traffic Legal Advice

The core legal position is that enforcement power under a warrant of control ceases to have effect once the debt is paid in full. The authority to take control of goods, including the power to remove or sell them, derives exclusively from Schedule 12 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. Paragraph 6 of that Schedule provides that the enforcement power is exercisable only while the sum outstanding remains unpaid. Upon full payment, the warrant is spent, and any further enforcement activity is without lawful authority and amounts to trespass and conversion.

You state that the penalty charge was paid in full in February 2025 and that Newlyn issued a receipt confirming a nil balance. That receipt is not merely evidence of the transaction but a material representation by the enforcement company that the debt was satisfied. Once that occurred, all statutory powers of entry, seizure, and sale were extinguished. It follows that the seizure of your vehicle in August was unlawful unless Newlyn can establish either that the February payment was not actually received or that it was properly reversed before enforcement recommenced. You are entitled to put them to strict proof.

The next step, therefore, is to prove the flow of funds and the discharge of the debt. You must collate and preserve the following evidence: (a) the February 2025 receipt from Newlyn showing a zero balance; (b) any online payment confirmation or email receipt issued at the time of payment; (c) your bank or card statement showing the exact date, amount, and recipient of the funds; and (d) any correspondence with Newlyn confirming that enforcement was closed or dormant thereafter. This evidence will be crucial both to secure the immediate return of your vehicle and to support any subsequent claim for damages or restitution.

As regards the bailiff’s suggestion that the payment was 'cancelled', that assertion is legally and procedurally fraught. If a card payment was reversed or dishonoured, Newlyn was under a duty to notify you and allow you an opportunity to regularise the position before recommencing enforcement. The sudden removal of your vehicle without prior notice or an updated compliance letter breaches Regulation 7 of the Taking Control of Goods Regulations 2013, which requires at least seven clear days' notice unless the court directs otherwise. Moreover, the failure to notify you of the vehicle’s location violates the statutory obligation under paragraph 61(4) of Schedule 12 to keep controlled goods safe and make them accessible to the debtor.

In these circumstances, enforcement beyond February 2025 appears to have occurred without jurisdiction. Your vehicle has been taken when the underlying warrant no longer authorised such action, and the agents have refused to disclose the vehicle's location or basis for their conduct. This conduct is not only procedurally deficient but substantively unlawful.

To protect your position, you have several options. First, if auction is imminent, you should prepare and file an urgent application to the County Court for an interim injunction to restrain sale. The grounds are that the enforcement action is ultra vires, the debt was discharged, and the risk of irreparable loss (through sale of your vehicle) outweighs any inconvenience to the Defendant. A supporting witness statement should exhibit the February receipt and all payment confirmations.

Second, you should write to Newlyn and the instructing authority (usually the local council) placing them on notice of a claim for unlawful interference with goods and conversion. The council must be reminded that it remains liable for the acts of its enforcement agents pursuant to Southwark LBC v Woelke [2013] EWHC 3492 (QB). Demand immediate disclosure of the payment and enforcement history under the Data Protection Act 2018, including all logs showing how and when the February payment was allegedly cancelled.

In Southwark LBC v Woelke [2013] EWHC 3492 (QB), the High Court confirmed that a local authority is vicariously liable for the unlawful acts of enforcement agents it instructs. This directly advances your position by allowing you to pursue the council, not just Newlyn, for the wrongful seizure of your vehicle. Where enforcement has continued after payment of the debt and the authority to act under the warrant has expired, any further action by the bailiffs is ultra vires. If Newlyn acted without lawful justification in removing and threatening to sell your car, the council, as the instructing creditor, is equally liable in tort for conversion, trespass to goods, and breach of statutory duty under Schedule 12 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. This principle ensures that you are not left at the mercy of evasive enforcement agents and can hold the council accountable for securing redress, damages, and return of your vehicle.

Third, while it is open to you to pay the amount demanded under protest (mitigation on further damages) to recover your vehicle, that payment must be explicitly made without prejudice and accompanied by written notice reserving all rights to bring proceedings for restitution and damages. If you choose this course, the principle in Burton v Ministry of Justice [2024] EWCA Civ 681 supports a subsequent claim that fees or actions taken without lawful authority may be set aside and repaid.

In Burton v Ministry of Justice [2024] EWCA Civ 681, the Court of Appeal held that enforcement agents who act outside the scope of their statutory powers, such as pursuing fees not lawfully due or enforcing against exempt goods, commit actionable wrongs. This authority supports your position that once the debt was paid in full and the warrant thereby exhausted, Newlyn no longer had any legal power to seize your vehicle. Any fees demanded or actions taken thereafter fall outside the statutory enforcement scheme and are therefore unlawful. The case affirms your right to seek recovery of improperly charged fees, damages for wrongful interference with goods, and restitution where payment was made under protest to avoid further loss. It confirms that statutory limits on enforcement activity are strictly construed and that agents who exceed them may be held liable.

Lastly, you may consider, if the original PCN was already the subject of enforcement and is now being enforced a second time, whether to file an out-of-time witness statement with the Traffic Enforcement Centre under CPR 75.7(3), asserting that the enforcement is improperly duplicative or abusive. However, that mechanism is more appropriate where the underlying PCN was not known to you; in your case, the issue is the unlawful continuation of enforcement after payment.

The legal foundation of your position is therefore as follows: enforcement authority ended when payment was accepted in February 2025. Any subsequent action taken by Newlyn is without jurisdiction and unlawful. You should act immediately to stop the auction, compel return of the vehicle, and preserve all rights to compensation.

You have a strong argument in estoppel by representation. Newlyn confirmed the debt was paid in full and issued a zero balance receipt. You reasonably relied on that, took no further steps, and have now suffered loss. It would be inequitable for them to contradict that position. Estoppel therefore prevents them from reasserting liability or enforcing further fees based on the same debt.

hi i emailed you

+1. Practical, as opposed to theoretical, advice with financial indications.

OP, IMO there is no quick fix which you can implement soon enough or without risk. Pay what's demanded and argue the toss later once the immediate pressure of losing your car has gone and you can engage with the council effectively.

No, after I had paid in February, the only time I was contacted by letter or email by Newlyn was AFTER they had taken my vehicle

When making payment in February, had you made payment because after returning home, you noticed correspondence from the enforcement company? Had a visit been made by the bailiff.

If you are now considering filing an Out of Time application, is there a reason why you had not submitted the application in January/February when you first became aware of the PCN?

This is to bring you up to date. The matter is now in hand. I am grateful to those who assisted Freedom by requesting the PCN number, vehicle registration, and supporting documents so the original contravention could be accessed via Barnet's website and the images shared here. That said, Freedom's case is not a motoring issue in the usual sense.

The core issue is that Freedom paid the traffic contravention debt in full and can clearly evidence the flow of funds, thereby bringing the enforcement power to an end under paragraph 6(3) of Schedule 12 to the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. Despite this, the enforcement company, acting unilaterally, chose to refund the payment and then sought to treat that refund as reviving the enforcement power. That position is legally untenable, as no statutory provision permits enforcement to recommence simply because an enforcement agent, for reasons of its own, has elected to return funds after lawful payment has been made.

Freedom was therefore left with two lawful options. The first was to submit forms PE2 and PE3, which would activate paragraph 8.1 of Practice Direction 75 and thereby suspend enforcement, allowing time to apply for interim injunctive relief to restrain the auction and recover the vehicle, with a further hearing to be listed for costs and damages.

The second option was to pay the amount again, expressly without prejudice, in order to recover the vehicle, while preserving the right to bring a claim against Barnet for unlawful interference with goods and for any damage or loss arising from the enforcement. That claim would rely on paragraphs 35 and 66 of Schedule 12 to the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, together with section 3 of the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977. That course has now been adopted.

Barnet will be invited to settle Freedom's claim, or otherwise resolve it judicially if not agreed.

So the 'new' poster with the username of ABC, has opened a new account calling himself '404 No Brain'

I should make clear that the original traffic contravention is not in dispute. Freedom paid the debt in full, which discharged both the warrant and the enforcement power, as evidenced by the flow of funds to Newlyn. I appreciate that HC Andersen means well, but the traffic penalty is now academic.

My username changed because someone altered the password on my original account, which forced me to create a new one. It may well have been a forum software error.

Filing an out-of-time application is inappropriate in this instance because the warrant has already been discharged. While I acknowledge that paragraph 8.1 of Practice Direction 75 provides for the suspension of a warrant, in this case the warrant was discharged pursuant to paragraph 6(3) of Schedule 12 to the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007.

Submitting a formal complaint to a private company such as Newlyn is misconceived, as the prescribed formal complaints procedure applies only to public authorities. Newlyn is a private entity, and its directors have no statutory powers.

The correct course of action is to submit a free request to Newlyn under CPR 31.17 for disclosure of the following:

(a) the warrant, showing its issue date
(b) evidence of the receipt and flow of funds that discharged the warrant, together with any evidence of the subsequent refund.
(c) proof that the enforcement agent paid any storage fees, identifying the recipient of the payment and the reason it was incurred, compliant with regulation 8(2) of the Taking Control of Goods (Fees) Regulations 2014
(d) the enforcement agent's vehicle condition report
(e) the enforcement agent's body-worn camera footage

This material will allow for a proper assessment and quantification of any damage to the vehicle in support of a claim against Barnet.

Once the evidence is received from Newlyn, it will be reviewed alongside the client's own evidence and the present condition of the vehicle as observed at the pound. Barnet will then be given the opportunity to inspect the vehicle prior to any repairs being undertaken and will subsequently be invited to settle the claim in accordance with the Pre-Action Conduct and Protocol.

I understand where you are coming from in trying to resolve a traffic contravention, but Freedom was clear from the outset that neither the contravention nor the associated debt is in dispute.

Submitting an out-of-time application using forms PE2 and PE3 would not succeed, as form PE3 specifically asks whether the motorist failed to receive key statutory notices or a response after making timely representations or an appeal. Since Freedom does not dispute the contravention, PE3 is not the appropriate form. Form PE2, which asks why the application is being made out of time, is also unsuitable, as Freedom already paid the debt directly to Newlyn and evidenced the flow of money.