Free Traffic Legal Advice

Pl stop mixing the procedures.

TEC have nothing to do with the PCN as such, for our purposes they simply authorise the use of Schedule 12 action to issue a warrant.

You were shown the warrant. Did it have your correct details i.e. your name and address which is where it was being executed?

Where is your email dealing with the 'payment plan'?

Pl consolidate and repost:
The Notice of Enforcement;
Your email response(as above);
Their response.

I don't know where you're going with this.

You can continue to correspond with them and place your car at risk - if on the highway or at the premises specified on the warrant. If you're happy to do this then write to the council, after all the enforcement agent is THEIR agent. You have the hard evidence in the form of the NoE which does not offer 7 clear days and you could argue that it and any subsequent fees are therefore invalid.

I suggest you get BAO on this for you.

Thanks for the reminder.

As you've paid, then pl stop corresponding direct with CDER, it's a waste of time. They are the authority's agents, so complain to them.

If you don't want to use BAO, then use TfL's complaints procedure.

Unlawful Demand for Money - CDER on behalf of Transport for London

This complaint relates to the authority's enforcement agents CDER in respect of Penalty Charge Notice  ********. I would stress that I am not complaining about the penalty itself but the subsequent enforcement procedures engaged by the agent to recover the debt. Specifically, their failure to comply with the mandatory requirements of Schedule 12(your finance dept. officers will know the chapter and verse of these) in that a Notice of Enforcement was issued which did not give me 7 'clear days' notice. The evidence in this regard is objective and enclosed i.e. a NoE dated 2 June with a latest date for payment of 9 June. As only 7 days in total were given, then it is axiomatic that these could not be 'clear days' because Sundays are excluded. For information, the NoE was not received until 6 June, but this is secondary.

I have paid your agent in order to prevent further action and the remedy I require is that the council refund the Compliance and Enforcement fees (£75 and £235 respectively) and that a lawful NoE is issued.

Please do not pass this to your enforcement authority staff who either do not know the requirements and/or fail to maintain adequate oversight of TfL's agents' actions. This should be referred to suitably experienced finance or legal staff.

My payment details are as follows:
**********

Encl: copy of NoE dated 2 June 2025


I cannot find on online or email Complaints portal, perhaps others know.

Forget the penalty charge element, IMO.

The enforcement fees come to £310; the court registration fee is £10; and the penalty is £240. Total £560.

You've already made two attempts to get TEC to cancel the OfR and CC without success(or it would seem any hope of success). But if you want to chance your arm and try and get the whole £560 refunded based upon CDER's misapplication of mandatory enforcement procedures.....!

Your case discloses a compelling basis for restitutionary relief grounded in statutory irregularity and procedural abuse under the civil enforcement framework. While you have discharged the underlying balance of £560 following enforcement by CDER Group, that payment was extracted in circumstances which, on your account, render the process invalid under both Schedule 12 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 and the Taking Control of Goods Regulations 2013.

Let me set out the legal position with clarity. The Notice of Enforcement issued to you by CDER Group bears the date 2 June 2025, with a demand for payment by 6:00am on 9 June 2025. This fails, on its face, to satisfy the mandatory requirement of Regulation 7(1) of the 2013 Regulations, which provides that a notice of enforcement must afford the debtor not less than seven clear days before enforcement action may be taken. Clear days exclude the day of service and the day of compliance, and further disregard Sundays and bank holidays. Even under a generous construction, the notice period in your case was non-compliant, thereby vitiating the enforcement process from the outset.

Moreover, you have reported that CDER’s enforcement agent, during a visit to your property, displayed on a mobile device an extended account history purporting to show a series of letters, emails, and possibly a prior visit, none of which you ever received. This log, crucial to justifying the escalation of fees, has not been disclosed to you despite multiple requests. Instead, CDER have provided what appear to be truncated or redacted records omitting the very entries shown to you at the door. The failure to furnish a complete and accurate record of enforcement activity engages both Regulation 24 of the 2013 Regulations and the common law principles of good faith and transparency in enforcement.

A further difficulty arises in relation to service of notices and address verification. You have evidence that both the Traffic Enforcement Centre and Transport for London were corresponding with you at your correct address as early as February 2025, yet CDER did not update their records until May 2025. This raises significant questions as to whether key statutory notices—including the Notice of Enforcement—were lawfully served or otherwise came to your attention within the prescribed timeframes. These defects are not academic. The enforcement fees levied—£75 at compliance stage and £235 at enforcement visit—are strictly contingent upon procedural compliance. Where there is material non-compliance, those fees cannot lawfully be charged.

Having now paid the sum in full, your remedy lies not in resisting enforcement but in challenging the lawfulness of the process and seeking restitution of fees unlawfully demanded. The legal basis for recovery would be a claim in restitution for money had and received, supported by the principle that money paid under compulsion or mistake of law is recoverable where no legal obligation to pay existed. This is well established in authority, including Woolwich Equitable Building Society v IRC [1993] AC 70 and, more recently in the enforcement context, Burton v Ministry of Justice [2024] EWCA Civ 681.

Transport for London, as the principal, remains vicariously liable for the acts of its agents. It cannot disown responsibility merely by referring 'complaints' to CDER Group. The standard response you received from TfL, dated 14 July 2025, fails entirely to engage with the statutory breach you have identified and reflects either a lack of understanding or an abdication of legal oversight.

In these circumstances, I would advise you to pursue the following course:

First, submit a formal pre-action disclosure request under CPR 31.17 to CDER Group. This is procedurally superior to a subject access request. A request under CPR 31.17 entitles you to obtain, prior to litigation, specific documents held by a third party (in this case, CDER Group) where it is likely those documents are relevant to anticipated proceedings and where disclosure is necessary to fairly dispose of the claim or save costs. Unlike a subject access request under the UK GDPR, which provides only for personal data (often in redacted or summarised form), CPR 31.17 enables you to demand unredacted original records, including audit logs, email dispatch reports, correspondence files, and internal system entries used to justify enforcement action. These documents will be central to the merits of any future claim for restitution.

Secondly, send a renewed formal complaint to Transport for London, expressly relying on the defective notice period and the absence of proper service. That complaint should be addressed to the legal or enforcement oversight department and demand repayment of the compliance and enforcement fees (£310). Your letter must make clear that the PCN itself is not in dispute; rather, it is the subsequent enforcement which is impugned. You may, if appropriate, enclose a draft Particulars of Claim to demonstrate the seriousness of your intention to litigate.

Thirdly, if neither CDER nor TfL respond adequately within 14 days, you may issue a Part 7 claim in the County Court for restitution of the £310. Your cause of action would be for money had and received on the grounds that the enforcement was unlawful, the fees were improperly levied, and the payment was made under compulsion. The claim would be suitable for the small claims track and should be supported by a concise witness statement and copy documents including the Notice of Enforcement, correspondence, and your CPR 31.17 request.

You may, in the alternative, consider an application under CPR 84.16 for detailed assessment of the enforcement fees, although this is more commonly deployed at an earlier stage and may involve technical argument as to timing.

In conclusion, your legal position is strong. The enforcement action taken against you was arguably void for failure to comply with mandatory notice provisions. You have a clear statutory and equitable basis to seek repayment of fees improperly extracted. I would be pleased to assist in the preparation of your CPR 31.17 request, and, if necessary, TFL particulars of claim.

Should you proceed promptly and with precision, I am confident the matter can be resolved without the need for protracted litigation.

Forget those avenues for the moment, to whom did you address your COMPLAINT against TfL. This is about their administration policies at present.

https://tfl.gov.uk/help-and-contact/taking-your-complaint-further


Just take this one step at a time.

Sorry for the delay, have been away for a few days.

My letter was addressed to -


Customer service manager
TFL
Red routes
PO BOX 335
Darlington
DL1 9PU