Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hi all,

Hope you can help with this - I'm writing on behalf of my dad who received a first reminder to pay £195 today (£130+ late charge £65), but not the initial PCN.

Two things I wanted to ask:

1. Is the original PCN valid - if not what should we do now the appeal window is "closed"?
  This is the video 
  The back of his car is in the junction box for several seconds but the video ends before you can say how long.  Looks like he
  was on the move again when they cut the video.

2. If the original PCN is valid but was never received.  What should we do then?  The first reminder came today 6th March. 
  There's no appeal information in the reminder because the appeal window is now closed. 
  See PCN letter here.

Apologies, my elderly dad got distracted and started doodling on the PCN when he called the council to ask about the initial PCN. 

The council told him to wait until the 26th March before contacting them again.  That will be after the 14 days payment window - so we're not sure what's best to do.

Please can you advise.

Many thanks

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Yes, my dad's name and address are correct on the charge certificate.

I've read through the link provided - thank you for that.  I think my dad will struggle with going to county court, he'll find the whole process quite stressful and I can't easily get down to his area to do this for him.   

5

The PCN was issued on the 3rd Feb, so looks like they did wait the 28 days before sending the charge certificate.

I'm waiting to hear back from my dad, he'll probably just pay the charge

he'll probably just pay the charge

No.

There's no court, it's a paper-filling exercise.

Forget the contravention, this is about procedure at the moment.


Statutory Declaration
Where an Order for Recovery has been made, liability for the penalty can then only be challenged in the following circumstances:

You did not receive the Penalty Charge Notice in question;
............

If, and only if, one of these applies, you may make a statutory declaration.

The completed statutory declaration should be returned to the traffic enforcement centre within 21 days beginning with the date of service of the Order for Recovery,

Next steps:

What happens next depends on the grounds for making the statutory declaration.

If the ground is that the Penalty Charge Notice was not received, the Order for Recovery, Charge Certificate and Penalty Charge Notice are cancelled. The Enforcement Authority may then issue a new Penalty Charge Notice;

https://www.londontribunals.gov.uk/eat/understanding-enforcement-process/moving-traffic-pcn-enforcement-process

Simple. Happens hundreds of times a week. No drama, just complete the form, sign in the presence of a specified witness and send to TEC.

https://www.londontribunals.gov.uk/eat/understanding-enforcement-process/moving-traffic-pcn-enforcement-process

Charge Certificate
This is a notice issued by the Enforcement Authority increasing the penalty charge by 50%.

The Enforcement Authority may issue a charge certificate where the penalty has not ben paid and after:

No representations against the penalty have been made to the Enforcement Authority, 28 days beginning with the date on which the Penalty Charge Notice is served;




In this instance, they've not waited until after 28 days have passed.  They've issued on day 28 itself.

OP, do you follow?

The Charge Certificate will be cancelled regardless if your father follows the process that goes with the Order for Recovery (within the deadline).

This would lead to the PCN being reissued, and the early issuing of the Charge Certificate would potentially be grounds to beat the PCN, as the Council seem to have broken the law in their pursuit of your father for this penalty.

You/father should be aware it's highly unlikely Redbridge will acknowledge their mistake (it's come up numerous times before with Redbridge and their parking/traffic enforcement team don't seem to know the difference between issuing and service) so to beat the PCN you would need to take this case all the way to the tribunal stage.

Either way, it's worth following the process to get the Charge Certificate cancelled to get the PCN down from £195.

OK - according to the Redbridge web portal, this PCN has now reached Order for Recovery stage.  This is the last stage of the process before which your father loses the right to get this fixed without paying up a significant sum and/or bailiffs getting involved.

Please, without any delay, find out whether your parents have received the Order for Recovery through the post and what date it was issued.  Fingers crossed they are still within time, which would mean they could fairly straightforwardly get the process reset and reopen the formal appeal process (or settle for the original cost).

Hi - I couldn't get a response out of my dad since your last post, despite several attempts.  But today he said he settled the matter for £195

So in the end he paid even more than if he had paid the 2nd notice.

I knew he would struggle with the challenge process ... looks like he avoided dealing with it.  It must have been a third letter that came through or the order for recovery that made him respond and ultimately pay up.

Thanks for your help with this and for checking in again. Much appreciated.