Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hi,

I moved to Coventry in October 2023 after a year abroad and stupidly forgot to change the v5c address on my car until December 2023, and I just received 3 Notice of Enforcement today of £190 EACH. These are 3 separate bus lane offenses in October 2023, I can't remember if I did or not since it's so long ago but I assume they have pictures etc so I'm not looking to challenge this. But even though this is my mistake for not changing the address in time, is there any way I can reset the PCN period? So I could pay the original fines for the offenses instead of £570 which I really can't afford right now...

How should I proceed? Do I just pay up? or should I contact the council to beg for mercy at this point? after some reading it seems contacting the enforcement company is never going to work.

Appreciate any help and advice.

Cases like yours, (failure to update V5 promptly), appear time and time again on this forum, and frankly, because the situation is entirely of your own making, it will be very difficult, or even impossible to resolve satisfactorily. This is because the sole avenue to get back to the PCN stage is to submit an Out-of-Time Witness Statement, (one per PCN), to the Traffic Enforcement Centre that the PCN was not received.  The only problem is that being out-of-time, the council are allowed to object to it and invariably do so, at which point TEC reject the WS. If your WSs are accepted, the matter will revert to the PCN stage at which point you can pay or submit representations.

You can, of course, contact the council, but will probably get the Bum's Rush, but try anyway. You would be requesting them not to object to your WS submission, and ask to just pay the PCN amount. Nothing ventured, nothing gained but you must realise you are in a bad place and there is no easy exit, I'm afraid.

Sorry if this isn't what you would like to hear, but it is necessary to be realistic. Please post up the documents you have received only redacting name and address.

Thank you for your advice, I understand this could be difficult and is entirely my fault. But it would be very helpful to my current situation if the fines can be reduced in any way possible. I have attached the Notice of enforcement letters that I received on 16th of October 2024. All notices are posted to my current address. 

Website doesn't let me attach for some reason, here is a drive link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gbCbtMTP7G2LM60aQ00d5C0gPYh5mdY4/view?usp=drive_link

What the dates of the PCNs.

What is the date of logbook change.

Are all the notices posted to your current address and what are their dates.

Dates of the PCN are 11th,12th,and 13th of November 2023, and the v5c indicates 26th of December 2023. All notices are posted to my current address on the 16th of October 2024

Quote from: Incandescent on October 17, 2024, 01:39:13 am

Just to add to my last post.

At £190 per PCN, it would appear that no bailiff visits have yet started. This adds £235 to the amount demanded, and with seemingly chronic delays at TEC in processing WS submissions, our recommendation to you is to pay the bailiffs because this has no influence on whether your WS submissions are accepted or not. If they are, you get the money back, apart from the PCN penalty.

Please post the enforcement notices, only redacting name and address

I see, I called the council this morning to ask for some additional information regarding my offenses as well as try to ask for leniency and was told that I should do a WS to the TEC, who will then contact the council and they shall hold the case. But I guess with the delays I'm better off paying the fines first.

All the council have done is told you what I've already told you; to revert the matter you have to submit Out-of-Time 3 Witness Statements, and when TEC process them, bailiff action is suspended. They haven't told you they will not object to your WS submissions, have they ? So really this doesn't help you much, if at all,  because the bailiffs are standing at the start line ready to leap forward and visit your address and add on £235 as soon as TEC reject your submissions after the council object to them.

The gap between the PCNs and logbook update is only a few weeks so out of time statements may succeed.

I hope they do !

More facts would help.

I moved to Coventry in October 2023 after a year abroad and stupidly forgot to change the v5c address on my car until December 2023.

So what happened to the car during the year, was it SORN'd, was it still operating but with a friend or relative driving, who was the RK while you were out of the country for a year, had you vacated your previous address before going abroad and did you return from abroad and immediately move to Coventry or did you return to where you had been living and then move to Coventry etc??