Free Traffic Legal Advice

Penalty charge notice first letter not received


34 / Male / England

Edit: this is from tower hamlets council btw

I received a valid parking a ticket the other day so went online to deal with that, and upon logging in it shows other ‘outstanding’ charges. Other than my £80 ‘discounted’ parking charge, it showed a separate charge for £240 for driving on a road during restricted hours, dated on 1st November 2025, however right now is the first that I am learning of this.

This isn’t the first time this has happened to me before either, but it seems to be the only post that doesn’t reach me are the initial notices from  charges like this - not to say it’s a conspiracy or intentional, but it’s very convenient that I get no option to pay the original price or have the opportunity to appeal… instead my first communication is basically saying ‘you owe 3x the amount and have no right to appeal anymore, if you ignore this we take it to court and could increase costs and get bailiffs round and give you a CCJ’

And they will have no proof of sending the initial letter either, as they don’t need it, they are covered legally to carry out these deceitful practices. Surely it should be their job to confirm that the initial information has reached me, not to pretend? How does that make me liable for something I know nothing about?

Sorry for the rant.

So how do I go about getting out of this fraudulent extortion? I assume my next letters will be threatening with court procedures, but how do I actually attend court to fight my case? Is there any point, as legally (but wrongly) I’m sure the judge would side with them? I just want my fair chance to pay the original fee that I was never given.

Things like this make me so angry, there is no justice and this needs changing. If I had ignored it that’s valid but I didn’t.

Thank you

Get your V5C logbook out and check the address. That where the postal PCN was sent.

What date is the charge certificate issued if said online.

The date they claim to have posted was a couple of days later. My address on my V5C will be correct and they claim they would have sent it there. If it was sent, it never reached me.

Thanks

I'm talking about the charge certificate, which has been raised at the penalty has increased by 50% to £240. What date was the charge increased?

If you don't get the CC the chances are the address is wrong on your logbook.

You cannot get a CCJ by the way, only bailiffs if you don't settle. The next step after the CC is an order for recovery.

Thank you for your response

I have just checked online and the PCN was issued on 13/11/2025. The charge certificate was issued on 23/12/2025.

I actually found the charge certificate had been put into my landlords pigeon hole, however there is no original PCN here.

If no PCN you can make a statutory declaration at order for recovery stage which gets the process reset.
See:

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

But you must monitor the debt registration with the Traffic Enforcement Centre as if the OfR goes missing you will miss the automatic reset.

Thank you that link is very helpful, but there is a lot of information to digest.

Do I now just wait for and hope the next letter arrives, which may be ‘The Enforcement Authority may then recover the penalty through the County Court’

Can I at this point make a statue of declaration? Or must it have already been to court?

Sorry for my confusion. I just want to pay the original charge this is ever so frustrating.