The law for PCNs is that the owner of the vehicle as recorded on the V5C is legally responsible for paying or appealing them. Councils are therefore legally entitled to obtain the name and address of the person holding the V5C for a vehicle they have detected committing a contravention. They are not entitled to search any other source of date that links owner to vehicle. Once this is obtained they must use it in all enforcement documents. However, once it gets to bailiffs, they can be proactive and search for the seemingly absent owner. Their living depends on them being successful in finding them !
On the other hand, a speeding offence is progessed by the police who can not only get the DVLA data, but can search the Insurance data base and also MOT records too, because speeding is a criminal offence, whereas PCNs come under civil law.
It is almost 100% certain that your DVLA record was not up-to-date when the council requested your details from DVLA, and you stating that you have moved address multiple times in recent years makes this a virtual certainty. The only way you can revert the matter is to submit a Witness Statement that you did not receive the PCN, but with bailiffs at your door, this will be an Out-of-Time (OOT) declaration so requires you to explain why you are submitting a WS OOT.
Great care is needed if one is submitting an OOT declaration to the Traffic Enforcement Centre, so it could be of benefit to you to contact : -
www.bailiffadviceonline.co.ukCan you please post up the bailiff letter, so we can do some calculation. Redact only name and address. If it's "around £350", I suspect it is made up of : -
PCN £180
Charge Certificate +50% £90
TEC registration fee £10
Bailiff enforcement fee £75
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Total £355
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As you are only at the first stage of bailiff enforcement we normally recommend paying the bailiff to avoid them making a visit and adding on another £235. Paying the bailiff has no effect on any OOT submission you make to TEC is dealt with. If it succeeds, you are entitled to all of the money back except the PCN which the council can then still persue, i.e it is not a Get-out-of-jail free card
EditWhen reviewing the PCN history, it shows a Notice of Debt Registration issued on 12 September. From 1 September, my V5C was definitely updated to my current address, yet I still received nothing.
Easy to explain. The council would have obtained your name and address from DVLA some days after the 28 day period for responding to the PCN expired. The Notice of Debt Registration, (the Order for Recovery), would be many weeks after. Once your name and address is obtained, the council must use it for all subsequent enforcement documents, (PCN, CC, OfR).
whether: - there’s any realistic risk of a separate DVLA fine for a V5C issue
Virtually none, I would say. DVLA never get involved in the PCN process other than providing name and addresses of V5C holders
