Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hi everyone,

We are a vehicle hire firm, and we recently encountered an issue with a London council rejecting our representation to transfer liability for a new PCN to the hirer. The council's reason was that the hire agreement for the current PCN did not match an agreement related to a past, unrelated PCN (was paid and closed).

For context, with the hirer’s permission, we provided two separate hire agreements: one specifically for bus lane PCNs and another for standard traffic PCNs.  This allows us to transfere liability to the hirer in all circumstances.

This raises a few questions, and we'd appreciate any insights:

Are councils allowed to compare historical PCNs with new ones and make decisions based on these comparisons?
If a past PCN is closed and settled, shouldn’t it remain separate and not be referenced in new cases?
Shouldn’t each PCN be considered on its own merit, rather than being influenced by previously closed cases?
How far back can they go to compare PCNs in this way? Does legislation permit them to use prior cases as a basis for decisions on current ones? We could have produced and fixed old hire agreements..
Thanks for any advice or experiences you can share on this.

THanks. The council is comparing the sent Hire agreement with previous PCNs

The are saying the hire dates are different - but hire dates are different because they compared two different hire agreement from two different PCNs - the hire agreement in question has no issues on its own merit.  It will only be an issue if they compared with a previous PCN of same car.  But what legislation allows them to compare the two PCNs one closed and paid for?  The hirer raised no objection
For context we keep two Hire agreements one for buslane and one for normal PCN to allow for easy tranfer of PCNs

For context we keep two Hire agreements one for buslane and one for normal PCN to allow for easy tranfer of PCNs

How does this work, does the customer not sign the agreement when hiring, or do you get them to sign both documents?

Please see below two hire agreements

Just so I can understand the circumstances properly, are you saying this is a hire period in excess of six months (with a corresponding agreement), but in order to fit in with non bus lane PCNs, you have another hire agreement running in parallel of less than six months duration which (I presume) is renewed upon expiry?

Surely it's not a bus lane contravention: Using a route restricted to ......