Free Traffic Legal Advice
Live cases legal advice => Civil penalty charge notices (Councils, TFL and so on) => Topic started by: formerstockwellian on May 19, 2025, 07:38:47 pm
-
Our Parking suspension, which was in my Wife's name:
(https://i.imgur.com/ir12dkT.png)
The informal rep (summary)
Unfortunately (and I appreciate this doesn't help), I can't find the original informal appeal, and it is not available via Lambeth Council via their process which is unfortunate. We must have appealed directly in their portal rather than saving a copy. It seems there's no way of seeing this and from experience I doubt a request to Lambeth Council will be fruitful. In fact, they don't even send you an email notification following an informal rep.
Summary of what we said in our appeal (my wife did the appeal).
- We were moving out and had booked the suspension for the removal lorry
- We literally bought the car the evening before and so didn’t have time to add the number plate to the suspension, given that Lambeth Council’s response is five working days for parking-related inquiries and there is no way to add a vehicle to the suspension without directly contacting the council (you can’t do it through the portal, as I found when I booked a suspension in mid-March.)
- We knew the lorry was half an hour away and so wouldn’t need the space for a while. We parked our car in the end bay of our own suspension to a) load some bits from the house that weren’t going in the removal lorry, and b) to make sure another car didn’t park there, as earlier in the morning a car *had* parked in our suspension. I’d called the council three times to get this car removed and have evidence of this. Once the car finally moved we needed to ensure another car didn’t take up the space.
- My husband [that's me] spoke to a parking enforcement officer about the car being in the suspension for a short while and explained the situation. The parking enforcement officer reassured us it was fine to leave the car there for a bit.
-Ten minutes later a different parking enforcement officer came along and affixed a PCN while we were moving stuff into the car. They acknowledged that the situation was unfair but said they couldn’t remove the PCN.
-Our own car (registered under my husband’s name) was parked in our own suspension, and did not inhibit the removal lorry (as we had also booked the lorry). No issues resulted from our car being parked in the suspension. We have already paid you £305.17 for said suspension.
In my view, the response to this informal challenge does not satisfactorily answer any of these points and indeed it seems to misunderstand the nature of the challenge, as it says that ‘the works were completed’ when they were not yet started.
On that note, you can even see in the photos that our removal lorry is arriving.
Full rejection of informal reps:
(https://i.imgur.com/C7xhAWs.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/erOTAB5.png)
-
The warning about the charge notice and £240 is nonsense as they've missed out the notice to owner stage and are flagging up a charge certificate.
Hippo will know if this is significant on its own but it's something that can be added to formal reps - assuming they do send an NTO as they should.
Post the rest of the rejection letter as there may be something else there.
+1
The screenshot is usually fatal. Of the three councils who have this problem, this outfit have clearly not made any attempt to rectify it. It is an unlawful demand for money and, indeed, prejudicial to the whole of the statutory process as said.
-
OP, whether or not you displayed a permit is not germane to the alleged contravention.
It's part of the story of the day and should be mentioned.
-
OP, whether or not you displayed a permit is not germane to the alleged contravention.
We need to have clarity about the actual sequence of events pl. In this way your strongest defence can be compiled.
For info, I am currently in the process of moving house and am aware of the regular timeframes and removal company concerns. For example:
1. Removals from one house to another are normally timed to occur at noon on completion. What was your time of completion or were you just moving 'from'?
2. If you were moving from this property then unless you had made arrangements for the removers to commence before the day of completion they would have arrived on the day. It therefore follows that if you were moving from, you could not claim that the works had been completed at 9.30am because you had arranged for the suspension to continue to make room for the vehicles arriving with the new owners.
..etc.
Pl just start with the background e.g. who was moving from/to, arrangements co-ordinated with new owners, completion at ****. And post your informal reps pl.
Then we can get to grips with your formal reps IMO.
-
The warning about the charge notice and £240 is nonsense as they've missed out the notice to owner stage and are flagging up a charge certificate.
Hippo will know if this is significant on its own but it's something that can be added to formal reps - assuming they do send an NTO as they should.
Post the rest of the rejection letter as there may be something else there.
-
Thanks for all the above advice. Here is the further information I can provide now, and I will get the suspension application and the informal rep on later when I have access to them.
I did indeed get the car a day permit to be parked in the "K" zone.
Car Location: 51.47538136234452, -0.11408721064076315 (https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4753762,-0.1140558,54m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDUxNS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D)
(https://i.imgur.com/KNV5xSm.png)
-
Seems there was a zone permit for that day for the car.
(https://i.ibb.co/6JPVVbXB/Screenshot-2025-05-19-at-22-55-38.png)
(https://i.ibb.co/6cpqzX0z/l6.jpg)
(https://i.ibb.co/zT0PT1Yn/l5.jpg)
(https://i.ibb.co/KxXbQ5f0/l4.jpg)
(https://i.ibb.co/zHsS2xRh/l3.jpg)
(https://i.ibb.co/zTF2MNfy/l2.jpg)
(https://i.ibb.co/xqp3PM48/l1.jpg)
-
It is essential that you screenshot their website payment status page.
we also need the photos not a link to the council site. All sorts of failure to follow guidance here
-
Where are your informal reps?
Where's your suspension application?
They say you claim that the PCN was issued 'after the work was completed'.
Pl explain.
This is a defence IMO, subject to you confirming.
-
It is essential that you screenshot their website payment status page.
-
Thanks for your reply. The car is registered to my current address, so I won't have an issue receiving the notification to owner. I agree its unfortunate and therefore at this point I wondered if it just worth paying the £80 rather than risking paying £160 or taking it further on the basis their letter makes their case they see no reason why I should have been able to park my car there.
-
That's unfortunate because if they push it to the tribunal an adjudicator can't use mitigation but could make a recommendation.
I would certainly have a go with a formal representation. This should be a shoo-in for guidance on fairness.
Where is the car registered as that's where a notice to owner will go.
-
I paid and booked a 4-bay parking spot for the day we were moving.
I had bought a car earlier that week and had parked it in the suspension area to allow our lorry to park. I had parked this car in the suspension bay ahead of our removal lorry arriving to ensure I could move the car to provide extra space in case it was required. As I would be around I had not thought to try and add on this number plate to the suspension as Lambeth council have previously been useless.
Two parking attendants had since walked by and were out taking photos of the car and uploading them. I tried to reason with them that I had paid a forutne for this parking suspension and had placed my car there to ensure the lorry could manouvre into the bays booked, to no avail.
Now - the slight complcation - I'm new to this forum and didn't realise that appealing and making what I believed to be an easily explainable situation (and given I'd paid Lambeth Council I'd paid £300 for the privilege of a suspension for a day so I could move I figured this wouldn' be an issue). It turns out I've missed my chance on the "informal appeal".
I had the rejection today, as below, which was so absurd it makes me want to take it further rather than just bend over and pay (as I have previously done when dealing with London councils).
I understand lambeth consider this an informal appeal so there is still a chance to appeal it, but would appreciate advice to see if it is worth doing so especially given I have already used up the first avenue.
PCN: LJ34001339
Vehicle Reg: GF19 MYO
https://pcnevidence.lambeth.gov.uk/pcnonline/index.php
[attachment deleted by admin]