Free Traffic Legal Advice

Here is the hosted image of the letter.

https://postimg.cc/Ny8H7mTh

On the reverse are some payment instructions and the like.

https://postimg.cc/VdBPwNj5

Updating on this case.

Another identical reminder about the charge was received a week or so ago. There was no change in the amount, nor anything else of note, so this was ignored just as the notices that came before it.

Today, a letter was received (body attached) informing that the collection agent will be instructing the client to begin legal proceedings.

I know the advice above was to wait for a Letter of Claim, but should anything be done in response to this preliminary missive?

In the letter, the refer to the following points as the grounds for taking legal action:

• Have you paid?
• Have you contacted us? (i)
• Did you unsuccessfully appeal a parking charge using the POPLA or IAS appeals systems? (ii)
• Evidence of the original parking charge
• [...] attempts to contact you (i)
• Existing case law

i) Obviously they have attempted to make contact, and no response has been sent on the advice of this forum.

ii) There were no appeals made through any mechanism/system. As a reminder, this is because the person driving on the day of the parking event lost the windscreen notice. By the time a notice was sent in the mail to the keeper, the first window for appeal had been missed, and the enforcer's website asserted that the same window applied for the Keeper and had as such been missed. The website therefore allowed no way of submitting the appeal. Moreover, attempts to appeal via BPA are rejected if no appeal has first been made to the parking company.

Just want to check, since a few weeks have passed since the last update, that the advice at this stage is still to wait.

Thanks!

Thank you. Noted.

Just so that I understand, are the following correct assumptions about the Letter of Claim?

1. It will be sent by the debt collector's legal representation?
2. It will be notice of legal action, potentially leading to a CCJ?

Yes. The NTK explicitly states that “you as the keeper also had the right to appeal during the 28 days following the NtD” (my paraphrasing, I’ll copy the precise language later.)

And then initiating the appeal online with the case number reiterates this.

The NTK has a section explaining appeals, in which it states that the appeals period was 28 days from the issuance of the NTD, and that since that period has lapsed, there is no longer any recourse to appeal.

This seems to make no sense, since the NTK exists to pursue the Keeper in the event that the driver does nor respond and cannot be identified. How is it valid to issue the Keeper with a charge, which they may well be completely unaware of prior to the receipt of the NTK, and give them no recourse to appeal?

In any case, visiting the website and entering the reference number returns the following:

Unfortunately you are unable to appeal this charge. At the time that the charge was incurred, a Notice to Driver may have been affixed to the vehicle or sent through the post. This offered the driver the ability to appeal within 28 days from its imposition. You also as the registered keeper or the driver of the vehicle had the right to appeal within the 28 day period from the point of issue of the Notice to Keeper. Since we have received no further correspondence from you, payment is required within 14 days. If you consider there to be exceptional circumstances as to why you should be allowed to appeal outside of this period then you should send your reasons to us, in writing, at 2 Wellington Place, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS1 4AP.

This says that there was (past tense) an opportunity to appeal within 28 days of the point of issue of the NTK. The date on the NTK is 9 June. As such, only 20 days have passed.

Should this be escalated directly to the IAS? Or should an appeal be sent to the mail address above?

No appeals submitted yet, neither to PCS nor IPC. Thus far, this has not been advised, and my general understanding was that this should be avoided? If that is not correct, then I'm mistaken.

That said, I'm not sure what grounds an appeal would be made on. You might recall when I began this post it was in the context of a lost PCN. There has never really been a claim that the parking charge was not valid, but for the possibility that the company was operating improperly.

The person who received the notice was parked in a bay that PCS asserts they should not have.

What would the appeal claim? Something about the actual parking event, or a claim about non-compliance of the PCN itself?

Brief summary of events up to this point:

1. PCN attached to windscreen - 7 May
2. PCN lost. This thread started.
3. PCN found. Questions raised about the status of PCS.
4. NtK received in mail - 9 June
5. Enquiries submitted to IPC, BPA and DVLA.
6. DVLA confirmed status of PCS - 23 June
7. IPC website observed to have added PCS to AOS list.

Only correspondence sent to IPC thus far was a request to the general inbox with no reference to this case. No correspondence has been sent to PCS as of yet.

Okay. So in short, the £100 fee will have to be paid, then?