Hi,
I'm looking for advice.
I'll talk in third person to protect any liability.
The registered keeper (RK) of a vehicle has received a claim form from HM Courts and DCBLegal are the claimant for an unpaid parking charge of £170 for an alleged parking contravention for parking longer than the maximum time permitted. Their client is Britannia Parking Ltd (BPL).
The date of the claim to the court was 11/03/2025 and the registered keeper has, as of today, 23/03/2025, submitted their AoS.
A few particulars that may be of relevance in my request for advice here, is that:
1. The RK of said vehicle wasn't living at said vehicle’s registered address when the NTK was issued to the RK. The RK can evidence this in the form of:
- A loan agreement in digital format between the RK and tenant who was living at the vehicle’s registered address which was signed by the tenant prior to when the alleged parking contravention occurred. The loan agreement shows that the addresses of the tenant and vehicle's registered addresses match
- An email chain forwarded to the RK from the tenant showing how delays in legal proceedings of the tenant’s house sale chain ended up delaying the departure of their tenant from the vehicle's registered address by several months covering the dates the first PCN was issued including dates of follow up correspondence regarding non-payment of the PCN
- Private conversation history dated 29/07/2024 between the RK and the tenant showing that the tenant had taken steps to purchase a house, RK understood that they would soon come to have their house back as the tenant's house purchase would only take 4-8 weeks, 8 weeks taking them to 23/09/2024. However the completion was delayed into 2025 as per above
For these reasons, correspondence from DCBLegal, DCBL and Britannia Parking Ltd was missed by the RK.
I know the RK of the vehicle is required to keep the DVLA updated for address changes, however as noted in
https://www.gov.uk/tell-dvla-changed-address, it is quoted by the DVLA that “You do not need to tell us if you move temporarily (for example you’re living away at university) if we can still contact you at your permanent address.”. As the RK believed their address change was temporary, there was no need for the RK to inform the DVLA of their address change. NTKs were sent to the RK however it was of no fault of the RK that they didn’t receive them.
2. The photographic evidence on the NTK shows digitally altered images in the form of black boxes covering the driver’s identity and cropping of a higher resolution image of the vehicle’s number plate so it fits within the frame of the image. I think this breaches BPA’s CoP 21.5(a): “All photographs used for evidence should be clear and legible and must not be retouched or digitally altered.”.
3. The NTK shows the entry and exit times but does not show the duration the vehicle parked for, nor showing it actually parked anywhere.
4. In DCBLegal’s particulars of claim it says:
- DCBLegal sent the PCN on the same day as when the alleged parking contravention occurred 21/08/2024, however on the NTK BPL issued, BPL say the PCN was issued on 04/09/2024
- The PoC doesn't mention when the parking contravention occurred or any of the contract terms the driver agreed to
5. There is no option to pay for any length of stay at this car park.
The LoC was sent to the RK on 06/02/2025 and the RK responded to info@decblegal.co.uk on 6 March 2025, within the 30-day time limit allowed for replying to an LoC. In the email the RK mentioned that they weren’t at the address of the registered vehicle when DCBLegal and their client sent correspondence to the RK and asked for DCBLegal to go back to their client to start the process again (no driver liability admitted). The RK has so far not received a human response to their email however a claim has clearly been pursued in the courts against the RK.
Hopefully that’s enough information for someone to help the RK with a list of arguments for their defence which, 28 days from 11/03/2025, would allow them until 08/04/2025 to do.
Happy to provide pictures of NTK and HM courts claim against RK to any trusted member of the forum. Hopefully everyone can understand reasons for not doing so just yet.
Would greatly appreciate some advice.
Thanks
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