Free Traffic Legal Advice

Whether or not POFA compliance “wins an appeal” isn’t really the point. IAS appeals almost never succeed on any grounds, so using appeal outcomes as the benchmark is misleading.

POFA matters because if the Notice to Keeper doesn’t meet the statutory requirements, the operator cannot transfer liability to the keeper. That becomes crucial later if they try court action.

So while POFA arguments may not persuade the IAS, they absolutely do matter when assessing the legal enforceability of the charge and the operator’s ability to pursue the keeper.

It would actually be a whole lot simpler if all of these parking companies simply made sure that their speculative invoices were fully POFA-compliant   

Sounds like from what you say, it matters not if i make an appeal, they will just say no and then i have no recourse  ?

Your recourse is to appeal as the registered keeper, never the driver.

Follow the advice from the very wise posters here and there is a very strong chance that CPM will drop this before it ends up in front of a District Judge.

Unfortunately it's far from that straightforward and trying to suggest it is wont help people get their PCNs cancelled. All it does is give people the belief they have a slam dunk reason an appeal would be granted when the reality is the opposite.

Everyone who comes here seeking advice essentially has two options available to them; just pay the invoice or embark on a challenge, the first stage of which is an appeal.

Any appeal has to have grounds.  I'm happy to be corrected but the strongest ground in my opinion is the fact that the document they have received is defective insofar as it cannot transfer liability from keeper to the unknown driver due to the omission of mandatory wording.

If it ends up before a District Judge it's quite a compelling argument if you ask the parking company's legal representative to highlight exactly where clause xyz is on their documentation.....I suspect that's why so many of these cases get canned at the point of paying the court fee.

I have tried to caveat advice elsewhere on this forum with "you should expect any appeal to fail" so if I have given any impression otherwise I apologise.....I personally think the whole appeals process (primary and secondary) to be a charade but it's one of the hoops to jump through to reach the end goal.

READ THIS

On what grounds do you suspect the PCN has been incorrectly issued?

There is no invitation to the RK to pay the invoice.

Use the appeal above and it'll quickly move to step 3 in DWMB2's post above. If you're happy to play the waiting game hoping they will discontinue before court then that's fine. If you want to make it go away at first or second appeal stage you'll need something a lot stronger than telling Parking Eye they don't know how to word a PCN.

But the issue is that ParkingEye don't - their invoice fails to include the mandatory invitation to keeper to pay the charge required by POFA Schedule 4, para 9(2)(e).

POFA isn’t optional. If any of the statutory elements are missing, the NTK is non‑compliant and keeper liability cannot be created. In this case, the NTK simply does not contain the required invitation to the keeper to pay the charge or to name the driver.

That is a complete POFA failure, not a stylistic one. ParkingEye are therefore limited to pursuing the driver only, and as they do not know who that is, the keeper cannot be held liable.

Whether they discontinue before court is up to them, but the legal position is straightforward: no POFA compliance = no keeper liability.

"The police came and seized my dashcam sd card"

So did you just hand it over, belly up, or did you so under threat of PACE?

You won't receive a second PCN for a single infraction.  You get one, you appeal it and then they (usually) reject and issue a POPLA / IAS code

Is this for more than one "contravention"?

Regardless of the merits (or otherwise) of your grievance(s), each PCN will have its own unique reference number and needs to be appealed as such.

Three PCNs = three appeals.