Free Traffic Legal Advice

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It's section 6 of the Essex Act 1987 (PMB I've fixed the link in your post above to make it clickable), and this is the relevant part:



Two points arise: the sign needs to be in a conspicuous position (which appears to be a higher standard than the standard of adequacy created by LATOR, conspicuous seems aking to the "bound to be seen" test that applies in private parking cases), and if the land is part of the highway then the sign needs to be a TSRGD compliant sign, which the one seen here most definitely isn't.

So we have plenty to go on, are you the registered keeper and do you have the V5c?

Please read the guidance here on posting images, and then post up all sides of all pages of the PCN.

As long as the address on the V5c is 100% accurate and up to date, you don't need to do anything, just wait. The notice to owner should turn up in the post in a few weeks, post it up on here when this happens.

The response fails to consider anything you've said, it mentioned non-existent mitigation, and the wrong 28 day period has had a lot of success at the tribunal over the past few weeks.

Would you like me to represent you at the tribunal?

The PCN is out of time, there is no allowance in the law for any sort of pre-debt check.

I am happy to represent you at the tribunal if you want to appeal this.

Should I wait for the council to send me the extended video footage, which should show me reversing out of the zone,before I submit a letter of appeal?

There is no extended video footage, the camera records so many frames when an event is detected, nothing else is saved. Here's a better draft:

I did notice you stated the PCN was served on 31 October, which I believe was typo. However, I did correct this to the 27 October as per the PCN.

It's not a typo, a PCN issued on 27 October is deemed to be served two working days later, i.e. on 31 October. This is because you don't get it the day they put it in the post (and "served" is not the same as "issued").

In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter, but as a general rule if you think something is a typo it's best to ask rather than to make an assumption. We are not infallible by any stretch of the imagination, but we do normally proofread draft wording.

Sounds like, to your knowledge, they are wrong about my being able to challenge?

To explain all the ins and outs would take ages, so I'll cut to the chase: you can arguably reclaim the penalty from the lease company, but you have to be willing to take the lease company to court.

In short, you can only challenge a PCN if you don't pay it, payment deprives you of the right to appeal. Where they say "Legislation requires immediate payment by the registered keeper" they're being incompetent and thick: legislation gives the registered keeper 28 days to pay or challenge, they should have challenged by requesting a transfer of liability.

The bottom line is lease and hire companies are incredibly thick and stupid and they won't accept they're wrong unless and until a court tells them, the corollary of this is that unless you're actually willing to take them to court, there's no point in doing anything else. Sending letters threatening to take them to court without following through would be a waste of time.

The question therefore is: are you willing to have a massive row with the lease company and take them to court to enforce your rights?

In parallel, you could contact the council and ask them to refund the payment on the basis that you want to make representations, and on the odd occasion this can work. The problem is that if the council simply ignore you or say no, there is no recourse open to you.

Also as a general rule, involving MPs in PCNs is a waste of time, they're more likely to mess things up than anything else.