Free Traffic Legal Advice

No initial appeal to this bottom-dwelling firm of ex-clampers is going to succeed. Also, the secondary IAS appeal will not succeed either as the IAS is owned by the same firm that owns the IPC. Where this will be won, eventually, is after they issue a county court claim, which when defended with advice from here is easily won and the odds of it ever getting as far as an actual hearing is incredibly low.

Your choice. Pay into the scam and become part of the problem or fight it with the advice you get here.

The Notice to Keeper (NtK) is not PoFA compliant with para 9(2)(a) and you would argue that there is no evidence of a contract ever being foamed with the driver. Not that you're going to waste that argument on the incestuous IPC and IAS.

Here is the initial appeal you should submit. You are ONLY appealing as the Keeper. They have no idea who the driver is unless you blab it to them inadvertently or otherwise.

There is no legal obligation on the known keeper (the recipient of the Notice to Keeper (NtK)) to reveal the identity of the unknown driver and no inference or assumptions can be made.

The NtK is not compliant with all the requirements of PoFA which means that if the unknown driver is not identified, they cannot transfer liability for the charge from the unknown driver to the known keeper.

Use the following as your appeal. No need to embellish or remove anything from it:

Quote

I am the keeper of the vehicle and I dispute your 'parking charge'. I deny any liability or contractual agreement and I will be making a complaint about your predatory conduct to your client landowner.

As your Notice to Keeper (NtK) does not fully comply with ALL the requirements of PoFA 2012, you are unable to hold the keeper of the vehicle liable for the charge. Partial or even substantial compliance is not sufficient. There will be no admission as to who was driving and no inference or assumptions can be drawn. NPC has relied on contract law allegations of breach against the driver only.

The registered keeper cannot be presumed or inferred to have been the driver, nor pursued under some twisted interpretation of the law of agency. Your NtK can only hold the driver liable. NPC have no hope should you be so stupid as to try and litigate, so you are urged to save us both a complete waste of time and cancel the PCN.

What proof do you have that it was sold? It's been transferred to another learner, but the £500 - £1000 figure appears to have just been made up.

IMO, no. Your defence is procedural.

I was not the owner.....

This arises because you believe that *******(the lease company) used the grounds of 'We are a vehicle-hire company etc.' in their representations and that the authority accepted the same. However, this is not permissible under the Act which restricts these grounds to, inter alia, agreements of less than 6 months: my lease is for *** years.

The authority may not consider me to be the owner and the PCN must be cancelled.

I do not dispute the facts of the contravention and therefore, should the authority reject these representations, I should be grateful if they would not belabour this point but instead focus on the grounds of my representations i.e. confirm the grounds on which the registered keeper's representations were accepted and provide the supporting mandatory documents e.g. hiring agreement etc. A signed statement of the lessee's liability under a lease would not be acceptable.


OP, I've no idea whether ****(the lease company) used the correct grounds in this case, which could ONLY be that they were not the 'keeper' (because the presumption that the registered keeper is the person by whom the vehicle is kept is rebuttable), but it's worth a punt because otherwise I cannot see a defence on the facts as we know them.


For information:

(d)that the recipient is a vehicle-hire firm ..

(i)the vehicle in question was at the material time hired from that firm under a vehicle hiring agreement.

.....
(9)In this paragraph, “vehicle hiring agreement” and “vehicle-hire firm” have the same meanings as in section 66 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 (c. 53) (Hired vehicles).

(paras. 1(4)(d) and 1(9) of Schedule 1 to the London Local Authorities etc. Act 2003 refer).


(7)This section applies to a hiring agreement under the terms of which the vehicle concerned is let to the hirer for a fixed period of less than six months (s66(7) Road Traffic Offenders Act refers)