Free Traffic Legal Advice

How much is the administration fee? That might influence your decision.

As the car is leased to you, and you are not the Keeper, you are the Hirer, the way the lease company should deal with this for them to receive the Notice to Keeper (NtK) and then they transfer liability to you by providing APCOA your details and a copy of the lease and liability declaration. You then receive a Notice to Hirer (NtH) from APCOA which is very easy to deal with and you won't be paying a penny to APCOA as long as you do not identify the driver.

As for the admin fee from the lease company, you may not be obliged to owe it to them, depending on the wording in your lease agreement and references to invoices from private parking firms. This is NOT a "fine" or a "penalty" issued by any sort of "authority". It is simply a speculative incline from an unregulated private parking firm for an alleged breach of contract by the driver.

As you cannot respond to that Notice to Driver (NtD) as the Keeper, you are kind of stuffed unless you admit to being the driver and pay the charge. The only saving grace is that if you don't pay it, apart from loads of useless debt recovery threatening letters, nothing will happen because APCOA do not litigate. You can safely ignore all debt collectors as they are powerless to do anything except to try and intimidate the low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree into paying out of ignorance and fear.

If you can persuade the lease company to give you a Letter of Authority (LoA) to act on their behalf as the Hirer, then you could appeal it as the Hirer. However, unless you get that LoA, you cannot do anything until you receive an NtH.

It is very easy to appeal once you have either an NtH or LoA because the driver is not identified (no legal obligation to do so to an unregulated private parking firm) and they cannot transfer liability from the unknown driver to the known Hirer as the location of the alleged contravention is on land that is not relevant for the purposes of PoFA 2012.

This would be the appeal if you were the Keeper or to receive an NtK or NtH:

I am the Hirer. APCOA cannot hold a Hirer liable for any alleged contravention on land that is under statutory control. As a matter of fact and law, APCOA will be well aware that they cannot use the PoFA provisions because TfW Newport Station is not 'relevant land'.

If the TfW wanted to hold owners or keepers liable under Railway Bylaws, that would be within the landowner's gift and another matter entirely. However, not only is that not pleaded, it is also not legally possible because APCOA is not the landowner and your 'parking charge' is not and never attempts to be a penalty. It is created for APCOA’s own profit (as opposed to a bylaws penalty that goes to the public purse) and APCOA has relied on contract law allegations of breach against the driver only.

The Hirer cannot be presumed or inferred to have been the driver, nor pursued under some twisted interpretation of the law of agency. Your NtH can only hold the driver liable. APCOA have no hope at POPLA, so you are urged to save us both a complete waste of time and cancel the PCN.

APCOA usually concede for a no PoFA case. I doubt you'll get an LoA. All the lease company has to do is pass liability to you as the Hirer and then APCOA will send you a new Notice to Hirer (NtH) which you will appeal.

So, you have a moronic lease company that has no understanding of the law. Unless you have an LoA that covers this PCN, you cannot respond to the NtK. So, you can proactively approach the lease company but you need to make it very clear that they MUST NOT pay a PCN as it is nothing but an invoice for an alleged breach of contract by the driver and NOT a "fine" or "penalty" as no "offence" has been committed.

All they have to do when they receive the NtK, is transfer liability to the Hirer (you) as instructed on the NtK. Once they have transferred liability, they will o longer have any liability and it will all have been transferred to you, the Hirer.

Once liability is transferred, the parking operator must issue a new Notice to Hirer (NtH) to you, in your name and you can easily see this off.

If the lease company pays it, you can ONLY try and persuade them to not charge you for their mistake or, if necessary, sue them.

Your ability to challenge the lease company will depend on the precise wording in your contract. If they only use the wording "fine" or "Penalty" then you'd be on pretty solid ground. However, if they use further terminology which could be interpreted to mean a private parking charge then you'd be on thin ice.

Super helpful. I will contact my lease provider for a LoA (and pre-warn not to pay the PCN if it lands with them, and instead transfer the liability) and take it from there. Will report back soon!

Thank you again all

With that Letter of Authority, you can now appeal directly to APCOA as though you are the hirer/keeper.

You may appeal immediately — you no longer need to wait for a Notice to Keeper or Notice to Hirer because the Letter of Authority (LoA) grants you full standing to act. Submit your appeal online via APCOA’s official portal, quoting both the vehicle registration and the notice number.

In the online form, select or write that you are the hirer authorised by the vehicle’s registered keeper (lease company).
Do not name or imply who the driver was. Your legal standing is as the hirer, not the driver.

Appeal with the following, verbatim:

I am the authorised hirer of the vehicle and attach a Letter of Authority from the registered keeper permitting me to act on their behalf. APCOA cannot hold a Hirer liable for any alleged contravention on land that is under statutory control. As a matter of fact and law, APCOA will be well aware that they cannot use the PoFA provisions because TfW Newport Station is not 'relevant land'.

If the TfW wanted to hold owners or keepers liable under Railway Bylaws, that would be within the landowner's gift and another matter entirely. However, not only is that not pleaded, it is also not legally possible because APCOA is not the landowner and your 'parking charge' is not and never attempts to be a penalty. It is created for APCOA’s own profit (as opposed to a bylaws penalty that goes to the public purse) and APCOA has relied on contract law allegations of breach against the driver only.

The Hirer cannot be presumed or inferred to have been the driver, nor pursued under some twisted interpretation of the law of agency. Your NtH can only hold the driver liable. APCOA have no hope at POPLA, so you are urged to save us both a complete waste of time and cancel the PCN.

APCOA normally cancels at this stage once they see a PoFA-based hirer appeal. They very rarely pursue claims and have no history of litigation.

If, despite this, they reject it, you will receive a POPLA code — which can be used to win easily by repeating the “not relevant land” and “no PoFA liability” points.