Initial appeal won't work but you may then be able to persuade a moronic POPLA assessor that you are not liable as the Keeper. If that doesn't work, you will have to ignore all the useless debt recovery letters you will receive and the eventual county court debt claim. However, I can guarantee with greater than 99.9% certainty that if you follow the advice you receive here and defend with the template defence, the claim will eventually be either struck out or discontinued.
If unsuccessful at POPLA, expect the whole process to take 9-12+ months. To start you just need a simple appeal to ECP and when rejected you can make a more detailed appeal to POPLA.
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:
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. ECP 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. ECP have no hope at POPLA, so you are urged to save us both a complete waste of time and cancel the PCN.
