Can you get a photo of the signs with the actual terms of parking on them? According to the Notice to Keeper (NtK), the alleged contravention is that the vehicle was not authorised to "park". Very often, a "no unauthorised parking" sign is not correctly worded to be able to form a contract with the driver.
However, the NtK is not fully compliant with ALL the requirements of PoFA 2012 to be able to hold the Keeper liable if the driver is not identified.
No initial appeal will ever succeed and in these cases, POPLA is pretty useless. Where it will be concluded, if a POPLA appeal is unsuccessful (likely), is after they get DCB Legal to issue a county court claim for debt and it is defended with our template defence. In due course, it would either be struck out or discontinued (greater than 99.9% certainty).
Try and find out who the landowner of the car park is and get them to get it canceled. That is Plan A. Plan B is the following: 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.
Plan C will be a POPLA appeal and Plan C is the guaranteed win explained above.
