Although they claim to be relying on Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act to hold you liable as the keeper, they have issued the notice too late to be able to do so!
You can therefore appeal
as the keeper, not revealing who was driving with the below:
Dear Sirs,
I have received your Parking Charge Notice (Ref: ________) for vehicle registration mark ____ ___, in which you allege that the driver has incurred a parking charge. I note from your correspondence that you claim to be able to hold me liable under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 ("The Act"), but this is not true. You have failed to deliver the notice within the relevant period of 14 days as required by paragraph 9(4) of the Act.
Date of parking: 23/02/25
Date of issue: 06/03/25
Date of presumed service under 9(6) of the Act: 10/03/25
Days elapsed: 15 days
There is no obligation for me to name the driver and I will not be doing so. I am therefore unable to help you further with this matter, and look forward to your confirmation that the charge has been cancelled. If you choose to decline this appeal, you must issue a POPLA code.
Yours,
If appealing online, be careful there are no drop down/tick boxes that cause you to identify who was driving, and keep a close eye on your spam folder for their response. If they do not respond within 28 days, chase them.
They have also misrepresented their position by claiming PoFA compliance when they have not complied. This warrants formal complaints to Smart (followed by the BPA) and the DVLA. However, I would recommend waiting until they respond to your appeal. The reason I say this is because we had a similar case recently, where Smart doubled down in their appeal response. If they do the same here, it makes your grounds for complaint even stronger, so I recommend waiting to see if they do the same again. We can then draft you up suitable complaints.
The other case I refer to, for reference, is here:
Smart Parking Charge Advise for Appeal
