No one pays a penny to UKPC if they follow the advice we give. It will take many months of reminders and letters from useless debt collectors and an eventual debt claim in the county court.
There will be no hearing in court. The amount claimed will be in the region of £280 by the time the claim is issued. However, as long as your friend, the Keeper of the vehicle, follows the advice we provide, UKPC will eventually discontinue the claim and that will be the end of the matter.
This is a well trodden path that we are very familiar with. UKPC and their bulk litigator, DCB Legal, work on the assumption that the recipient of their Parking Charge Notice (PCN) is low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree and will capitulate and pay up once the threaten litigation. This is expected by them because most drivers/keepers are ignorant of the law and their rights.
What has been received by your friend is not a “fine” and it shouldn’t be referred to as such. It is merely a speculative invoice issued by an unregulated private parking company for an alleged breach of contract by the driver, whose identity they don’t know.
The £40:”mugs discount” should be ignored. It is there to persuade the gullible that don’t know any better that it is worth it for them to pay the reduced amount because they have no idea how to fight these scammers.
So, for now, here is the simple appeal our friend should make to UKPC but only as the Keeper of the vehicle. Remember, UKPC has no idea who the driver is and the Keeper is under no legal obligation to identify the driver. Tell your friend not to select anything that suggests the appellant is the driver. They are appealing only as the Keeper:
Easy one to defeat... as long as the unknown drivers identity is not revealed. 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 fully 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. UKPC 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. UKPC have no hope at POPLA, so you are urged to save us both a complete waste of time and cancel the PCN.
The initial appeal will be rejected as will any secondary appeal to POPLA. They will then send reminders and useless debt collector letters, which we don’t need to see and our friend must ignore or use as kindling. Eventually a Letter of Claim (LoC) will be issued followed by an actual N1SDT Claim Form from the CNBC. This cannot be ignored and we will provide all the advice necessary on how to defend the claim.
At some stage the case will be transferred to your friends local county court. It will likely take many months before anything else happens. However, shortly before they have to pay the trial fee, they will discontinue the claim and it will be over.
