Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hi all. I have been approached by a friend as they received a ticket in the post from Smart parking (attached). From what I gather, they have not contacted them at all. They are unsure if this is the first time they are receiving this or if they have received these before (its a busy house and they are rarely home). It is my understanding that as long as they don't identify the driver, they are ok? Do they even need to reply?

If they ignore, they are likely to get debt collection letters from DCBL, a Letter of Claim from DCB Legal and a county court claim. If the court claim is ignored they will get a default judgement against them.

If they have more information and a defence then they will get assistance here.

However,if so, they should post directly rather than use you as an intermediary.

A narrative of what happened, a defence for why they shouldn’t pay, and a copy of the original notice to keeper would be a start.

https://www.ftla.uk/private-parking-tickets/read-this-first-private-parking-charges-forum-guide/

Their options are to pay or to defend a court claim in a number of months. The deadline to appeal to Smart will have passed.

Our experience is that Smart will pursue this if ignored.

I have no magic bullet to offer you.

I did look on Google Streetview and there appear to be prominent signs limiting free parking to one hour, and terms and conditions referring to £90 if exceeded, although I can’t read all the words. A defence has to be better than “we forgot”, and could hinge on poor signage, for example, but I’m not seeing that myself.

Without more information I don’t think I can help any further.

I doubt it, but don’t rush to pay immediately in case someone else here has a good idea.

So - on the face of it, if they did not receive the notice, it has not been served, and accordingly, the keeper cannot be liable. However, whilst that is true in theory, in practice, it will be very difficult to prove (how do you prove you didn't receive something?).

Without sight of the original notice, we can't really advise on its contents and whether it is compliant with the relevant legislation - they could send a Subject Access Request to Smart Parking to get a copy of it.

What they do next depends to a certain extent on their attitude to risk...

Option 1 is to pay up - if they do this, there's a 100% chance that they will lose £145. In return for that £145, they will get the certainty that the matter is closed, and the certainty that they won't have to pay any more than that.

Option 2 is to do nothing, await Smart Parking probably taking them to court, and seeking to defend it. If they do this, they might win, or Smart Parking might pull out before a hearing (in either of these cases your friend would pay nothing), or they might lose, which would (generally) cost in the region of £200-230.

On the face of it, from what you have told us so far, they don't have a defence on the basis of the actual contravention, so it would depend on any defencde to be found in the signage, technical defects in the original notice that we haven't yet seen, or Smart Parking's solicitors messing up the process.

I appreciate the above is somewhat vague, but as you can hopefully appreciate, we've not got much to base our advice on currently.