Free Traffic Legal Advice

I have received notification of debt recovery from DCBL for multiple parking charges dated back to 2019. I at no point have received the initial charges due to a house move before the date and an error with the log book.
I gifted the vehicle in question to my girlfriend who does not reside with me. They have eventually found me at my current address.
Had I known about the initial charge it would of been paid and that would of been the end of the matter.
I'm not denying the idiot has parked there and used it for work. However I was not the driver of the vehicle and can prove this as my Google timeline puts me in different locations throught the northwest. Surely even g24 and dcbl must realise that over 30 charges unpaid is highly suspicious.
The problem is now my girlfriend has stage 4 cancer and I'm trying to protect her from this.
DCBL are now recommending legal action and I need to avoid a ccj as it can affect my motor trade insurance. 
Can anyone give me any advice ? Even if there's a way of applying for an out of time appeal to roll back the charges to the initial notification.
Regards
Gary.

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The first thing you must do, immediately, is send a Data Rectification Notice (DRN) to the G24 DPO instructing them to update their records with your (the Keeper) current address for service and to erase your old address. The highlighted words are there for a reason and you must use them.

Even if the debt collectors have now found your current address, you can guarantee that if G24 hold two possible addressed for you, hey will use the wrong one and you will get a CCJ by default. So, first priority, DRN.

It doesn’t matter if you were not the driver if the Parking Charge Notices (PCNs) were fully compliant with all the requirements of PoFA because they can then hold the Keeper liable if the drivers identity is unknown. Without seeing the postal Notice to Keeper (NtK), it is not possible to know for sure.

One thing is for sure, they are going to litigate over this because it is a fat juicy sum and they are rubbing their hands with glee over the prospect of suing you for the prospective amount. The only thing they cannot include in the amount they claim is the added fake £70 per PCN which most judges would never allow.

There are some steps that can be taken now, besides the urgent need to send a DRN. Unfortunately, I’m doing this on an iPad right now and I need to be sitting at my computer to be able to assist properly. I will get back to you within the next few hours with some further advice on how to move forward with this.

The first thing you must do, immediately, is send a Data Rectification Notice (DRN) to the G24 DPO instructing them to update their records with your (the Keeper) current address for service and to erase your old address. The highlighted words are there for a reason and you must use them.

The very first thing you should do is the above.

Some good news amongst all the misfortune - the parking company have up to 6 years from the date of each parking claim to sue for the charge. So the one issued 10/01/2019 is already time-barred, so that's at least 1 they cannot recover. Any others that reach the 6 year mark before a claim is filed will equally not be recoverable.

In that regard, it is positive that it is still at the debt recovery stage. If they want to sue, they'll need to pass the matter onto DCB Legal (similar name, same folks, but different company to DCBL), who will need to issue a Letter of Claim, and give you time to reply before filing a claim. Let us know as soon as you get such a letter. You'll need to respond to this, but the fact they need to allow for a response allows us to delay matters slightly, which will mean that a few more of the charges will potentially become time-barred. This is obviously not a solution - but the fewer charges that are in play, the less severe the costs if the matter were to go to a hearing and you were to lose.

Can I request a photo of the vehicle entering the car park

I'm not sure what this will achieve - you seem to accept the vehicle was there.

My partner is also willing to confess she was the driver.

Don't do anything yet, but thinking aloud, this could potentially be used tactically, depending on how quick DCB Legal are in getting involved. It would potentially make your girlfriend the defendant rather than you, which I realise you may be keen to avoid, but they'd then have to follow the pre-action protocol with her too, and by the time they got to being able to issue a claim, such time may have passed that the number of charges they'd be able to claim for would be greatly reduced. I'm not suggesting taking that course of action, but it's one to bear in mind as we see how things play out.

Apologies for not getting back earlier. However, you’ve received some good advice already.

The debt collector stage that you’re at right now is not concerning. In fact it is good.

As pointed out, there is a 6 year statute of limitation for civil claims in England. That statute runs from the date of the alleged contravention, not from the date the PCN was issued.

Even if any PCN was actioned on today, they would have to issue a Letter of Claim (LoC) which must give you 30 days to pay or respond. If you respond on day 29 with a request for another 30 days to allow you to seek debt advice, they are obliged to delay initiating any claim by that period.

So, even if they issued an LoC tomorrow, 23rd January and you follow the advice, they would only be able to claim for PCNs issued after 23rd March 2019. So, for now, you only need to be concerned about PCNs for alleged contraventions after that date and for every extra day you don’t receive an LoC, you can extend the date they cannot issue a claim for the PCNs.

Right now we do not know whether the PCNs that you may be liable for are PoFA compliant, especially from 6 years ago when a lot of these parking companies were not as switched on.

Apart from the DRN, I would not do anything else unless an LoC is received. Once that stage is reached, we will have a better idea of how many PCNs you are potentially dealing with. When responding to the LoC on day 29, you can request evidence of the NtKs and that will then give us a better idea of where you stand as far as defending any potential claim.

One thing is sure, if they use DCB Legal as their bulk litigator, there will be serious flaws in any Particulars of Claim (PoC) which can be exploited.

It would be useful if you could list all the PCNs that pertain to contraventions (not the issue date of the NtK) after 23rd March 2019 to get a better idea of how big a claim they are able to make should they actually progress it that far.

On that basis, given the dates, it's likely that we can ensure that they are only able to claim for a maximum of 8 of these. And that's based on the pessimistic assumption that you receive a Letter of Claim soon (although we should probably work off that assumption, as all parties will be aware of the relevant dates).

Have you sent a DRN?

If what you've received so far is not a Letter of Claim, I'm not sure we need to know the date you received the most recent letter.

Your priority for now is sorting out the Data Rectification Notice.

The first letter from DCBL was dated 26 November 2024.
I rang immediately because I initially thought it was a scam as I did not recognise the reg plate

As requested

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