Forget the mugs discount. You should appeal and request a copy of the original NtK and put them to strict proof of posting it. Any initial appeal will be rejected anyway. Once the appeal is rejected, you will receive a POPLA code which is valid for 33 days from the date of the appeal rejection.
Appeal, ONLY as the Keeper. We do not know whether the original NtK was PoFA compliant and there is always a problem with Horizon's signs.
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.
If the original NtK is not compliant with all the requirements of PoFA, that means 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.
No original Notice to Keeper (NtK) was ever received; the first and only document received was a ‘Reminder’. The presumption of delivery in PoFA 2012, Sch 4, para 9(6) is rebutted. If you contend that an NtK was posted, you are put to strict proof of the date of posting (not merely the date of document generation), by producing your postal manifest or third-party Mail Consolidator handover data. See the Private Parking Single Code of Practice v1.1, section 8.1.2(e) Note 2: “Therefore, parking operators must retain a record of the date of posting of a notice, not simply of that notice having been generated (e.g. the date that any third-party Mail Consolidator actually put it in the postal system.)”
Unless and until you provide a copy of the original NtK together with strict proof of posting as above, you cannot rely on PoFA 2012 Schedule 4 to transfer liability to the keeper. There will be no admission as to who was driving and no inference or assumptions can be drawn. Horizon 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. Horizon have no hope at POPLA, so you are urged to save us both a complete waste of time and cancel the PCN.
You MUST also send a Data Rectification Notice (DRN) to the Horizon DPO at dp@horizonparking.co.uk and CC yourself. The DRN must instruct them to
update their records with your
current address for service and to
erase any other address. The highlighted words are there for a reason, so make sure you use them.
