Free Traffic Legal Advice

I thought so.  Seems to totally ignore the grounds for challenging.

Her name is Natalie Matthews

https://ibb.co/67TD849m

Yes, I agree.

And Natalie Matthews has form for this.

Notice in particular how she avoids any demonstration of compliance in the manner which we asked for.

She states, (when discussing the wording of the NtK) that, "It also says that the creditor does not know both the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver" - is does not - there is no such wording present on the NtK - she has basically made this up in order to verbally imply compliance in a scenario where the operator has not been able to rebut your appeal point.

Is the Popla process exhausted?

Yes.

Do I pay the fine?

It is your money and therefore your choice. If you wish to continue to fight, ignore the debt collector's letters that they will send, and return here for advice if you receive a Letter of Claim from Secure Parking's solicitors.

Small Claims track means virtually no costs. Definitely not legal costs even if you lose.

Costs on the small claims track
27.14
(1) This rule applies to any case which has been allocated to the small claims track unless paragraph (5) applies
(Rule 46.13 makes provision in relation to orders for costs made before a claim has been allocated to the small claims track)
(2) The court may not order a party to pay a sum to another party in respect of that other party’s costs, fees and expenses, including those relating to an appeal, except –
(a) the fixed costs attributable to issuing the claim, calculated in accordance with Table 2 in Practice Direction 45;
(b) in proceedings which included a claim for an injunction or an order for specific performance a sum not exceeding the amount specified in Practice Direction 27A for legal advice and assistance relating to that claim;
(c) any court fees paid by that other party;
(d) expenses which a party or witness has reasonably incurred in travelling to and from a hearing or in staying away from home for the purposes of attending a hearing;
(e) a sum not exceeding the amount specified in Practice Direction 27A for any loss of earnings or loss of leave by a party or witness due to attending a hearing or to staying away from home for the purposes of attending a hearing;
(f) a sum not exceeding the amount specified in Practice Direction 27A for an expert’s fees;
(g) such further costs as the court may assess by the summary procedure and order to be paid by a party who has behaved unreasonably; and
(h) the applicable Stage 1 and, where relevant, the Stage 2 fixed costs in Table 10 and Table 11 in Practice Direction 45 where –
(i) the claim was within the scope of the Pre-Action Protocol for Low Value Personal Injury Claims in Road Traffic Accidents (‘the RTA Protocol’) or the Pre-action Protocol for Low Value Personal Injury (Employers’ Liability and Public Liability) Claims (‘the EL/PL Protocol’);
(ii) the claimant reasonably believed that the claim was valued at more than the small claims track limit in accordance with paragraph 4.1(4) of the relevant Protocol; and
(iii) the defendant admitted liability under the process set out in the relevant Protocol; but
(iv) the defendant did not pay those Stage 1 and, where relevant, Stage 2 fixed costs; and
(i) in an appeal, the cost of any approved transcript reasonably incurred.
(3) A party’s rejection of an offer in settlement will not of itself constitute unreasonable behaviour under paragraph (2)(g) but the court may take it into consideration when it is applying the unreasonableness test.
(4) The limits on costs imposed by this rule also apply to any fee or reward for acting on behalf of a party to the proceedings charged by a person exercising a right of audience by virtue of an order under section 11 of the Courts and Legal Services Act 19901(a lay representative).

I'll come up with a complaint email.

I've noticed another area of non-compliance on the operators NtK which the assessor seems not to flag.

In my opinion there is little chance of this case ever being successful at Court but that won't stop them pressuring you.

Ignore debt collectors. As you will probably be aware from your time in that sector, debt collectors are not interested in any communication that doesn't involve you paying up, and won't do anything other than send threatening letters.

At some point they'll get bored and refer back to their client, who'll have the choice to either give up or instruct solicitors.

You could send the following to POPLA;



****** Actually ***** STOP PRESS ***** Don't send yet. I was in a hurry earlier - I have a few tweaks to make.


POPLA Complaint.

POPLA Code -

POPLA Assessor - Natalie Matthews


Dear Lead Assessor,

I am writing to formally complain about a recent POPLA Appeal assessed by Natalie Matthews.

In her assessment she wrongly established PoFA liability when the Notice to Keeper clearly excludes information which Schedule 4 Paragraph 9(2) requires.

In my appeal I clearly highlighted the missing information from the parking operators NtK.


I will now run through the mistakes made.

In her assessment, when assessing the NtK for compliance, Natalie runs through each section of paragraph 9(2) in an attempt to demonstrate compliance - the Assessor's appeal response states the following sentence;

"The PCN informs the keeper that the driver is required to pay parking charges in respect of the specified period of parking and that the parking charges have not been paid in full." - this is, of course, a clear reference to the statutory requirements of 9(2)(b).

However, when examined, the operators NtK clearly deals with the requirements of 9(2)(b) with the following sentence;

"You are notified under paragraph 9(2)(b) of schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 that the driver of the motor vehicle is required to pay this parking charge in full."

You will immediately notice that the legislation (correctly quoted in Natalie's sentence) requires that 9(2)(b) set out two specific pieces of information, namely; that the driver is required to pay the parking charges, and; that the parking charges have not been paid in full.

However, when you examine the operators version of 9(2)(b), you will immediately notice that it only specifies the first requirement of 9(2)(b) - the operators version of 9(2)(b) fails to specify the second part of 9(2)(b), namely; "that the parking charges have not been paid in full."

In her assessment, Natalie clearly states that the second element of 9(2)(b) is present on the NtK when, clearly, it is not - the NtK is not therefore compliant with 9(2)(b) as it does not contain all the elements of information which 9(2)(b) requires and, as such, it therefore fails the PoFA keeper liability test as the requisite information is not provided to the Keeper in the manner which the legislation demands.

I should point out that I never raised this as a specific appeal point because my appeal points regarding 9(2)(e) are demonstrably strong. However, it was Natalie who choose to raise the subject of step by step compliance and, as such, it is important that she demonstrates an adequate level of competence when dealing with PoFA compliance.

In simple terms, the missing element of 9(2)(b) is immediately fatal to the operators reliance of PoFA and this is a serious error on the part of the POPLA assessor given that the wording of paragraph 9(2)(b) is not complex and sets out only two extremely simple drafting requirements.


Furthermore;

Natalie then states the following (when commenting on the NtK);

"It also says that the creditor does not know both the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver and invite the keeper— to pay the unpaid parking charges; or if the keeper was not the driver of the vehicle, to notify the creditor of the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver and to pass the notice on to the driver."

In simple terms, the NtK does not contain this statement - the wording (paragraph) simply isn't present - if this paragraph is present then feel free to highlight it on the operators Ntk?

Natalie's comments are a reference to the requirements of 9(2)(e) and were the basis of my appeal points.

It is important to note that I invited the parking operator to specifically demonstrate compliance with term 9(2)(e) by highlighting the required paragraph on their own NtK - they were unable to rebut this appeal point - instead they stated that the legislation did not require verbatim replication of mandatory wording - the operator was unable to demonstrate how the requirements of 9(2)(e) were being met by their own NtK.

It is not the POPLA Assessors job to provide a rebuttal on the parking operator's behalf.

The POPLA Assessor appears to have broken with established POPLA procedure in this respect.

It is clear from the operators own evidence that they were unable to rebut my three appeal points.

However, the Assessor appears to take on the case for them in that respect.

If the operator is unable to demonstrate compliance within their own document then how can the NtK possibly be complaint?



When examined, the operators NtK moves directly from the requirements of 9(2)(b) straight onto the requirements of 9(2)(f).

Paragraph 9(2)(e) is completely overlooked and it's requirements are never met on the NtK.

9(2)(e) specifies the following;

The Notice MUST STATE that the creditor does not know both the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver and invite the keeper—

(i)to pay the unpaid parking charges; or

(ii)if the keeper was not the driver of the vehicle, to notify the creditor of the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver and to pass the notice on to the driver.

We are therefore looking for a specific paragraph which sets out the mandatory wording immediately followed by the two limbed invitation to the keeper which the legislation specifies. Notice the use of the word "and" which joins up the requirements of 9(2)(e) - that the notice must set out the mandatory wording AND invite the keeper to either pay OR nominate another driver - the legislation therefore sets out the format of the paragraph as well as the specific wording - i.e. the mandatory wording followed by the two limbed invitation to the keeper.

In her assessment, Natalie totally ignores the specific requirements of 9(2)(e) and implies that compliance can be achieved subjectively by implying that the notice does, at certain points, meet the requirements of 9(2)(e) / 9(2)(e)(i) / 9(2)(e)(ii) - this suggestion is clearly incorrect and totally ignores the specific wording of the legislation.

Irrespective of Natalie's comments on 9(2)(e), the notice never states, "that the creditor does not know both the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver" and the notice never sets out the two limbed invitation to the keeper which 9(2)(e)(i) and 9(2)(e)(ii) requires.

As I said previously, the operators notice clearly moves from 9(2)(b) to 9(2)(f) without satisfying 9(2)(e).

It is also worth pointing out, that whilst 9(2)(f) does also specify similar mandatory wording (set out as a warning to the keeper), the wording of 9(2)(f) does not satisfy the requirements of 9(2)(e) and, as such, the requirements of 9(2)(e) are completely separate to 9(2)(f) - if parliament meant for 9(2)(f) to satisfy the requirements of 9(2)(e) then they would have simply removed 9(2)(e) from the statute - the fact that 9(2)(e) exists demonstrates that it has it's own requirements.

In this instance the POPLA Assessor has ignored both the absent statutory wording and the missing two limbed choice, separated by the word 'or' which must be presented to the keeper - this is a further serious error by Natalie.


I should also point out that I did not raise the issue of 'verbatim wording' - this subject was brought up by the parking operator in response to my quoting of the legislative requirement of 9(2)(e)

The legislation clearly specifies that, "The notice MUST STATE that the creditor does not know both the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver."

It appears that the operator realised that their notice did not contain the wording required by the legislation and therefore had to make an excuse for its absence - that excuse was 'that the legislation does not require verbatim wording' - the operator was unable to support their assertion and I drew the Assessors attention to that fact - the operator was also unable to demonstrate any alternative wording which satisfied the requirements of 9(2)(e) and, as such, my appeal point was left un-rebutted.

The Assessor then also specified that verbatim wording was not required but this is an irrelevant argument since the legislation is so objectively clear in it's wording that there can be no other interpretation of the requirements which can be applied to the term, "The notice MUST STATE blah blah blah" - the notice either 'STATES' something or it does not - in this instance, the notice does not state the information which paragraph 9(2)(e) requires and as such the notice can never be PoFA compliant.

If the notice states that, "the creditor does not know both the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver" then please highlight that statement - I think that it is pretty obvious by now that if that statement were present, followed by the two limbed choice, then someone would have pointed it out by now.


Ultimately, the operators NtK fails to provide the information required by 9(2)(b) and completely skips over the entire requirements of 9(2)(e) / 9(2)(e)(i) / 9(2)(e)(ii) relating to both wording and format.



I look forward to your considered response.



Best wishes,



xxxxxx xxxxxxxxx