Free Traffic Legal Advice

The driver parked across one of the white lines in a bay at the above retail park on 5 December.  They visited one Retailer (Curry's) for less than 10 minutes.

I, as the Registered Keeper of the car, received a NTK Parking Charge, dated 8 December (attached) for £100, with a 14 day early pay discount of £40.

I have subsequently visited the site to complain to the Retailer, and to check the signage.  The Retailer was sympathetic, and has provided the Landlords details, but has no relationship with UKPC, who issued the PCN.  They advised the Landlords as
Savills, 3 Wellington place, Leeds, Ls1 4ap, 01132440100  (The contact they had was David Bosah).

I noted that the closest sign to where the car was parked was damaged, and the next nearest sign was partly obscured by a lamppost, and took photos of these (attached)

To date, I have made an appeal directly to UKPC, (ie. "to dispute your 'parking charge', as the keeper of the vehicle. I deny any liability or contractual agreement and I will be making a complaint about your predatory conduct to your client landowner.")  I also complained about the damaged sign, resulting in unclear signage.

I was initially guided to contact the Landowner to ask them to cancel the PCN, but wanted to check whether this is correct, whether Savills would be the correct point of contact, and also if there is a template to use ?

All help appreciated (thank you).


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Everything @DWMB2 has posted is correct.  But that still doesn't mean you can be forced to pay this charge.  UKPC and their favourite law firm, DCB Legal, are notoriously incompetent at attempting to enforce their parking charges.  The ritual dance goes like this:

1.  Appeal to UKPC.
2.  Appeal rejected.
3   Appeal to POPLA.
4.  POPLA appeal succeeds or fails.  If it succeeds, the dance stops here.  If it fails, move to step 5.  If the motorist didn't bother with a POPLA appeal, the dance starts at step 5 anyway.
5.  UKPC initially and then one or more debt collecting scammers send a series of threatening letters adding bogus administration charges to the original charge.
6.  Eventually, UKPC or DCB Legal sends a formal "letter before claim" (aka "letter of claim" or "letter before action") threatening to commence legal proceedings.
7.  Legal proceedings issued by the Civil National Business Centre ("CNBC") in Northampton.
8.  Motorist files Acknowledgment of Service and Defence within the requisite time limits.
9.  Both parties file their completed Directions Questionnaires within the requisite time limits.
10. The Court sets a hearing date and requires UKPC to pay a hearing fee.
11. UKPC fails to pay the hearing fee and throws in the towel.

It's up to the motorist to decide how many of the steps before step 8 to engage with.  Much depends on the date of the PCN which you have unfortunately obscured.  Please complete the jigsaw for us.

The motorist must always inform UKPC of any change of address during the next 6 years as well as keeping the DVLA registration of the vehicle up to date.  This is very important.  Virtually the only way DCBL and UKPC actually win cases and get CCJs is by suing the motorist at the last known address and winning by default because the motorist doesn't receive the claim form from the CNBC in time to defend it,.

And so please tell us the date of the PCN

Thanks. So the notice was delivered before the end of the "relevant period" as defined in Schedule 4 to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 ("POFA") so no get-out-of-jail free card based on the dates.  But there's a potential POFA argument based on a different POFA fail check it out https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/9/schedule/4.

You can only run a POFA argument if you have not already revealed (for example in your online appeal) who was driving.
My reading of POFA paragraph 9(2)(a) is that the NTK must specify the "period of parking" which to my mind means they must specify a start and finish time, not just a point in time.

However, the boys and girls at POPLA seem decent enough sorts but they are not legally qualified and they struggle with even the most basic legal concepts.  Some of them are particularly challenged by POFA and have handed down some spectacularly wrong decisions in relation to it.  So whenever I lodge a POPLA appeal that relies on a POFA argument, I make a point of starting as follows, almost like a mantra (obviously changing as necessary to take account of the facts of the particular case):

1.      The appellant appeals as keeper. The appellant is not obliged to identify the driver and declines to do so.

2.      The operator has candidly admitted in its purported “Notice to Keeper” (the “NTK”) that it does not know the identity of the driver:

[quote the bit on the NTK where it says they don't know the name and address of the driver]

3.      Section 21 of the BPA AOS Code of Practice explains what an operator must do in order to hold a keeper liable when it does not know the name and address of the driver:

‘21.1 ……. Because of the difficulties of identifying who drivers are and where they live, the law in England and Wales now allows car park owners and operators to recover unpaid parking charges from registered vehicle keepers, or, where relevant, from vehicle hirers.
21.2 Schedule 4 of POFA 2012 creates the new legal basis to claim unpaid parking charges from vehicle keepers and hirers. As long as the strict conditions of Schedule 4 are met, you may claim payment from the keeper or the hirer of the vehicle rather than from the driver. To do this you need to follow the procedures set out in the Schedule.’

4.  Please note that strict compliance is required. Partial or even substantial compliance is not sufficient.

5.  In the present case, the operator has failed to comply with the following POFA requirements:

[search for as many POFA failures as you can find.  Here's my one to start the ball rolling]

(a)  POFA paragraph 9(2)(a) says a notice to keeper must specify "the period of parking to which the notice relates."  The NTK does not specify a period, it simply states a point in time at which the vehicle is alleged to have been parked.  A point in time is not a period.  A period runs from one point in time to another point in time.

(b) [                                   ].

6. If the operator wishes to pursue a contractual claim it must do so against the driver, not the keeper and it is not entitled to presume that the keeper is the driver.  This was made crystal clear in the foreword to his annual report for 2015, by POPLA’s then lead adjudicator and current London Traffic and Environment adjudicator, barrister Henry Michael Greenslade in the following terms:

'There is no ‘reasonable presumption’ in law that the registered keeper of a vehicle is the driver. Operators should never suggest anything of the sort. Further, a failure by the recipient of a notice issued under Schedule 4 [of the Protection of Freedoms Act] to name the driver, does not of itself mean that the recipient has accepted that they were the driver at the material time.'

7  Mr Greenslade's view has been echoed by multiple decisions of learned judges and I have uploaded the following decisions in support of this appeal:

Excel v Lamoureux (2016);
Vehicle Control Services Limited v Quayle (2017)
Vehicle Control Services Limited v Edward (2023)

8.      Accordingly, the NTK was not correctly issued and the operator may not claim payment from the keeper.

You can download the case transcripts here - https://we.tl/t-zx4Tp9FKqe

Remember a loss at POPLA isn't binding and you can carry on the ritual dance as previously described.

Good plan.  When writing to the landowners be sure to write about "the car in which I travelled" without specifying who drove it.  But don't include all the aggressive stuff about your right not to identify the driver.  It's fine to antagonise UKPC.  It's not a good idea to anatagonise the landowner, at least not yet!

Snap!

Great result, thanks for the update.

And a useful example of it always being worth contacting the landowner, even in cases where at face value one is 'bang to rights'.

Keep hold of the written confirmation that he will cancel the charge.