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Everything I have seen suggests that the PPC cannot revert to the RK once it has issued the NTH

Are you able to point us to some of the things you have seen that suggest that?

13(2) provides that charges cannot be recovered from the keeper, if he provides the parking company with the specified documents within the specified time. If he does not do that, then 13(2) would not apply, and as such the creditor may exercise the right to recover the charges from the keeper (assuming all the other relevant provisions of Schedule 4 have been met, of course).

the hirer would then be left to fight it out with the RK as to whether or not the RK is entitled to pass on the charge to the hirer under the terms of the hire agreement?

If the reason the hire company were being pursued for the charges was due to their failure to provide the relevant documents, which were within their power to give, and when doing so would mean that the creditor could not recover the charges from them, in most circumstances they'd have a hard time successfully arguing that the hirer should bear the financial responsibility for that failure.

One of the problems in practice is that many hire companies are woefully unaware of the requirements of 13(2), and the notices that parking companies give often don't set out these requirements. The parking companies then happily send out notices to hirers, even when they have not received the requisite documents, rather than pointing out to the keeper that they have not received the documents and are therefore still exercising their right to recover the charges from the keeper.

This is obviously based on a limited sample size, but after a few years on these forums (PePiPoo before this one) I've only seen 2 hire car cases where the parking company actually got everything right to be able to recover from the hirer.

In one of those the hirer was a company with a massive fleet of hired vehicles, who were receiving dozens of PCNs from a parking company - who eventually started making sure they were doing everything 'by the book' to hold the hirer liable.

Are you sure that the Hire company didn't provide the required documents to the PPC? The fact that they didn't include copies of those documents with the NtH, is not evidence that the RK has not complied with PoFA 13(2)(b) and ©.

I'm not sure, but working on the basis that if the hire company did provide the docs then the PPC won't be able to pursue either them or the hirer (so I'm unconcerned). So I'm only really interested in the situation if the hire company didn't provide the docs.

The fact they have sent the Hirer an NtH shows that they have accepted the transfer of liability away from the Hire company.

This is interesting and what I was alluding to in the OP. Does the fact that the PPC has "accepted the transfer of liability" have any legal significance, i.e. does it prevent them PPC from being able to go back to the hire company under the original NTK once they realise they can't recover from the hirer? And, if so, what's the basis for that assertion?

Great points, thanks. Agree that there's an estoppel argument (and that, in any event, nobody is particularly likely to look too kindly on the PPC notionally accepting the transfer of liability and then attempting to backpedal following their own failings).

I only care because I expect the hire company may well end up paying the PCN and then attempting to charge it back to me, hence I'll be copying them on my appeal to the PPC putting them on notice that, if they've complied with POFA then they have no liability and, if they haven't, that it's their problem and not mine - and that either way I won't be responsible for any charges they incur or choose to pay as a result.

Expect that should do it.

Out of interest, are you aware of any authority on this point:

However... By sending the NtH to the hirer, the PPC may be seen as having accepted the information provided by the hire company, even if it was incomplete. In doing so, the PPC is acting as if the liability has been transferred to the hirer. This could imply that the PPC is choosing to pursue the hirer based on the available information, regardless of the missing documents.

I am not aware of any "authority" on that point as it is simply an opinion and IANAL.

Currently, as far as I am aware, there are no specific binding legal precedents directly addressing the scenario where a PPC sends an NtH despite incomplete compliance by the hire company with the PoFA. However, there are general legal principles and related case law that can provide persuasive arguments supporting the idea that by sending the NtH, the PPC may be considered to have accepted the transfer of liability based on the information provided.

Estoppel is a legal principle preventing a party from asserting something contrary to what is implied by their previous actions or statements. In this context, by sending an NtH to the hirer, the PPC could be seen as representing that the transfer of liability was accepted. If the PPC later tries to claim that the transfer was invalid due to missing documents, the hirer or the hire company could argue estoppel, asserting that the PPC’s initial action of sending the NtH estopped them from pursuing the hire company again.

Waiver is the voluntary relinquishment of a known right. By sending the NtH to the hirer, the PPC might be viewed as having waived their right to demand full compliance with PoFA from the hire company, especially if they acted on the information provided and attempted to hold the hirer liable.

In contractual and procedural law, actions taken based on received information implies acceptance of that information as satisfactory. If the PPC acts on the hire company's notification by sending an NtH, it may be argued that they have implicitly accepted the notification as sufficient for transferring liability.

While I can't find any direct binding precedents that specifically address this exact scenario, there are some related cases in the realm of civil procedure and estoppel that may offer persuasive value:

J. Murphy & Sons Ltd v. Johnson Precast Ltd [2008] EWCA Civ 1391: This case involved estoppel by convention, where both parties acted upon a shared assumption about the validity of a situation and one party was later prevented from denying the assumption because it would be unjust. By analogy, if the PPC sends an NtH based on an assumption of valid liability transfer, it could be argued they should be estopped from later denying this if it results in unfair treatment of the hire company or hirer.

In Re Vandervell's Trusts (No 2) [1974] Ch 269 the concept of waiver was discussed in this case, where a party's actions indicated a waiver of rights even if no explicit waiver was given. If the PPC proceeds by sending an NtH, a similar argument could be made that they waived strict adherence to PoFA's documentary requirements.

Davies v. Taylor [1974] AC 207: This case concerned reliance on previous conduct to assert rights. If the PPC's conduct implied reliance on the hire company's initial information (by issuing the NtH), the hirer or hire company could argue that the PPC cannot later change their position.

In practical terms, if the PPC sends an NtH despite incomplete compliance by the hire company, they are acting as if the liability has been transferred, potentially waiving their right to later challenge the validity of the transfer due to missing documents. This could be argued in court as a matter of fairness, procedural consistency, and reasonable reliance by both the hire company and hirer on the PPC's actions.

While there is no direct binding precedent for this specific scenario, general legal principles like estoppel, waiver, and implied acceptance, as well as persuasive case law on related matters, support the argument that by sending an NtH, the PPC is effectively acting as if the liability has been transferred, even if the transfer was procedurally incomplete. These principles can be leveraged to argue against the PPC reverting back to the hire company or attempting to enforce liability inconsistently.

IMO, there is no 'transfer of liability' as such. ALL the RK does is to relieve themselves of liability, what the PPC does subsequently is of no concern:

Right to claim unpaid parking charges from keeper of vehicle
4(1)The creditor has the right to recover any unpaid parking charges from the keeper of the vehicle.

...........

7)The right under this paragraph is subject to paragraph 13 (which provides for the right not to apply in certain circumstances in the case of a hire vehicle).

2)The creditor may not exercise the right under paragraph 4 to recover from the keeper any unpaid parking charges specified in the notice to keeper if, within the period of 28 days beginning with the day after that on which that notice was given, the creditor is given—

(a)a statement signed by or on behalf of the vehicle-hire firm to the effect that at the material time the vehicle was hired to a named person under a hire agreement;

(b)a copy of the hire agreement; and

(c)a copy of a statement of liability signed by the hirer under that hire agreement.

So, IMO just focus on the keeper. Why should they expect to not be held liable if they couldn't or couldn't be bothered to provide the specified docs. It's not rocket science, providing of course they were aware. We haven't seen the NTK, so wouldn't know whether this prompts a keeper when they're a 'vehicle-hire firm' and the vehicle is supplied subject to a 'hire agreement'.

Overlaying this is whatever correspondence would have been exchanged(if we're talking hypothetically) or was exchanged (if this relates to a real case) between the creditor and RK. This could or would affect the issue of attempted double recovery.