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Two days ago, I received a letter for debt collection. I'm currently living in a homeless shelter in England. The company that owns the hotel car park is Civil Enforcement Ltd. A permit is needed which is digitalised.
called the phone number on the debt collection letter, and they stated I would have received two letters before the debt collection letter. However, I received no letters. They claimed it was because I didn't change my address on my V5C, which I know I did.
I can't appeal it because it's been 28 days since I didn't receive these phone. two letters before the debt one, as the man said on the phone. The man on the phone said TT have to pay no matter what.
1.I don't have the money since the charge is £170. 2. 1 had a permit when they said I didn't. 3. There's no physical permit to put on the windscreen
4.1.I changed the address on my driver's license in March, and the website states, "In circumstances where we have not received any response from you to our PCN or debt recovery correspondence and in line with the latest BPA Code of Practice, we will undertake a soft trace to confirm that you are st.ill at the address provided to us by the DVLA before we issue a county court claim against you This became a requirement in January 2020 so if your PCN and subsequent claim was issued before then, we would have used your last known address, that is the address provided to us by the DVLA as the address for service of documents and the formal claim.
4.2 The Contravention happened on 2nd July. Where are the letters about the Contravention for 1st July or 3rd July? They claim to use CCTV and ANPR cameras
4.3 These two letters supposedly went to the wrong address, BUT the debt collection letter went to the correct one; how does this work? 5. The hotel gained my reg plate when I moved in -
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Do not so anything else until you fully understand how this all works.
First thing, do not communicate with the debt collector. They can safely be ignored. They have no power to do anything, no matter how scary they try to be. Honestly, do not contact them again. Ignore them.
I would place money on the fact that Civil Enforcement DO NOT own the car park. They are simply contracted to operate it on behalf of the landowner or the landowners agent. You need to try and establish who owns the car park. Possibly the hotel. With who did you have to register the VRM for an ePermit when you moved there?
When did you change the address on your V5C? Changing your address on your drivers licence does not automatically update your V5C. If it was at around the time you moved to the hotel, CE may have your old address. The debt collector probably did a soft trace.
You need to confirm this with CE by sending a data rectification notice to their DPO (email address in their privacy notice on their website). You must instruct them to update their records with your current address for service and to erase the old address and to confirm with you when they have done so. You do not want them to hold two possible addresses for you. That is exactly how many people get default CCJs. You need to be able to receive all correspondence on time.
You mentionphe "two letters". These are for a single PCN. They are the original Notice to Keeper (NtK) and the reminder letter. There aren't two separate PCNs, especially as you only mention £170. The PCN was for £100 and the debt collector has added a fake £70 fee.
As CE are BPA members, you could complain (not an appeal) to them and request that they re-issue the PCN because you never received the originals. There is a clause in their Code of Practice (CoP), 23.8 that you can try and use that states:QuoteYou must have a process for considering appeals received outside of the normal 28-day period allowed for lodging an appeal where the appellant provides evidence of exceptional circumstances for the appeal not being lodged within the normal timeframes – where the addressee only discovers and can show that a parking charge notice has been issued in their name after the 28-day period the period must restart and any enforcement, excluding court action, must be paused.
If they don't you can then complain to the BPA that they have not followed the CoP.
For now, find out who at the hotel is responsible for adding your vehicles VRM to the "whitelist" and why wasn't on that list when the PCN was issued. Ask them who contracted CE and if it was the hotel or an agent of the landowner, you must ask them to get the PCN cancelled. -
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Evening.
Thank you for your timely response.
I have just returned from work and received another letter from the debt collector for a different date: 04/07/2024. At the same time, the original post was about 02/07/2024.
Overall, I 'owe' £340
If a staff member is in the hotel tomorrow, I will ask who owns the car park.
So, when I moved into the hotel, I had to fill out this form, and my registration number was one of them.
I understand there's an iPad at the front of the hotel where you place your number plate again, which supposedly permits your car.
I'm 95% sure I changed my address from the old address to the new one (not the hotel) before I moved into the hotel. I remember searching for the v5c (because I had my paperwork in storage), but the problem is I'm not sure if that was to renew my tax or to change my address. I remember needing a code of some sort, maybe an extended code.
I will send an email to them tomorrow. I have to admit that this is becoming worrying. I fear now that I have two debt letters for two separate dates and that more will come.
I forgot to mention that when I declared myself homeless, the council stated they have a 56-day duty of care (which I have proof of); I typed in 56 days for the parking so it would cover it as a precaution. Since receiving the first one, I have put 900 days into the iPad.
Thank you for the code of practice! -
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Sorry to hear about your housing predicament. Regarding the ipad system, a pragmatic suggestion to reduce the chances of future tickets: ask the hotel how it works.
I'd be surprised if simply entering 900 days actually permits you to 900 days parking without having to re-enter your reg. If it did, anyone could wander in off the streets and get themselves 2+ years free parking. -
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If the original Notices to Keeper (NtK) were sent to the previous address, which is probably why you never received them, do you still have access to that address or are you able to contact the people at that address to find out if they still have the letters (and any other post)?
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Sorry to hear about your housing predicament. Regarding the ipad system, a pragmatic suggestion to reduce the chances of future tickets: ask the hotel how it works.
I'd be surprised if simply entering 900 days actually permits you to 900 days parking without having to re-enter your reg. If it did, anyone could wander in off the streets and get themselves 2+ years free parking.
I never thought about asking the hotel. I don't mean to sound racist or anything, but the hotel staff isn't English, and it can be difficult to understand one another. Nonetheless, I will ask the staff, see what they have to say, and hope for the best.
You first place your reg number into the iPad, and then it says how many days your stay is. After that, it says "The permit has been issued to 'said reg' " So you don't have to enter it again until it's time.If the original Notices to Keeper (NtK) were sent to the previous address, which is probably why you never received them, do you still have access to that address or are you able to contact the people at that address to find out if they still have the letters (and any other post)?
Again, I didn't think of doing this until you mentioned it, so I did just that. I called my old neighbour to determine whether she had received my mail to pass on to me. She said no, but then she called me to tell me old and new mail was left on the letterbox (apartment style). I opened my letters to find out that I have two more PCN charges. Since looking at the letters, I have noticed the dates on them.
My original letter, which I created on this forum, is dated 04/09/2024 (the date the letter was made). Sent to the correct address, previous to the hotel. Debt Collector letter
Letter 2: letter created on 10/09/2024. Sent to the correct address, previous to the hotel. Debt Collector letter
I retrieved Letter 3 from the old address today. It is a PCN letter Issued on 09/09/2024 and sent to the wrong address.
Letter 4: Letter created on 06/09/2024. A final reminder about a different dated incident. Sent to the wrong address.
Please help me understand this. How do they have the correct address for the very first debt collector letter, 04/09/24, and then the other debt one, 10/09/24, but the other two of PCN are not the correct address? 04/09 was the first letter and the correct address.
Surely, this proves they had my correct address in the first place, but they keep sending stuff to the wrong address? -
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You need to differentiate between the PPC and the debt collectors. The PPC will have obtained your DVLA data and what was provided was whatever was on your V5C.
The debt collector will have performed a credit search to find any other address through your credit file. Now they hold two possible addresses for you which is why you need to send a data rectification notice and make sure that any correspondence from the PPC or any solicitors they may use goes to an address you can be served at. That means that it is an address where you will receive the correspondence or at least be notified as soon as it arrives so that you can access it.
As far as the debt collector letters are concerned, as advised, completely ignore those. You must not correspond or talk with the debt collectors. They have no skin in the game. Ignore them.
Regarding any correspondence from the PPC, the only important correspondence is the initial Notice to Keeper (NtK) that was sent. If you have one of those, please post an image of it, both sides, with only your personal data, the VRM and the PCN number redacted. All dates and times need to be seen. -