You've made your point with Hertz. Stop any further communication with them. Wait and see if they issue a Letter of Claim (LoC). If they ever do and if this were to go to court, it would be in the small-claims track and costs are fixed. Even if you were unsuccessful (not likely), their costs would be fixed at £35 claim fee, £50 fixed solicitor costs and the £27 hearing fee on to of the claim amount of £42.
I haven't yet bothered to read the copies of the agreement and so on because it is clear that whoever you are dealing with at Herts does not have a clue about how Parking Charge Notices (PCNs) differ from penalties of fines from authorities. It just shows the utter ignorance of the person who sent you the demand.
Just to highlight their ignorance, on their invoice to you they have misrepresented everything. There was no "Penalty Charge Notice". A Penalty Notice can only be issued for a breach of a statutory law and is only issued by an "authority" such a a council. It was a Parking Charge Notice (PCN) which is simply an invoice from an unregulated private parking company.
It got on to state Penalty Type: Parking. There was never any mention of the word "penalty" in the PCN. It was simply a speculative invoice for an alleged breach of contract by the driver under civil law.
Their invoice keeps referring to GroupNexus as an "authority". An "authority" like a council or the police can issue real fines or penalties under the law. An unregulated private parking company is just a business. They're not the law — they can only send you an invoice if they think you broke their made-up rules.
This is the only clause that matters in the hire agreement:
FINES, TOLLS AND OTHER CHARGES
You are responsible for all fines, road tolls, congestion charges and other similar charges (including parking fines or charges) incurred in relation to the vehicle during your rental. Some of these will be sent to us for payment, which we will pay and recover from you by way of reimbursement.
Alternatively, we may be required to provide your details to the relevant authority or other third party, who will contact you directly. Where we pass your details to a third party this will be in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
IMPORTANT: In addition to any fine or charge you incur, we may also apply an Administration Fee to contribute towards the time and costs we incur in dealing with these matters.
In this case, the key point is that no fine or charge was ultimately incurred — the PCN was cancelled. Therefore:
Hertz is only entitled to charge an admin fee if they actually incurred a fine or charge or had to take steps to deal with one — including passing on the hirer’s details.
In this case, they did pass on the hirer’s details, so they can technically rely on the clause to impose the admin fee. But here’s the crux:
• The hirer appealed the charge themselves and got it cancelled.
• Hertz incurred no financial liability, made no payment, and had no further involvement.
• The process stopped at the point of the NtH — which is exactly what the clause anticipates when it says they may pass details on "in accordance with our Privacy Policy".
So yes, they did something — but it was basic data entry, entirely automated and low-cost. £42 is clearly excessive, and the fee is not proportionate to the time or cost actually incurred.
In short: they can’t justify the charge as a reasonable fee under consumer law, and trying to enforce it looks like an unenforceable penalty or unfair contract term.
