Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hi, sorry for bombarding your helpful site today.



I received this pcn from apocoa



I work as an uber driver and obviously forgot to pay this visit.



I have paid many since this visit so it is not that i was trying to avoid payment.

What would be my best attack at this one??


https://imgur.com/a/4pMLAYJ

Easy one to deal with… as long as the unknown drivers identity is not revealed. There is no legal obligation on the known keeper (the recipient of the Notice to Keeper (NtK)) to reveal the identity of the unknown driver and no inference or assumptions can be made.

The location (Heathrow Airport) is not relevant land for the purposes of PoFA which means that if the unknown driver is not identified, they cannot transfer liability for the charge from the unknown driver to the known keeper.

Use the following as your appeal. No need to embellish or remove anything from it:

I am the registered keeper. NCP cannot hold a registered keeper liable for any alleged contravention on land that is under statutory control. As a matter of fact and law, APCOA will be well aware that they cannot use the PoFA provisions because Heathrow Airport is not 'relevant land'.

If Heathrow Airport wanted to hold owners or keepers liable under Airport Bylaws, that would be within the landowner's gift and another matter entirely. However, not only is that not pleaded, it is also not legally possible because APCOA is not the Airport owner and your 'parking charge' is not and never attempts to be a penalty. It is created for APCOA's own profit (as opposed to a bylaws penalty that goes to the public purse) and APCOA has relied on contract law allegations of breach against the driver only.

The registered keeper cannot be presumed or inferred to have been the driver, nor pursued under some twisted interpretation of the law of agency. Your NtK can only hold the driver liable. APCOA have no hope at POPLA, so you are urged to save us both a complete waste of time and cancel the PCN.

Why, then, did you post a notice to the registered keeper? Was it addressed to you? You said “I received this PCN”.

You didn’t answer my question - was the notice to the keeper addressed to you, someone who is not the registered keeper? Or was it forwarded to you by the registered keeper.

In the former case, APCOA can’t decide that you’re the registered keeper for some reason, they have to apply to the DVLA for details of the registered keeper.

In the latter case, the notice is not addressed to you and you need to wait for a Notice to Hirer.

In either case, APCOA can’t hold you liable because the land is covered by byelaws for the reasons already posted.

What does "passed into my name" mean? Whose name and address is on the letter you have received?

OP, you cannot respond to a Notice to Keeper (NtK) as it is not in your name. So what if the hire company sent you a copy of the NtK? What the hire company should have done in order to deflect any comeback to them is transfer liability to you, the Hirer.

Once they have transferred liability, it is then up to APCOA to issue and send a Notice to Hirer (NtH) in your name. Together with that NtH, APCOA are supposed to also include copies of the hire agreement and other documents as listed in PoFA paragraph 13(2).

Until that happens, you cannot appeal as it is not your name that is on the NtK you have received because you are NOT the registered keeper!!!

So, unless you have received a notice in your name, that is an NtH, there is nothing you can or should do.

When you do receive one, then you can appeal with the suggested wording I gave you yesterday.

Either way, even if you did nothing, once the liability has been transferred to the Hirer, all you would need to do is ignore all the useless debt recovery letters and it will eventually go away. APCOA are not litigious.

Well, until the OP clarifies in plain English that they have received a notice in their name and not a copy of the NtK that was sent to the hire company, I guess we'll never know.

OP, unless you a very clear about what you have received and to whom it is addressed, you're on your own. If you follow the advice and don't screw it up, you won't be paying a penny.

OP, Nobody can make sense of what you’re writing. Have you received a notice to hirer in your own name directly from APCOA or a copy of a notice to keeper addressed to the hire company? You should not have received a notice to keeper in your own name.

Either way. APCOA will cancel it provided you do not say who was driving. Technically you should wait till you receive the notice to hirer in your own name but experience teaches that you can appeal prematurely and APCOA will cancel.

Try the following.

“I appeal as hirer. I’m not obliged to identify the driver and I decline to do so.

You cannot transfer the driver’s liability (if any) to me because there is no hirer liability at Stansted Airport which is not ‘relevant land’ as defined in the law known as POFA and in any event your notice does not conform to the wording requirements in POFA”