Parking Fines Galore!

barryt01

Hi all. I'm a regular Moneysaver.com user, but have not posted on the Forum before, so I am a virgin user!

I am appealing for anyone who might be able to offer some advice on a situation my girlfriend has found herself in. Basically her father occasionally uses her car to drive into London. He seems to think he is above the law, and doesn't need to pay for parking, congestion charge etc. and so has aquired numerous parking tickets and other fines which are in my girlfriends name as the car is registered to her. I believe some fines go back a couple of years.

To complicate the situation further, the car is registered to a flat in London that is owned by her Aunt (on her Dad's advice; all part of making it difficult to track him down!) which is rented out, so the tennants receive any correspondence. Any mail for her is collected every few months by her father and usually remains unopened and ignored. My girlfriends Aunt went to the flat recently and collected some mail and passed it on to my girlfriend, at which point she discovered several different debt recovery agencies are all threatening to seize her car on sight for auction. The tennants of the flat have also had visits from bailiffs looking for my girlfriend.

My concerns are these:

• Is my girlfriends only option to drop her father in trouble (she is reluctant though I am not!)?
• Will she be liable for any of the fines?
• Will it have affected her credit rating (bearing in mind the different address)?
• Will it affect her ability to sell the car, should she choose to?

I am concerned for her, but also as we are thinking of living together so need to know how it might affect me as well if we co-habit.

Any help / thoughts / advice would be gratefully received.

Thank you!

barryt01

Neil_B

You need to clarify who the demands are from.

If originally Council tickets.
a) If he had permission to use the car then SHE is liable as owner.

b) Stupid to ignore.

c) DCAs? Most would be in relation to private tickets but do any say 'Phillips' - that may be Council.

d) Bailiffs - most likely via Council tickets. They will soon find her - no problem. Selling the car will be pointless. They can recover anything to cover the debt (if any) and the more you stall the more it costs cos they will add charges per visit and even per letter.
Does not affect your credit rating at all.

For private tickets - normal advice applies and driver is liable - but normally best ignored. See Sticky and other threads. In the unlikely event a private co took her to court and gained a judgement by default because she ignored then yes I think that affects your credit rating if not paid.

Not what you wanted to hear i suppose.

Without further detail it's impossible to advise

barryt01

Thanks Neil.

I will try to get hold of the correspondence and advise, but she tells me that he has since taken it all off her again, saying he will 'deal' with it. I know full well he won't. I am aware of at least 5 seperate 'cases', all of which were originally Council issued tickets from various London Boroughs or Transport For London (Congestion Charge).

The point is that SHE hasn't ignored it. She's only just found out about it. As he has taken the correspondence from her she can't even make contact with the relevant parties, should she want to.

She just wants to try to get it sorted out, but is fairly powerless. The more time goes by the worse it gets.

Thanks for the advice so far.


barryt01

Neil_B

With 5 Council PCNs at bailiff stage you are probably looking at circa £2k to £3 1/2K.

all he will achieve if they were originally ignored is to add to the bill. There may be a criminal issue of interfering with mail?

i repeat - as 'owner' she is liable and stands to lose goods.

again not what you wanted to hear - but certainly what you needed to know.
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mikey72

The car is registered with the daughter as the owner/keeper, but at a false address, that of her aunt's tennant?
DVLA will love that.
Where does the insurance think it is kept overnight?

Herbie21

Believe it or not, this is actually very simple.

Your girlfriend is the liable party. HOWEVER she did not receive the Statutory Notices as they had gone to a previous address In this case she needs to immeditely complete Out of Time late Statutory Declarations with the Traffic Enforcement Centre. Approx 40,000 such applications were made last year !!!

There is also NO FEE to pay and filing an Out of Time will FREEZE all action.

This needs to be done IMMEDIATELY because hundreds of vehicles are located by bailiffs by way of ANPR equipped bailiffs vans. These have on board computers which have details of unpaid parking tickets and the vehicles have Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras. When the vehicle passes a car with a unpaid parking ticket, an alarm sounds within the vehicle and the bailiff can then get a town truck to remove the car. This is very common in London.

I have sent you a pm.

Reggie_Rebel

Easy solution, tell the silly old sod he's not to drive the car until he's paid the fines and then don't give him the keys anyway

Neil_B

I originally thought it was going to have to be a case of slapping the old man and getting him to pay up.

BUT - if Herbie says you can still make OOT Stat Decs then I would try cos she knows her stuff. Google Northampton TEC for details how on their website.

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@ Herbie - can she do that even though the RK address was deliberately elsewhere - and not since changed with DVLA?? - Just wondering.
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barryt01

This is all great advice - thank you all.

Believe me, giving the old boy a slap was considered at one point!

He basically has the spare set of keys, so was able to take the car whenever he wanted to.

Mikey: I'm not sure what address the insurance company has; he always sorts that out and keeps all correspondance.

Herbie: Sounds like the best way forward, thank you. I had already told her about the vehicles equipped with ANPR, and told her not to keep anything valuable in the car in case it's carted off to the pound. I assume Out of Time late Statutory Declarations form (once filed) will prevent it being towed if spotted?

The registered address on the V5 is a family address, just not where she lives, so hopefully isn't illegal as such.

Thaks again.

barryt

lilac_lady

Is he insured to drive the car? If not he could be in a lot more trouble than money trouble if he injures someone when he's driving.

barryt01

Yes, I believe he is insured, though this is an assumption as he sorts out her insurance for her. I have no reason to think it's not valid.