Council visitor permit PCN

angrybird1234

Hi
My husband recently moved into my family home while we waited a few weeks to finally move into our new house. We bought him over £50 of visitor permits from our West London council. He works late and starts early so we'd put several days worth already correctly filled out.
Saturday morning at 9am-and we see a parking ticket on winow screen despite his permit.
I wrote to council to appeal given-
The council had evidence of us buying a large amount of visitor permits co relating with his stay at our home (which also has 2 residents permits attached to it/bought ech year)
We sent in his correct visitor permit as evidence
We said as he drives a Porsche it does stand out in our small street and thus the warden my have noticed it wasnt a residents car not looked at all the permits he had displayed and just assumed it wasnt a residents car thus parked illegally.

Council have refused saying they believe the warden when he says it wasn't displayed. They enclose 2 photos taken at quite a distance-one of back of car and one from front. However, there is sunlight shining onto car causing a reflection so you can't clearly see dashboard/where permits are but can make out some form of paper-shapes of permits. Obviously this doesn't prove our case (or they wouldn't have sent pics!) but doesn't show nothing was displayed as you can make out something there but no way can zoom in enough to make dates on permit out.
I'm very tempted to stand ground/continue appeal-especially as I appealed against Westminster council last year - told them to take me to court & they waived fine in end. Would appreciate thoughts/advice! Thanks.

LittleVoice

IMHO it is for them to prove "guilt".

angrybird1234

Thanks little voice, do you think I should appeal? Just feel livid as well as paying for v pricey bundle of visitor permits they also want a fine despite all of this being explained!!

taffy056

LittleVoice wrote: »

IMHO it is for them to prove "guilt".

No it's not, you are assumed guilty when they issue a penalty charge notice, this must be appealed successfully to prove innocence, or to get off on a technicality

angrybird1234 wrote: »

Thanks little voice, do you think I should appeal? Just feel livid as well as paying for v pricey bundle of visitor permits they also want a fine despite all of this being explained!!

You need to try pepipoo.com for this as they are the experts on this, they will need to see your scrubbed of personal info PCN both sides, images of signs etc and if possible a google street view of the place, just read the FAQ there before creating a new thread. Just read a few threads to get the general idea.

taffy056

By the way penalty charge notices don't go to court, so don't get confused and keep to their time frames otherwise this could increase dramatically if you ignore it and they get bailiffs on the case

angrybird1234

Taffy thanks for the info! Now I am confused though- as they said if we want to appeal just to leave it and then the next stage will come through to then take it further again... but so far nothing has come through. I have been fined several times by our council for PCN's on our road, I have appealed all of them and while they usually didn’t even respond to say it was/wasn't successful it just went away/never heard from them again after my appeal letter. But this time they did respond to say they weren’t accepting it...so have left it now been around 3 weeks since cut-off date to pay up after that (we didn’t) but still nothing.

Orford

So far you have only made an informal appeal, which they have rejected. The council will send you a Notice to Owner, to which you can then make a formal appeal.

angrybird1234

Thanks Orford.
Just in your own opinion do you think we stand a chance?

Orford

If you have passed the discounted period, then you have nothing further to lose by formally appealing to the NtO and if that is rejected to the parking adjudicator. At worst you will only be liable for the normal penalty charge.

Personally I'd take it the whole way.

When you say:

We sent in his correct visitor permit as evidence

did you keep a copy?

angrybird1234

Thanks! No we didn't (silly I know…) but they acknowledge receiving it in their letter & I sent all letters recorded.

Orford

Lesson learned - never part with original documentation .

I'd still fight it