Parking fine, notice not received!

knightstyle

My elderly neighbour has just had a visit from a company caller Marston with a distress warrant and had to pay £615.
But they would not say what it was for simply that it was probably for a parking offence. Sentencing court Doncaster Magistrates, date 13/08/2013.
He has never had a parking ticket and not had any letters or anything prior to this visit.
So should he have been contacted before it got to this?

spacey2012

Did he see a warrant or did they just pretend they had one ?

knightstyle

The only thing they had was a piece of paper with Distress Warrant and Marston name on the top and details of the court on it.

Coupon-mad

knightstyle wrote: »

AArrgghh, Just tried to join Pepipoo to ask for help and cannot join as I cannot get the answer to this question correct, can you help?
Please do this sum and enter the result (as digits) in the box: Eleven and a quarter times a hundred and eight
I have tried 1.215 1,215 What am I doing wrong?

Refresh the page and get an easier question next time! :rotfl:

But seriously you need to pay a tenner and get bespoke bailiff advice from Sheila on bailiffadviceonline. Which is what pepipoo will tell you too!

Don't pay the bailiff. Don't pay the bailiff. Don't pay the bailiff. Did I say - don't pay the bailiff?!

knightstyle

Thanks but it is too late, he came round to us, very distressed and had already paid, this has left him with no money as his pension had just gone into his bank and like many of us he doesn't have that sort of money spare.
My question is still should the court and/or the people bringing the case have made got in touch with him before this?? If so should it have been recorded?

zzzLazyDaisy

Sorry, you are being a good neighbour and you are to be commended for your attempts to help, but I very much doubt that you are getting the full story.

This is a council fine. There is no doubt at all that he would have received various letters from the council, and from the court, before it got this far. I don't mean one or two, but a fair number.

So either he has moved recently and/or his vehicle is registered with the DVLA at a different address and the letters were not passed onto him OR he has been ignoring the whole thing in the hope that it would go away.

knightstyle

Thanks zzzLazyDaisy that may be, as he is often confused about things, he still maintains he has not had any correspondence about this. Plus the post is not that reliable. So my question is do the council or court have to send more than letters? Should they have sent signed for correspondence or proof of delivery?

waamo

It is usually all done by post. Unless you can convince a court they were not received then first class post is deemed to be good enough.

I doubt a court would believe several letters from the council, a court summons, a judgement from the court and several "pay up" letters from Marstons all went missing unless you had really good evidence as to poor post.

knightstyle

Thanks waamo, I have just been in to him and we went through a pile of unopened mail that was in the hall. Nothing about this though so I suspect the letters were just thrown away with the junk mail.
I will ring the court to see what they say though.

Coupon-mad

knightstyle wrote: »

Thanks zzzLazyDaisy that may be, as he is often confused about things, he still maintains he has not had any correspondence about this. Plus the post is not that reliable. So my question is do the council or court have to send more than letters? Should they have sent signed for correspondence or proof of delivery?

Has he moved in the last year or so? If so then maybe the PCN was from a couple of years ago and the letters all went to the old address.

Post on bailiffadviceonline anyway (albeit their wise & informed advice will cost a tenner) as it sounds as though the £615 was massively inflated - and he can complain.

NEVER JUST PAY A BAILIFF IN THIS CIRCUMSTANCE, OMG POOR MAN!