UKCPS Fine - LBC - Too late to do anything?

RyanSunderland

Ok so a few years ago I received a parking fine from a private firm and the advice at the time was to completely ignore it and it will go away, I did this and it did just that. So, when I received a similar fine recently I did the same thing, to my dismay I have realized this was a bad move as the laws have changed.

I have read the newbie threads, I have read similar cases on here and finally read the thread 'Parking - Letter Before County Court Claim (LBCCC) - Fight back! Guidance Thread - zzzLazyDaisy'

I received a windscreen ticket in September and three letters have followed which I have ignored. The LBC was the last letter I received and has been with me for longer than 14 days (around three weeks) and the problem I face right now is that I am not the RK, the RK is my dad who is stressing about the LBC, I have told him that if anything comes of it I will obviously pay up which is something I would rather not do.

Resetting the POPLA clock as explained in zzzLazyDaisy's thread would have been absolutely ideal but since it was a windscreen ticket and that it's over 14 days it's no good and would have been too late anyway. Not only would it have been too late to do this but also to late to respond at all?

I am well aware that I have made this worse for myself by not looking into this at an earlier date.

So the question is, is it too late to notify them of my (the driver) details? Or must I just send a letter of acknowledgement to their LBC?

Any advice would be appreciated,
Thanks,
Ryan

Coupon-mad

Same advice as I gave here, do not ignore this and do NOT name the driver, no need to panic because a small claim is no biggie, defendable, no need to just pay!:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4857508

Go with the robust responses and if you want to adapt the letter I posted on the LBCCC thread the other day (the one which clawed a PE case back to POPLA stage from the brink of a court claim) then try it. But you will need some changes to it so your response is personalised as the keeper & makes sense for a UKCPS case.

Don't respond to any pm from someone offering to 'help' as UKCPS are known/believed to read this forum and some PPCs have been known to intimidate posters by pm.

And finally - what happened when you complained to the Centre Manager? As per the 'Successful Complaints about PPCs' sticky.

RyanSunderland

Thanks for the response coupon-mad.

The area in which I parked is situated at the rear of my rented property, there are a lot of flats in the area. I'm assuming its a waste of time trying to complain to the land owner in this scenario?

Can you direct me to the location of this letter, you have a lot of posts and I'm struggling to find the one your referring to.

Thanks

Coupon-mad

It's linked in the post I made above you in the LBCCC thread. You can find your own posts on the forum by clicking on your own username, find the other one you made in the LBCCC thread and then mine is above it.

RyanSunderland

Ah I see where you mean now! Got it!

Thanks, going to get a letter written up tomorrow and get it sent on Monday. I'll keep updating this thread

4consumerrights

RyanSunderland wrote: »

Thanks for the response coupon-mad.

The area in which I parked is situated at the rear of my rented property, there are a lot of flats in the area. I'm assuming its a waste of time trying to complain to the land owner in this scenario?

Can you direct me to the location of this letter, you have a lot of posts and I'm struggling to find the one your referring to.

Thanks

It's never a waste of time trying to complain either to the landowner or the managing agents of the flats.

I parked is situated at the rear of my rented property - was this your allocated space as per your rental agreement? - Check out also the terms of your AST agreement with your landlord and see what if anything is mentioned about parking and if a PPC is involved.

Your landlord should also be informed if no mention is made as he has proprietary interest in the property. Your local rent officer at the local council offices may also be able to assist as this demand for payment which will be cancelled at POPLA can be construed as harassment.

RyanSunderland

Thanks 4consumerrights

The property I rent does not allocate me a space. There is a back lane behind my building which runs from 1-5 (which are all blocks of flats), I live in number 5. This back lane is council owned and single yellow lined, in the center there is a paved area for parking surrounded by single yellow lined roads, anyone is allowed to park here and it is council property. Behind buildings 1-4 there are places to park with signs on the walls stating 'Permit holders only' by UKCPS, these spaces are always empty, the council owned part however is always full and its sometimes very difficult to get a space as it is in the town center. Where I parked was behind number 4 in my street although my ticket states '1-2'.

My landlord has nothing to do with them I don't think the owner of the building is going to care and does not want people parking here in the first place.

I wish it was in a retail park where I got my ticket, everybody on here seems to get them cancelled :P

RyanSunderland

Does anybody know what UKCPS' letter chain is? I've had three letters and obviously the final one which was received a few weeks ago which was the LBA. However, this LBA seems nothing like the ones I've seen on here from other PPCs. It does not mention Practice Direction or anything else legal for that matter; it simply states that if I do not pay the increased fine 'this final offrer may result in court action being progressed for the original debt in full plus all associated costs which could exceed £325' then gives a 'typical' breakdown of costs following court action.

Is this even a LBA?

spacey2012

This is likely to be resident self ticketing.
Have they put a name on of the "warden" I doubt the resident in question fancies a day off work to at court to be questioned as a witness, especially if you were unfortunate enough to fall ill on the morning of the case and request an adjournment.

With county court cases, you can really pull a few stunts that soon make them wish they had never bothered.
You can have the chambers looking like the church congregation as you pull everyone in, the land owner, signatories to contracts, the warden who issued the ticket, you name it, when I go they all get dragged in.

Has the LBC been signed by a solicitor ?
It will say on behalf of XXXXXXX solicitor.
They can not use the officer cleaner due to rights of Audience.
This usually sorts real ones from threats.

RyanSunderland

I'm hoping it wont go to court but if it does I will most definitely make it as difficult as possible for them. In the mean time I'm going to be watching out for this resident self ticketer, it would make a lot of sense if this was the case.

At the bottom of the letter its signed 'Yours Faithfully, Collections Department', which is strange, the whole letter just makes me question whether they actually intend on following through with any court proceeding at all, nothing in the letters seems to be done in good practice at all.

Coupon-mad

RyanSunderland wrote: »

Does anybody know what UKCPS' letter chain is? I've had three letters and obviously the final one which was received a few weeks ago which was the LBA. However, this LBA seems nothing like the ones I've seen on here from other PPCs. It does not mention Practice Direction or anything else legal for that matter; it simply states that if I do not pay the increased fine 'this final offrer may result in court action being progressed for the original debt in full plus all associated costs which could exceed £325' then gives a 'typical' breakdown of costs following court action.

Is this even a LBA?

That is 'their version' of an LBA, yes, so you have to respond as such. And the next thing is court papers if you hadn't been planning to quickly send a version of the letter I suggested (you could start it by saying that their letter fails to comply with the Practice Direction of course, using wording as per other letters & advice from zzzLazyDaisy on the LBCCC thread). Make yours a hybrid response of two different versions. By responding robustly you can see that you are going to make it hard for them to justify a court claim when POPLA was a possibility and mitigates their 'loss', which you will have spelt out clearly and effectively restricted their costs to £27 even if they win.