Court Summons for a rental vehicle...

Cornwallboy

POFA refers to hire companies and the "person" that hired the vehicle

It doesn't mention lease companies where the payments are intended to cover the depreciation of the vehicle

POFA Para 13(6)(b) looks interesting and might cover the situation
For the hire company to be liable, the hirer must be able to extend the hire on the same terms and conditions

If the OP's contracts are fixed term, does that mean that he isn't liable under POFA ?

StaffsSW

I do have fixed period rentals/leases on each vehicle, rather than just ad-hoc or spot hire. Minimum period is 6 months, some as long as 30 months. Under the terms that I purchase these vehicles from manufacturers though, I can not offer contract hire in the conventional sense, of 3+36 etc.

Custard_Pie

StaffsSW wrote: »

I do have fixed period rentals/leases on each vehicle, rather than just ad-hoc or spot hire. Minimum period is 6 months, some as long as 30 months. Under the terms that I purchase these vehicles from manufacturers though, I can not offer contract hire in the conventional sense, of 3+36 etc.

So, by essence that the minimum period is six months, an invoice can be issued by a PPC and the whole thing done and dusted a long time before it even comes across your desk.

Don't you have a clause that states that the hiree is liable? Pretty much standard for hire/lease companies.

StaffsSW

Custard_Pie wrote: »

So, by essence that the minimum period is six months, an invoice can be issued by a PPC and the whole thing done and dusted a long time before it even comes across your desk.

Don't you have a clause that states that the hiree is liable? Pretty much standard for hire/lease companies.

In the event of windscreen tickets, yes, if the driver pays up we may never even get to know about it. It is the ANPR type of tickets, or where the driver hasn't responded to the windscreen ticket that we get notified.


We do have signed terms in our agreement that our customer is liable for any unpaid parking/speeding/bus lane/congestion/toll charges, along with an admin fee, and we have a separate process for each event.


Where it falls down is that although I am a BVRLA rental company, I don't actually rent to the public, or even to the guy sat behind the wheel, therefore I do not have agreements signed by the driver which is what the PPC's usually expect.

nigelbb

There is a special case under POFA for a car hire company to pass on liability to the hirer & for the PPC to send out a Notice To Hirer. However that doesn't negate the fact that under POFA it is the keeper of the vehicle who can be chased for unpaid parking charges provided that the PPC do everything correctly. The keeper is presumed to be the registered keeper unless proved otherwise which in this case should be straightforward enough.

DCodd

StaffsSW wrote: »

In the event of windscreen tickets, yes, if the driver pays up we may never even get to know about it. It is the ANPR type of tickets, or where the driver hasn't responded to the windscreen ticket that we get notified.


We do have signed terms in our agreement that our customer is liable for any unpaid parking/speeding/bus lane/congestion/toll charges, along with an admin fee, and we have a separate process for each event.


Where it falls down is that although I am a BVRLA rental company, I don't actually rent to the public, or even to the guy sat behind the wheel, therefore I do not have agreements signed by the driver which is what the PPC's usually expect.

For council and Congestion charge fines I would agree as I believe you can't use the "we are a hire firm" more than once in any individual process (or so we've been told when we 've had courtsey cars that are hired to the garage). But as this is a PPC, you would have the option (if you knew about the ticket) to name the driver. Granted you may need the Garage to seek the consent of the driver to allow the Garage to pass their details to you.

It's a bug bear of mine. What usually happens is the Registered Keeper of the car (you in this case) pays up and charges the Garage with an additional admin fee, who in return do the same to us. I would much prefer for the Registered Keeper seek permission to pass our details on to the PPC so we can contest it.

Coupon-mad

And let's not forget that:

- this firm often operates without windscreen tickets. A Norris Cole type takes a photo of a car and uploads it so 'PinkyPerkyParking co.' can get the DVLA data and send out a NTK which would have had to have arrived by day 15. So in this case you can argue that there was no NTK served and most probably no windscreen ticket either so another aspect of defence is that POFA cannot apply for that reason too.

I would send a Part 18 request by post now, for them to divulge further particulars so you can understand the position. As you have seen no ticket nor any evidence at all, you require all photos of the car and the signage and true copies of any ticket/letters they claim were issued, seeing as the Court Claim is the first you have heard of it. As explained by emanresu here:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=90625

And I hope you've realised this isn't about arguing 'no GPEOL' as this firm operate a 'contractual fee' model.

You'd be arguing more about the lack of served Notices and the fact your firm does not fit the POFA 2012 definition of 'keeper' (ergo no keeper liability) and the fact there's no evidence, did the alleged postal Notice even get sent by day 15, what were the signs like, what were the photos like, who took them and did they comply with the BPA CoP (as the issuer was likely to have been a self-ticketer).

And the whole claim is not transparent as you've literally been kept in the dark about it and shown no evidence nor had the chance to supply the hirer's details. Even if the charge is argued to be a core price term it still has to adhere to the 'principle of transparency' under The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Directive 93/13/EC, which is the basis for the UK's unfair terms in contracts law. And if the charge is not found to be a core price term seeing as the predominant aim is to deter, then it is unfair and contrary to the principle of good faith, again as set down in 13/93/EC (and UK unfair terms regs/law). Could be argued to be a disguised penalty.