Parking Ticket Help

Anjunadeep

Hi there,

I have read the Newbies thread but I think my situation is slightly different. Apologies for having to start a new thread but would really appreciate the help.

This incident was in England at a hospital, for a car registered to me and I'm over 18.


letter: imgur.com/NkBWaDm

I recently received a letter from Trethowans (dated 1st September for an incident on 14th August) stating that as I had not paid a £25 fine for a parking ticket, I now owed them £50. I never found a ticket/Breach of Contract Notice on my car or have received anything through the post, so I e-mailed them saying this and stated that I may not have been the driver at the time. They replied (including pictures showing the yellow ticket):

Please see the attached photographs of your vehicle parked in a staff car park without displaying a staff permit. The Breach of Contract Notice is in the yellow wallet fixed to the windscreen.


If you were not the driver please provide the name and address of the driver so we can transfer liability. Alternatively payment of £50.00 is due within 14 days, by no later than (date)

I then replied saying I would be willing to pay the original fine of £25. At no point did I admit to being the driver - I again stated I had never found a yellow ticket on my car. They rejected the appeal, stating:

Dear Sir,

I refer to the above matter. I confirm that my client has now considered your appeal further, however, I regret to advise you that you have been unsuccessful in light of the fact that the photos show the notice as being affixed to your vehicle.

In the circumstances, please let me have your remittance in the sum of £50.00 made payable to Trethowans.

Cheques or postal orders must be made payable to "TRETHOWANS" with the above reference quoted on the reverse. I can also accept payment by debit or credit card over the telephone, however, for credit card payments a charge of 2.25% will be applied. In the event your remittance is not received within 14 days, further action may be taken.

Am I right in thinking the next course of action is to reply and ask for the POPLA code? If I wasn't the driver, would I legally be required to name the driver?

My understanding is that they need to prove who the driver was and I do not have to give them any information. Also if they did take me to court, they would have to prove £50 is how much they have lost and is a reasonable amount? I may be wrong though...

Just to clarify, the driver not purchase and display a ticket.

Again, any help/advice would really be helpful!

Northlakes

This is definitely one for the experts! Use the forum search for Trethowans and read up on this.

Anjunadeep

Yeah I've done a lot of reading on Trethowans, the general view seems to just ignore them and they will go away! But I thought it was best to check up and see where I stand...

Guys_Dad

This is a real rip off. If there was a ticket issued on 14th August, then they needed (by law) to give you 28 days to pay before contacting you again. Your post suggests otherwise.

Also, their Notice to Keeper must contain certain information which you can find in POFA 12. You will find the relevant wording here in the appendices as well as what the BPA require from their members. http://www.britishparking.co.uk/write/Documents/AOS/609_AOS_CoP_June_2013_update.pdf

Without complying with the act, you do not need to provide them with who the driver was at the time. Also please read the Newbies thread carefully.

Anjunadeep

Thanks for your reply. Just to confirm, the letter is dated 1st September, and the incident was on 14th August.

What course of action would you suggest I take next? Reply to them, stating that as previously mentioned I do not believe I was the driver at the time and as they have failed to comply with POFA 12 I am not required to provide them with driver details, or just ignore the request for payment?

Thanks for your reply.

Guys_Dad

They are in a catch 22. If they did NOT issue a ticket, then they had 14 days to get the NtK in your hands.

If they did issue a ticket, they have jumped the gun.

They are not members of the BPA or IPC and you say they are acting for "clients". Did they name them?

You write to the PPC saying that you have no knowledge of the contravention and that, as registered keeper, as they have failed to adhere to the relevant sections (* & () of POFA 2012, you are not required to say who the driver was. You also say it was not you.

You then invite them name their client, ask if client is a member of the IPC or BPA and what independent appeals service they use.

Personally, I think they are chancers hoping you are not clued up.

You may also wish to ask their DVLA if they got your name and address by using the KADOE system. If so, they are in breach.

bazster

Sounds like Aintree Hospital, in which case Trethowans is acting for the landowner, and the landowner doesn't need to belong to an ATA.

Still needs to comply with PoFA 2012 Schedule 4 though in order to hold the keeper liable.

Dear Trethowans,

In order to hold the vehicle keeper liable for this alleged charge you/your client need to comply with the strict requirements of PoFA 2012 Schedule 4.

You allege that a Notice was affixed to the vehicle. If this were the case then, under PoFA 2012 Schedule 4, you/your client needed to wait 28 days from the day following the period of parking before applying to DVLA for keeper details. You allege that the period of parking occurred on 14th August, and your letter to me is dated 1st September which, as I'm sure you can see, is considerably less than 28 days.

Accordingly you have failed to meet the requirements for holding the vehicle keeper liable, and you can now only pursue the driver (of whose identity I am unaware). Furthermore, either you or your client has breached the Data Protection Act by requesting keeper details from DVLA without reasonable cause (because you did not allow the driver the prescribed time in which to respond).

I would be grateful if you would notify me whether Trethowans or your client applied to the DVLA for the keeper details, so I can complain to DVLA and ICO about the correct party's breach of the law (there is no reason for you to withhold this information because DVLA will tell me anyway when I complain that my personal details have been misused, it will simply expedite matters if you clarify now).

Any further attempt by you to pursue the vehicle keeper over this matter, now you have been informed that you have no case, will result in a complaint to the Solicitors' Regulation Authority.

Anjunadeep

Thanks guys. I've sent a reply, will post back with any update.

p.s. The hospital was the JR in Oxford but I guess the circumstances would be the same as the Aintree hospital.

Coupon-mad

Yes it's the same issue as Aintree. I would also send a complaint to the Facilities Manager at the Hospital to ask (as keeper of the car) why this Hospital is not signed up to the BPA's Parking Charter for Healthcare:

http://www.britishparking.co.uk/Charter-for-Healthcare-Parking

...seeing as many other large Hospitals are listed there, as well as the NHS Confederation and the Healthcare Facilities Consortium. If the Hospital followed that charter then anyone with a PCN would have a right to appeal to POPLA independently which would seem much more fair. Not only that, next year, EU regulations are taking effect in UK Consumer Law that will require any Alternative Dispute Resolution (such as POPLA) to be available for 365 days at least to ensure a fair chance of appeal.

Compare that to the current regime where no ticket is found on a vehicle and the first a registered keeper hears about it is a letter from a Solicitor which turns out not to be compliant with the POFA 2012. Despite coming from a firm of Solicitors who should know about the law on private parking, the Trethowans letter does not follow the prescribed wording nor the mandatory deadlines of that Act and so the keeper cannot be held liable in law anyway. Which doesn't help the Hospital nor the victim of the alleged parking charge because Trethowans offer no independent appeal and appear to be totally unaware of the requirements for 'keeper liability' as set out in Schedule 4, having not changed their approach from the way they have acted for years before the law changed in 2012 with Schedule 4 of the POFA 2012 applying on private land. No-one has to name the driver of a car in response to such a letter and if Trethowans continue to harass a registered keeper (or wrongly sue them) the Hospital could find themselves liable for costs and damages under the new Consumer law rights to redress for misleading and unfair business practices, which came in today (1st October 2014):

http://lawcommission.justice.gov.uk/areas/misrepresentation-and-unfair-commercial-practices.htm

Suggest an urgent review of the policy by the Facilities Manager and re-state you won't be paying, are not liable in law as registered keeper and you do not know who parked the car on that occasion as more than one family member drives it, even when parked on that site. If in time, after a long overdue review, the Hospital takes on board the new laws (2012 and 2014) and starts to use a BPA AOS member instead (adhering also to the new Government Guidelines for Hospital parking charges and avoiding using ANPR cameras and confusing machines) then the system would be much fairer and people would have a right to appeal.

Anjunadeep

I got a reply this morning (along with a new letter requesting payment, dated today. I assume I can ignore this new letter as the breach was already made, good try though hey...):

Further to your email below I reject your assertion that the charge is a penalty.


The charge is a pre-estimated amount based on the losses my client suffers as result of the driver’s breach of contract. For example, the cost of employing staff to monitor the car parking areas, the cost of cameras to give to staff as well as printing, administration and maintenance costs.


With regards to Schedule 4 of The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, I would not attempt to recover the charge due by issuing court proceedings, before 28 days has passed since the notice was given to the driver. I cannot see anywhere in the Act where it says by contacting you before 28 days this renders the debt unenforceable.


Should you disagree and to narrow the issues with regards to your dispute I attach again a letter requesting payment which is certainly after 28 days of the notice being issued to the driver.

If you do not provide the name and address of the driver proceedings will be issued against you as the registered keeper.

There is no separate independent appeals body as my client is not required to be a member of an Approved Operator Scheme. My client considered your appeal and it was rejected. Should you disagree with their decision the correct appeal channel would be for you to complete your defence when proceedings are issued and a Judge would be the independent body who determines if the debt should be paid.

In light of the above, please either make payment of £50.00 or provide the name and address of the driver within 28 days, by no later than 04.11.14.

Regards,

Is it just me, or do they not actually understand Section 4?! Just to confirm (as I'm paranoid it's me that is missing something here..):

- They have breached PoFA Schedule 4 by contacting the DVLA before 28 days time, for my details.
- Thus, they have failed to comply and I do not have to provide the driver details.

If this is all correct, bazster I will use your response posted above as my reply.

Massive thank you to everyone who has helped so far.

bazster

You are correct, they don't understand Schedule 4.

8(4)(b) The notice must be given by...sending it by post to a current address for service for the keeper so that it is delivered to that address within the relevant period.

8(5)The relevant period for the purposes of sub-paragraph (4) is the period of 28 days following the period of 28 days beginning with the day after that on which the notice to driver was given.

And crucially:

11(1)The third condition is that—

(a)the creditor (or a person acting for or on behalf of the creditor) has made an application for the keeper’s details in relation to the period of parking to which the unpaid parking charges relate;

(b)the application was made during the relevant period for the purposes of paragraph 8(4) (where a notice to driver has been given) or 9(4) (where no notice to driver has been given);

It's sophistry on their part to claim "it doesn't matter that we sent the notice early because we sent another copy of it later", and I would hope a judge wouldn't be fooled by it. Notwithstanding that, Clause 11 is clear: the application to DVLA must be made within the relevant period. By sending a notice early they have proved that this was not the case.