Parking Charge Notice incurred by ex-wife

theargumentbydesign

Hi All - some advice really appreciated regarding the process of appeals and where liability for payment of fines rest. My wife and I are in the middle of divorcing. Until finances are sorted she retains the use of one of our family cars - which is registered in my name and was bought by me - although I haven't driven it now for over a year.

She incurred a parking charge back in October 2016. The first I heard about it was in late April this year when she forwarded to me a solicitors' letter regarding the notice (the address for DVLA registration is still the family home although I no longer live there) . Before that point I hadn't received the actual notice or been aware of it.

She claims that in order for her to mount an appeal I had to give the solicitors my permission. I think I phoned them once and didn't get through to anyone so I didn't pursue it any further. Further letters that she forwarded I sent straight back to her.

Last week I received a County Court Claim Form for recovery of the debt.

So my questions are these:

1 What is the actual process of making an appeal and do the company actually need my permission as the car owner in order to expedite it? Am thinking surely not - otherwise all car rental companies everywhere would be liable for parking charges incurred by renters.

2 What options for appeal would she have had prior to the solicitors letter being sent? And would they also have required my permission for her to act?

3 Am I even responsible for the debt if the charge was incurred by her?

If anyone has any similar experience or advice to give I'd appreciate it. Currently I have sent back a Defence form to the County Court and written to the claimant's representative, Civil Enforcement, requesting all details of the original offence.

I've also written to my ex asking for payment of the fine or return of the vehicle.Neither of which are likely to happen!

fisherjim

Well what ever she has done she has dropped you in it as the cars registered keeper.

She could have appealed as driver, or sent you all the correspondence to deal with the appeals process at the time, she didn't and either ignored it or appealed and lost then ignored all subsequent correspondence.

You are now being held responsible as keeper and the time to appeal to the parking company has gone, now you have a court claim to answer, which you will have to deal with.

I am not an expert on this but someone will come along sometime today to give you advice on what to do.

MothballsWallet

OP, have you read through the NEBWIES thread at the top of the board?

There's some information there on how to respond to one of these claims.

Also, we do need some information from you:

• Name of parking company?
• Name of solicitors who sent the letter?
• Location of the alleged contravention?
• Date of the alleged contravention?

There may be other threads for the same location, solicitors or parking company that you can use to help you - you need to search for them yourself (make sure you use the "Posts" option rather than "Threads" - the search function on here is sometimes borked) and make sure you only look at ones from the last 3-6 months or so: anything before that could be too old to be used.

The regulars on here will be able to advise you and forum-assisted defences win about 99% (or more) of the time.

theargumentbydesign

The Parking company is Civil Enforcement, acting for ZZPS.
The solicitors were Wright Hassall of Leamington Spa
The location was Land at 34-38 Woodford Road, Bramhall, Stockport SK7 1PA
Date: 28 October 2016

beamerguy

theargumentbydesign wrote: »

The Parking company is Civil Enforcement, acting for ZZPS.
The solicitors where Wright Hassall of Leamington Spa
The location was Land at 34-38 Woodford Road, Bramhall, Stockport SK7 1PA
Date: 28 October 2016

To be clear CEL are not acting for ZZPS, it's the other way around.
ZZPS are just simpleton debt collectors with no power

Wright Hassall are one of 3 contender solicitors who sell
themselves to the devil

You now need to consider whether you will take the rap or name your wife as driver.
Assume you can prove you were not the driver

Umkomaas

Check recent threads on Civil Enforcement. There's been a rash of cases over the past week or so. Follow advice in those. Your time for asking those questions of CEL and/or appealing is long gone.

The dtiver is responsible for the charge, but first the PPC must contact the registered keeper. They can, with certain conditions, hold the keeper liable if the identity of the driver is not forthcoming. The keeper can transfer liability to the driver up to the point where proceedings are issued. If I'm reading your posts correctly it looks like court proceedings have now been issued in your case, so the 'transferring liability' ship has also sailed.

You need to knuckle down to defending this, otherwise CEL will apply for a default judgment against you that could ultimately trash your credit rating.

The good news is that CEL will buckle under any decent robust defence and withdraw their court claim. Many of the current CEL threads are at the development of defence stage - so read and learn from them.

You can post up your draft defence for critique and fine tuning when ready.

Key questions - what is the date of issue on the court papers (near the top r/h side)? Have you acknowledged service?

Quentin

Umkomaas wrote: »

You need to knuckle down to defending this, otherwise CEL will apply for a default judgment against you that will ultimately trash your credit rating.......

Not necessarily


(Just to clear up the trashing of credit rating)


Getting a default judgement (issued when you ignore a court claim or don't comply with timescales etc) is the same as getting a "normal" judgement against you - your credit rating is only affected if you then ignore the judgement.


If you pay off any judgement including default judgements in full within 30 days of it being issued then there is no impact on your credit rating

Umkomaas

Agree with above Q.

My phrasing should have been 'could ultimately trash ....', not 'will ultimately trash ....'.

Suitably amended.

theargumentbydesign

You're right- proceedings have been issued. I have responded with a defence claim that I was not the driver at the time of the offence. and have provided her name and address.

I also forwarded to the court a copy of a letter from my wife's solicitors admitting that the parking charge was incurred by her. But also stating that she does not accept liability for it (!). She claims that Wright Hassall wouldn't accept an appeal because she was not the registered keeper. I don't really understand this but anyway.

My task now I guess is to get the court realise that I wasn't the driver and chase her for the claim instead?

The date of service is 17 June - so I have some time. But I am tempted just to send in the Defence claim and see what happens. I guess if I do that then there can't be a default judgement against me..

Quentin

That defence won't result in the claim ending, and will probably now progress to a hearing. (It isn't enough to make them "buckle").

Check out the other cel claim threads for advice.

theargumentbydesign

So basically the defense that I wasn't responsible for the vehicle at the time of the offense is useless? They will just keep coming and not alter the claim to be that of the person I name as the driver?