Enterprise Car Hire and PCN may be invalid. Get a refund.

guestjim · 14 August 2018 at 5:42PM

I hired a car from Enterprise in Nottingham. There was a PCN issued to Enterprise who said to the council that I was liable. They also charged me £35 for answering to the council - that they refunded when I threatened to go to court.

I accepted that I was the driver but disagreed with the PCN (about going into a bus gate), because it was wrongly issued. Of course, the council disagreed, and it went to the Traffic Penalty Adjudicator.

The Adjudicator dismissed the claim because Enterprise did not have the right to pass the liability to me. That presumably means they cannot pass the liability to anyone.

This is the essence of the decision:

In order for the Council to claim the penalty charge from Mr Guest it is necessary for the Council to show not only that a contravention occurred but that Mr Guest is the person liable under the Regulations.
The Regulations do allow for liability to be transferred to the hirer of a vehicle in certain, quite strict, circumstances. First, the hirer must have signed a statement accepting that, should a PCN be issued, he or she will be liable as if they were the owner of the vehicle. Second, the hire must be evidenced on a document that qualifies under the legislation: there are a number of mandatory pieces of information that must appear on the hire agreement.
The memorandum of hire produced does not contain all the necessary information. It does not indicate, or at least distinguish, the expected end time of the hire as well as the actual time the vehicle was returned.
More importantly, there is no signed statement of liability from Mr Guest. Without that he cannot be made liable under the legislation.

I added the Italics. I note that there are two reasons for Enterprise not being able to pass on liability. No signed acceptance of liability and problems with the wording. Either would be sufficient.

If you have received a PCN, or paid one, you may not be liable. You may be able to dispute the PCN issued or get a refund if you have already paid. You should also get back the £35 charge Enterprise made.