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Merseyflow sending letters to old address, now bailiffs have got involved
Hi there,
A friend has just received a court summons for non-payment of a Merseyflow fine.
He was unaware he had gone through a toll at the time. Some short time later, he had to scrap his car, got another one and moved house in quick succession. He registered his new car at the new address.
Merseyflow have been sending letters to his old address, but the occupant, although they have been opening them, has deliberately not been forwarding them. Today, however, they apparently received notice that a bailiff would be coming to the house so they finally told him.
He has been on the phone all day, trying to find a way out of the mess. It sounds like the case has already been to court and the people he has spoken to have said it is too late to try to pay the toll fine.
Does anyone have any experience of fines going to old addresses and are there any avenues, legal or otherwise, that he can go down to try to sort this out?
Thanks for your help.
Kathy
A friend has just received a court summons for non-payment of a Merseyflow fine.
He was unaware he had gone through a toll at the time. Some short time later, he had to scrap his car, got another one and moved house in quick succession. He registered his new car at the new address.
Merseyflow have been sending letters to his old address, but the occupant, although they have been opening them, has deliberately not been forwarding them. Today, however, they apparently received notice that a bailiff would be coming to the house so they finally told him.
He has been on the phone all day, trying to find a way out of the mess. It sounds like the case has already been to court and the people he has spoken to have said it is too late to try to pay the toll fine.
Does anyone have any experience of fines going to old addresses and are there any avenues, legal or otherwise, that he can go down to try to sort this out?
Thanks for your help.
Kathy
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Comments
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Just pay up that'll sort it0
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undetterred wrote: »Just pay up that'll sort it
Well that post was a waste of space....and the people he has spoken to have said it is too late to try to pay the toll fine.
I would suggest posting on pepipoo.com for assistance.0 -
Merseyflow operate two rather large bridges. Which one was he unaware he was crossing? A quick look on Streetview suggests the signage is unsubtle.A friend has just received a court summons for non-payment of a Merseyflow fine.
He was unaware he had gone through a toll at the time.
As they would, since that's the address the car was registered to.Some short time later, he had to scrap his car, got another one and moved house in quick succession. He registered his new car at the new address.
Merseyflow have been sending letters to his old address
And your friend didn't bother to set up any forwarding with Royal Mail, of course.but the occupant, although they have been opening them, has deliberately not been forwarding them.
The court judgement can be set aside if he can show there was a good reason why he couldn't possibly have known about it.
https://www.stepchange.org/debt-info/ccj/set-aside-ccj.aspx0 -
going to old addresses and are there any avenues, legal or otherwise, that he can go down to try to sort this out?
Anyone who claims they didn't see the signs saying it was a toll needs to have their license taken off them. They're about the same size as the front of my lorry which is 8ft wide and 14ft high and they are not just at the side of the road but also on the overhead gantries and there are a few of them starting from over a mile back from the bridge and there are two exits before the bridge. In short you either have to be blind or driving without due care and attention to miss them.
He never updated the details on the V5 to the new address. Legally they are only required to write to the last known address they have on record which will be the one that was on the V5.
Whilst the person who opened the mail committed an offence by opening mail not addressed to them there is no requirement for them to forward it and whilst it would've been nice if they'd have written "not at this address, return to sender" on it they don't have to.
A county court may set it aside but to apply for a set aside is likely to cost more than the judgement is for with no guarantee of success and you'll still have the penalty charge to pay making the whole thing cost over £300 as the application to set aside costs £255.This is a system account and does not represent a real person. To contact the Forum Team email forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com0 -
I find it frustrating that people so often respond with sarcasm when someone asks for information. It is unhelpful, unnecessary and hurtful. It is also at odds with forum etiquette:
"Please be nice to all MoneySavers: There's no such thing as a stupid question and, even if you disagree, courtesy helps."
In particular, what is the point of getting sarcastic at me? I frequently post questions on here in order to support people whose life stresses are so great that they are finding it hard to manage (as in this example), or for people who, for one reason or another - often disability-related - cannot manage.
The only purpose served by being sarcastic is to make the one commenting feel superior because, I can only imagine, they never make any mistakes themselves. So ...And your friend didn't bother to set up any forwarding with Royal Mail, of course.
My friend had every reason to believe that the person remaining in the property, who was aware of his new address, who was in contact frequently about other matters, and who had informed him of other letters received, would have alerted him to something like this.Anyone who claims they didn't see the signs saying it was a toll needs to have their license taken off them. They're about the same size as the front of my lorry which is 8ft wide and 14ft high and they are not just at the side of the road but also on the overhead gantries and there are a few of them starting from over a mile back from the bridge and there are two exits before the bridge. In short you either have to be blind or driving without due care and attention to miss them.
From the reading I have done, I believe the original signs were not clear. Neither had the council followed the correct procedures for notifying drivers. Indeed, in the first month alone, £1m worth of fines were issued, leading to a legal test case held at the Traffic Penalty Tribunal (TPT) which found a driver was not liable to pay the £2 toll, as Halton Council had not specified the fee correctly. The council agreed to update its charging order to make the charges clearer. Given how far this has progressed, I think we can assume that my friend's fine was not incurred last week.
Thank you for the rest of the information you supplied. It is much appreciated.I would suggest posting on pepipoo.com for assistance.
Thank you, Agrinnall. I’ll give that a go.0 -
My intention was not sarcastic.My friend had every reason to believe that the person remaining in the property, who was aware of his new address, who was in contact frequently about other matters, and who had informed him of other letters received, would have alerted him to something like this.
Placing the onus on others to forward post is common, and is often the cause of situations like this.
Have you used Google Streetview to see the signage in question? It really isn't very subtle or easily missed... There are a finite number of approaches to the crossings, and the signage is on all of them.From the reading I have done, I believe the original signs were not clear.
So when was it incurred, and on which crossing?Given how far this has progressed, I think we can assume that my friend's fine was not incurred last week.
The case you mention related to the initial imposition of tolls in October 2017, and the "failure to notify" was not related to the signage at the roadside, but to whether or not the local authority had published the tolls in the local paper. Nick Freeman is not known as "Mr Loophole" for nothing...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-436981130 -
One of the hard to see Bridge Toll signs....
This is a system account and does not represent a real person. To contact the Forum Team email forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com0 -
This site seems to have a good handle on things:
http://www.notolls.org.uk/smtpcn.htm?fbclid=IwAR2NAflogq4qojNrkAc9XjLjZkqfIRraCWBKdMy00c_A3E2gLklHWx-HUpI#tec
I particularly like this bit:
"Halton have appointed at least one firm of 'civil enforcement agents' (Marstons). But though the bridge has been open for a year, not a single case has so far (end of October, 2018) been passed to the recovery agents. It seems that, for one reason or another (possibly because all of this is illegal), Halton are reluctant to go to the stage where bailiffs are knocking on people's doors, seizing their possessions and wheel clamping cars."0 -
Sounds more like someone took the view that they wouldn't be chased/found when he scrapped the car and moved house. That plan appears to have backfired, bit late to be arguing the signs weren't clear.
Pay the money or watch the penalty rise.0 -
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