Received an LBC from GladStones Solicitors

lostwanderer

Hello all,

The Driver parked a in a bay in a UKPCM managed car park and received 3 PCNs for 2 cars both registered in The Keeper's name back in April 2018. They were ignored and the company stopped sending anything to The Keeper after August 2018. Fast Forward now and The Keeper has received LBCs for the 3 PCNs from GladStone's Solicitors saying the client has instructed to begin legal proceedings. The reference numbers begin with a 1.

I don't want The Keeper to get in trouble for something The Driver caused... Any advice on what to do?

Many thanks in advance.

Fruitcake

The advice to ignore has not been given here since the law changed in 2012.

Start by reading the guide to court that you will find in post 2 of the sticky thread for NEWBIES.
This will take you through step by step from the LBC to the court date itself.
Start by completing the AoS, but do not put anything in the defence box.

It is up to you whether you want to give away the driver's identity, but please note that The Keeper has protections in law that The Driver does not.

Do you still have the NTKs? If so, have a good look to see if they meet the strict requirements of the PoFA 2012 (linked from post 1 of the NEWBIES I think).
If it fails, then The Keeper has a good defence.
If you want to fight this as Keeper, who can be the day to day keeper or the registered keeper, then edit your post to remove information about who parked.
Only ever refer to The Driver and The Keeper who are two different people.

If The Driver wants to fight this then the above doesn't matter, but our starting advice is never reveal the driver's identity. It can be changed later, but you can't do it the other way round once they know who was driving.

What happened when you complained to the landowner/retail manager etcetera?

lostwanderer

Thanks for you guidance.

I checked post 2 of the Newbies thread and it advises that I should write an SAR request and a formal email to the solicitors asking for the claim to be put on hold. If I understand correctly, this is to see the PCN issuer's hand for the evidence they will rely on in court.

Should an email be sent saying that the Keeper was not the Driver on that day and that any communications should go to the Driver? So that if a court case comes up the Keeper doesn't have to worry about going to court instead of the Driver?

Landowner doesn't care unfortunately.

With regards to the NTK being in agreement with POFA 2012 - I don't have the original ones but what should I do if they fail to meet the requirements when I get them from the PCN Issuer after the SAR?

KeithP

lostwanderer wrote: »

With regards to the NTK being in agreement with POFA 2012 - I don't have the original ones but what should I do if they fail to meet the requirements when I get them from the PCN Issuer after the SAR?

When you get the original PCN(s) and if you then find that they are not capable of holding the keeper liable, the keeper will have a watertight Defence.

It is for this very good reason that you should not be considering divulging the driver's identity.

Let me be clear... if they cannot transfer liability to the keeper and they do not know who the driver is, they have no chance of getting money from anyone.