Bus lane fine paid by lease company, no right to appeal, elevated price due to lack of action

AdrianC

[DELETED USER] said:

OP makes a fair point, there is a general expectation in law that you minimise costs for the other party where practical. Seems like they could have easily saved £60 by paying in reasonable time.

I suspect the way it panned out is that the financier transferred the notification then - when the driver didn't pay it - they mitigated costs by paying it on their behalf.

Remember, it's four months between the offence and the notification that the financier have paid. The OP wasn't in contact with them once during that time. They merely contacted the council twice, who told them to contact the financier.

bournejason7629

AdrianC said:

[DELETED USER] said:

OP makes a fair point, there is a general expectation in law that you minimise costs for the other party where practical. Seems like they could have easily saved £60 by paying in reasonable time.

I suspect the way it panned out is that the financier transferred the notification then - when the driver didn't pay it - they mitigated costs by paying it on their behalf.

Remember, it's four months between the offence and the notification that the financier have paid. The OP wasn't in contact with them once during that time. They merely contacted the council twice, who told them to contact the financier.

Almost, except the council didn't tell me to contact the financier. They informed me that there was no action necessary at that point as the notice had not yet been issued (it was a letter informing me of pending notice). That's all they would tell me as they would correspond no further with me until permitted by the financier.

bournejason7629

[DELETED USER] said:

OP makes a fair point, there is a general expectation in law that you minimise costs for the other party where practical. Seems like they could have easily saved £60 by paying in reasonable time.

And it was £60 per ticket (the second one I was trying to appeal to the council directly) so £120 additional, plus the admin fees.

@Manxman_in_exile, thank you for the guidance. I'll take a look on that website after work today.

AdrianC

soldave said:

AdrianC said:

[DELETED USER] said:

OP makes a fair point, there is a general expectation in law that you minimise costs for the other party where practical. Seems like they could have easily saved £60 by paying in reasonable time.

I suspect the way it panned out is that the financier transferred the notification then - when the driver didn't pay it - they mitigated costs by paying it on their behalf.

Remember, it's four months between the offence and the notification that the financier have paid. The OP wasn't in contact with them once during that time. They merely contacted the council twice, who told them to contact the financier.

Almost, except the council didn't tell me to contact the financier. They informed me that there was no action necessary at that point as the notice had not yet been issued (it was a letter informing me of pending notice). That's all they would tell me as they would correspond no further with me until permitted by the financier.

Exactly.

"We won't talk to you, we will only talk to the keeper".

So you didn't think "Hmm, maybe I'd better talk to them myself."?

bournejason7629

AdrianC said:

soldave said:

AdrianC said:

DELETED USER said:

OP makes a fair point, there is a general expectation in law that you minimise costs for the other party where practical. Seems like they could have easily saved £60 by paying in reasonable time.

I suspect the way it panned out is that the financier transferred the notification then - when the driver didn't pay it - they mitigated costs by paying it on their behalf.

Remember, it's four months between the offence and the notification that the financier have paid. The OP wasn't in contact with them once during that time. They merely contacted the council twice, who told them to contact the financier.

Almost, except the council didn't tell me to contact the financier. They informed me that there was no action necessary at that point as the notice had not yet been issued (it was a letter informing me of pending notice). That's all they would tell me as they would correspond no further with me until permitted by the financier.

Exactly.

"We won't talk to you, we will only talk to the keeper".

So you didn't think "Hmm, maybe I'd better talk to them myself."?

Exactly 👍

I'd incorrectly thought that they'd make contact as they had done 2 years ago on a previous Hitachi lease with a similar (but not identical situation). What do they say about assumptions? 😁

Manxman_in_exile

It's the council's job to inform the RK - not the OP's.  Once the council has notified the RK (within time) Hitachi have an implied contractual duty to deal with the ticket appropriately without unnecessarily inflating the cost to the OP.

I still don't understand why the council contacted the OP at all.  How did the council know who he was?

AdrianC

Manxman_in_exile said:

It's the council's job to inform the RK - not the OP's.  Once the council has notified the RK (within time) Hitachi have an implied contractual duty to deal with the ticket appropriately without unnecessarily inflating the cost to the OP.

Oh, absolutely. And that's what happened.

But if the OP wanted to argue it out (not that it would have got anywhere, since it was bang-to-rights), then after the council said "We'll only talk to the RK", when asked about how to appeal, then the OP should have talked to the RK themselves and asked about how to take the appeal forwards.

As it was, the OP looks surprised that the financier saved them from being taken to court for a penalty unpaid for four months.

I suspect they were just hoping it would go quietly away...

Jenni_D

Manxman_in_exile said:

I still don't understand why the council contacted the OP at all.  How did the council know who he was?

For some vehicles (e.g. sometimes with company cars on lease) the nominated driver is recorded somehow as the keeper, even though the registered keeper is the lease company. That's the only (legal) scenario I can think of whereby the council knew how to link the OP and the vehicle reg.

born_again

Manxman_in_exile said:

It's the council's job to inform the RK - not the OP's.  Once the council has notified the RK (within time) Hitachi have an implied contractual duty to deal with the ticket appropriately without unnecessarily inflating the cost to the OP.

I still don't understand why the council contacted the OP at all.  How did the council know who he was?

It must have been Hitachi. But as the Op then failed to contact Hitachi to contest they will have been forced to pay out. 

sheramber

Around a month later I received a notice from the council stating that they would impose two fines on me for 2 bus lane offences within 90 seconds of each other
..........................
 they could no correspond with me about the matter and would only deal with the leasing company (Hitachi Capital), but at the time there was no action needed from me as this was just an initial notification to me. I replied once more but again they stated they would not consider any email from me until Hitachi pointed them in my direction.

How did they get your details if Hitachi hadn't told them?

Surely, Hitachi must have pointed them in your direction for them them to have your details.