Penalty Charge Notice - London Borough of Islington

Manxman_in_exile

lilliethe said:

Hi everyone. Thank you for your replies.

To explain a bit further, the vehicle is leased from a company, it's an Audi Q7, so not too sure if the driver thought that keeping to the left wouldn't have given him much space to get through as it's nearly 2m wide vehicle.

I imagine it's not much of an excuse either, but the driver doesn't normally go into London either, so I'm guessing it was a fairly unknown commute.

Not in possession of the V5C, just leasing agreement for the vehicle.

Normally, any parking charges company pays for and then recoups the cost from the driver's pay. 

In the past, when we've had penalty charge notices for lease vehicles, they go through to the leasing company, who then pass it on to us and charge us an admin fee for paying it and whatever the charge is as well. 

Not sure if it works different with different leasing companies, but for other vehicles in the past couple of years, the PCN's have been sent directly through to us and I would then have to deal with them (nominate driver, address, etc.). In this instance, I can't nominate a driver, looks like it's either pay or make representations.

I've just never had a PCN before that's been dated 3 months from the date it happened, usually we receive them (most of the time its parking charges) a few days from when it happened (the likes of ParkingEye, etc.). This would probably be what I'd like to find out - whether it's appealable on the grounds of it being more than the above mentioned 28 days after it happened? 

With all respect to other posters, you are wasting your time explaining at length here that your fellow employee is an idiot - their saying "I thought my car was too wide!" is never ever going to be a defence for failing to comply with a Keep Left instruction.

However, if you really want to see if this PCN can be avoided, you must do what Car_54 has already advised you to do and go to FightBack Forums -> Council Tickets & Clamping and Decriminalised Notices (pepipoo.com).  (Apologies if you have already done so).

I don't pretend to understand it fully, but apparently the legislation lays down a strictly prescribed procedure that must be complied with by both the leasing company and the enforcing authority in order for liability for for a leased car PCN to be transferred to the hirer.  If it isn't followed to the letter, then the PCN may be unenforceable.  Many car leasing companies (yours doesn't happen to be VWFS does it?) and London Boroughs are notorious for not knowing the correct procedure and for getting it completely wrong.

As I say, I don't fully understnd it, but if your company's PCN can be avoided at all, the posters on pepipoo will tell you how to do it.  (You may also want to check with them whether you may already have paid a number of PCNs that could have been avoided).

If you do go to them, do not register with a hotmail address.  They will want to see scans of all the PCN letter, (all pages, front and back, but you can redact the company name and car reg no.), and they will want to see scans of any letters and/or emails from the leasing co. in respect of this PCN.  They will probably also ask you to confirm who the registered keeper is on the V5C (if you know) and also to contact the leasing company ASAP to get information from them about when they received the first PCN and how they dealt with it.  If they ask you apparently pointless or meaningless questions, just answer them - they know what they are doing and are looking for flaws in the process that they can exploit on your behalf.

Explain upfront that you are an employee of the business that hires the vehicles and you are not a "private" hirer.  (Not sure if that matters but it might... )

lilliethe

Manxman_in_exile said:

lilliethe said:

Hi everyone. Thank you for your replies.

To explain a bit further, the vehicle is leased from a company, it's an Audi Q7, so not too sure if the driver thought that keeping to the left wouldn't have given him much space to get through as it's nearly 2m wide vehicle.

I imagine it's not much of an excuse either, but the driver doesn't normally go into London either, so I'm guessing it was a fairly unknown commute.

Not in possession of the V5C, just leasing agreement for the vehicle.

Normally, any parking charges company pays for and then recoups the cost from the driver's pay. 

In the past, when we've had penalty charge notices for lease vehicles, they go through to the leasing company, who then pass it on to us and charge us an admin fee for paying it and whatever the charge is as well. 

Not sure if it works different with different leasing companies, but for other vehicles in the past couple of years, the PCN's have been sent directly through to us and I would then have to deal with them (nominate driver, address, etc.). In this instance, I can't nominate a driver, looks like it's either pay or make representations.

I've just never had a PCN before that's been dated 3 months from the date it happened, usually we receive them (most of the time its parking charges) a few days from when it happened (the likes of ParkingEye, etc.). This would probably be what I'd like to find out - whether it's appealable on the grounds of it being more than the above mentioned 28 days after it happened? 

With all respect to other posters, you are wasting your time explaining at length here that your fellow employee is an idiot - their saying "I thought my car was too wide!" is never ever going to be a defence for failing to comply with a Keep Left instruction.

However, if you really want to see if this PCN can be avoided, you must do what Car_54 has already advised you to do and go to FightBack Forums -> Council Tickets & Clamping and Decriminalised Notices (pepipoo.com).  (Apologies if you have already done so).

I don't pretend to understand it fully, but apparently the legislation lays down a strictly prescribed procedure that must be complied with by both the leasing company and the enforcing authority in order for liability for for a leased car PCN to be transferred to the hirer.  If it isn't followed to the letter, then the PCN may be unenforceable.  Many car leasing companies (yours doesn't happen to be VWFS does it?) and London Boroughs are notorious for not knowing the correct procedure and for getting it completely wrong.

As I say, I don't fully understnd it, but if your company's PCN can be avoided at all, the posters on pepipoo will tell you how to do it.  (You may also want to check with them whether you may already have paid a number of PCNs that could have been avoided).

If you do go to them, do not register with a hotmail address.  They will want to see scans of all the PCN letter, (all pages, front and back, but you can redact the company name and car reg no.), and they will want to see scans of any letters and/or emails from the leasing co. in respect of this PCN.  They will probably also ask you to confirm who the registered keeper is on the V5C (if you know) and also to contact the leasing company ASAP to get information from them about when they received the first PCN and how they dealt with it.  If they ask you apparently pointless or meaningless questions, just answer them - they know what they are doing and are looking for flaws in the process that they can exploit on your behalf.

Explain upfront that you are an employee of the business that hires the vehicles and you are not a "private" hirer.  (Not sure if that matters but it might... )

Hi, , thank you for your kind reply. 

I never realised issuing and enforcing PCN's is such an in-depth process with legal procedures following it. Thank you for explaining.

I will head over to pepipoo and see if they'd be able to help out with the legalities. 

Thank you again!  

Manxman_in_exile

I see you've got posted on pepipoo and they've started asking you questions.  Good.

I see the PCN  was issued on 16 Sep and there's a discount if paid within 14 days.  If I were you I'd ask on pepipoo if they think you are fighting a losing battle and should just take advantage of the discount now while it is still on offer, or whether it's worth fighting.  I know some councils will extend the discount period if you make initial representations against the ticket.

If you are just a "humble" admin person who has been lumbered with dealing with lease cars you should keep your manager aware that you are exploring if the ticket can be challenged.  If your company has a blanket policy of just paying tickets because it's more trouble than it's worth to challenge them, you won't want to go against that.  Sometimes you have to go to a traffic tribunal to win a ticket and it may not be worth the hassle

(If you are lucky and get the local authority to cancel the ticket, I'm not sure what happens to the original ticket.  You might want to ask on pepipoo as you wouldn't want it going back to VWFS and have them charging you more!)

Good luck with it.