TFL Congestion Charge

Chimps123

Hi all
In October 2021 my husband I went to London for a weekend. We had been made "homeless" during the pandemic as we had sold our house, and had 3 house sales fall through. We therefore did not have a proper address for a year.
In February 2022 we received a notice of Warrant of control from a company called Bristow and Sutor relating to an unpaid Congestion Charge. We were told we had to pay £324 to avoid any further action.  Having just moved house, my husband paid as just didn't want to deal with the hassle.
A year later, we have just received a further demand for a further £324.00. I rang the company and explained that we had already paid. The person at Bristow and Sutor advised me that the earlier charge related to a drive into London on 15th October 2021, this new one related to the drive out dated 18th October 2021. I explained we knew nothing about these charges, and whilst they may not have had my address earlier as we were between addresses, they have had it for over a year. They gave me a mobile number to call to speak to a "case worker". I rang and left a voice message asking them to call me back.
One week later, I had not received a call, but at 7am we had a Bailiff turn up demanding payment of £559.00 - so we had to pay.
We have therefore now paid £873 for fees that we knew nothing about and did not have the option to pay the inital £17 which I think the congestion charge is.
Can anyone advise me what to do? Has anyone had a similar situation?

Grumpy_chap

Chimps123 said:

Hi all
In October 2021 my husband I went to London for a weekend. We had been made "homeless" during the pandemic as we had sold our house, and had 3 house sales fall through. We therefore did not have a proper address for a year.
In February 2022 we received a notice of Warrant of control from a company called Bristow and Sutor relating to an unpaid Congestion Charge. We were told we had to pay £324 to avoid any further action.  Having just moved house, my husband paid as just didn't want to deal with the hassle.
A year later, we have just received a further demand for a further £324.00. I rang the company and explained that we had already paid. The person at Bristow and Sutor advised me that the earlier charge related to a drive into London on 15th October 2021, this new one related to the drive out dated 18th October 2021. I explained we knew nothing about these charges, and whilst they may not have had my address earlier as we were between addresses, they have had it for over a year. They gave me a mobile number to call to speak to a "case worker". I rang and left a voice message asking them to call me back.
One week later, I had not received a call, but at 7am we had a Bailiff turn up demanding payment of £559.00 - so we had to pay.
We have therefore now paid £873 for fees that we knew nothing about and did not have the option to pay the inital £17 which I think the congestion charge is.
Can anyone advise me what to do? Has anyone had a similar situation?

Why didn't you have the option to pay the congestion charge at the time of driving into (one day) and out of (another day) the zone?  AIUI, that process is all possible online.

Chimps123

Hi thanks for responding- we didn’t know that we had driven into the congestion area. The first we knew about it was when we had these charges