FPN for Bin Violation court proceedings pending

Homestyle1

My son rented a house with three friends whilst at uni in Leeds. In March 22 they didn't bring there one bin in the night of collection. All four tenants where fined £75 each, £300 in total. We missed the opportunity to pay and then received court papers. On principle, after reading the .Gov guidelines for councils and issuing FPN fines, I recommend my son fight this and go to court. We have just got a court date. We admitted the offence, offered to pay a total £75 but are refusing to pay four fines for one bin. The .Gov site says that the council must find out who the responsible person is and claim against that person.     Has anyone else had any experience of this and likely outcome at court. 

sammyjammy

So has any of the fine been paid or did they all "miss" it?  Did they query the four separate fines?  I assume it was 4 separate fines?  One for each of them?

Homestyle1

Sadly, one lad died in June 2022, so his has been struck off. One lad, pleaded guilty on first court papers and my son and the other lad challenged the case and have a new court date.  On these two, we set out the points raised in .Gov papers, offered to settle and pay the £75 each. But the council are happy to go to court. .Giv hasn't been updated since 2018 and I can't find any examples/presidence online. My son said a house on his street, six tenants, one bin and six fines, total £450. How is that not the council making money. 

Homestyle1

In answer to your question, yes four separate fines where issued, we challenged this with the council, it's not a licenced HMO, just a house share. .Gov says that the have to issue it to the responsible person for putting the bin out. The council got there details via the landlord who sent them to the letting agent for the names and home addresses. 

subjecttocontract

Sounds like the Council are being entire!y reasonable to me. If I were the Council required to issue an FPN to a house share comprising of 4 people, I'd do exactly the same i.e. Issue the notice to each of the 4 people.

Homestyle1

The .Gov guidelines for council say that it must be fair and proportionate to the offence and it must not be seen as a way of the council making money and that the council should establish who is responsible person for putting the bin out. Usually this would be the lead tenant. 

user1977

They're not going to be "making money" out of a £300 fine if it's got this far.

subjecttocontract

Is there a lead tenant ?
Surely the reason it's issued the FPN to all 4 tenants is because none of them have identified themselves as the lead tenant. 

eddddy

I'm no expert on this, but reading what you've said, could it simply be that...

• Of the 4 tenants - the council don't know who the responsible person is... so they sent FPNs to all 4 of them - but they only require the one responsible person to own up and pay one FPN (Are they 4 different FPNs - perhaps with 4 different ID numbers? As opposed to one FPN which has been copied to 4 people?)

• Since nobody has paid - they are taking all 4 to court, so the court can decide which one is the responsible person

(If the council didn't take this approach, I guess there'd be no way for them to find out who the responsible person is.)


This .gov website page says the maximum penalty is £80.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/household-waste-bins-when-and-how-councils-may-issue-fixed-penalties

Homestyle1

They wanted each paid, so presume four separate ones. I'll check with them re the FPN numbers. 

Exodi

eddddy said:

This .gov website page says the maximum penalty is £80.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/household-waste-bins-when-and-how-councils-may-issue-fixed-penalties

It also mentions about correspondence with the household prior to the issuance of FPN's. Was this the case OP?