Appealed parking charge gone straight to debt collecter with no warning

gdeep141

Hello all. In August 23 I received several parking charge notices from UKPCN for parking in my own designated spot at my flat, but without displaying a permit.

I appealed all of these on the basis that my tenancy contract allocates the spot but made no mention of a permit. Some were rejected (and paid), but most were accepted.

One of these appeals I never heard back from until today, where I've had a letter stating the following:

The case has been transferred to GCTT Certified Enforcement Agents as the balance of £170 still remains unpaid despite previous efforts to contact you.

You have received this letter as UK PARKING CONTROL LIMITED is fully intending on pursuing this matter through the courts, however , they would like to offer you the opportunity to settle the balance before this happens and avoid the need for legal action

I have received no letters or emails, and the parking charge was previously £100. How should I proceed? I'd already contacted the building manager previously to get these charges cancelled but they've refused.

I don't want to ignore this as I'm in the UK on a working visa and hoping to be naturalised. If it goes to court this may affect the naturalisation process. Should I call the debt collection agency? I've sent them the following message through the website:

"Hi, I've appealed this parking charge (ref <REFERENCE>) on 04/09/2023 and never got a follow up to the appeal via either email or mail. Most of the other appeals were accepted so please can you tell me why this one was left ignored before being passed to a debt collection agency and being threatened with legal action. The letter received today mentiones previous efforts to contact us but there is no evidence of this, or notice on why the parking charge is now £170."

Thanks for reading

troublemaker22

First of all, stop worrying.  GCTT Certified Enforcement Agents is a toothless issuer of threats with no powers to enforce their threats before a judgment is issued, and they have no way to get a judgment issued.  The best use of a letter like the one you received is to shred it for hamster cage linings or fire lighters.  Under no circumstances engage in any further communication with these clowns.  

If the parking company is serious about taking you to court, UKPC itself or a firm of solicitors representing UKPC (not GCTT Certified Enforcement Agents or any other toothless threat-mongers)  must send you a "letter before claim" (aka "letter of claim" or "letter before action").  If that happens, come back to this forum because you can win any threatened case with zero impact on your immigration or nationality status.

In the meantime, there is one thing you should do to protect yourself.  If you have moved home, make sure to notify UKPC of your current address and warn them that communications sent to your old address will not be received by you.  This may seem counterintuitive but the easiest way to ruin your credit rating with a CCJ is to allow court documents to be sent to an old address so you can't defend yourself.  Likewise make sure that your address is always up to date on your car's DVLA registration (which is unconnected to your driving licence).

Now relax and enjoy the New Year Holiday  

Coupon-mad

As above.

If it goes to court this may affect the naturalisation process.

Impossible - as long as you don't ignore a claim.  Easy to defend.  No risk.