Stansted Southgate Notice to Keeper (NTK) - my experience

KlugeHans

Summary:
Just appeal and then go to POPLA.
There is plenty of advice online to ignore or not to appeal, but I think that this is wrong approach or at least it creates more headache down the road.

Details:

First of all, I should say thank you to everyone contributing to this forum, I found it very helpful on many occasions.

I would like to share my experience with dealing with an NTK regarding Southgate Stansted Car Park operated by MET. My case is identical to many described elsewhere, and I wanted to focus on contradictory, sometimes confusing ans possibly inaccurate advice. In addition to browsing countless forums, I also asked solicitors and my opinions below are mostly based on their advice.

Kay point: Appeal and after MET inevitably rejects your appeal, appeal through POPLA. This forum and other sources give you all you need to do it quickly.

I found plenty of advice to just ignore them, send a denial of claim letter and even explicitly to not appeal as appealing identifies you as the driver. Most of this advice asserts that MET rarely sues, almost never wins and that their claim is baseless. I decided to follow this advice, but after doing more research I believe that this was a wrong course of action. Below I try to clarify some of the confusion that in my case, unfortunately, lead to inaction:

1. The statement that appealing identifies you as the driver and you automatically lose your keeper’s protections is likely wrong - the solicitors I spoke to DID NOT corroborate it.

2. The importance of keeper’s protections is overstated anyway. More on this and POFA below.

3. They DO sue - at least according to the solicitors. There is no evidence on how successful they are and there are comments that they are “disorganised”, but they WILL take you to court.

POFA is NOT on your side

1. The most common comment I found online goes: MET’s NTK was issued too late, so it is not POFA compliant and therefore unenforceable. Unfortunately, this is IRRELEVANT:

2. This is a non-POFA NTK, these can be issued within 7 months after the alleged transgression.

3. Their legal argument does not rely on transferring the liability to the keeper under POFA, but follows this logic:

- This is a civil law case so they need to demonstrate that on the balance of probability you, as the keeper of the vehicle, we’re the driver

- To do this, they can try to rely on Elliott vs Loake (1982). A quick search will give you a lot of arguments why this is irrelevant and was even ruled as irrelevant in court.

- Unfortunately, I understand that the keeper is presumed to have been the driver also under POFA and this can be relied on even while enforcing a non-POFA NTK. The burden of proof is on the keeper to demonstrate that they were NOT the driver, on the balance of probability.

So, POFA is really not your friend here unless you can show that you were not the driver.

What happens in court?

I don’t know, I haven’t made it that far yet.

It would be very helpful to hear from someone who actually has been to court with them, regardless the outcome.

Based on discussing with solicitors, this comes down to other arguments such as insufficient signage etc. You argue that the car park boundaries are unclear, they argue that they were sufficient. I understand that these arguments are convincing for POPLA, but in court this is subjective and you depend on the judge’s interpretation

They clearly have no incentive to make the signage clearer as this would actually solve the problem and cut their revenue stream.

I also have no idea how much time it takes to prepare your defence and whether it’s worth it.

I hope that helps. Comments, questions and constructive criticism always welcome.

flaneurs_lobster

Probably better posted in https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/parking-tickets-fines-parking