TFL congestion charges after car has sold

dorothyjane2021

sold my car on August 1st and on August 22nd saw £125 direct debit coming out my bank for autopay. I called to query and was told as I hadn’t removed my car I was liable for the autopay. She also said there was £94.50 to come out on the 15th September and 3 further days not yet listed. I emailed proof of sale to tfl and cancelled the dd and today received a reply saying I’m liable for all charges as I didn’t remove the car. Perhaps I was naive in thinking transferring the vehicle with the DVLA covered everything as I would have assumed any car related charges would be processed through them. Has anyone gone through the same situation who could advise me further? Don’t want to be hit with a hefty fine which I’m guessing would also come to me? Many thanks

daveyjp

Nice idea to believe DVLA and TFL would have a joined up system, but that isn't likely.

Autopay Ts and Cs



10.5 Registered Vehicles

10.5.1 You are responsible for giving us accurate and up-to-date vehicle information. You can do this online, by phone or by post.

10.5.2 We will not accept any responsibility for any information lost while it is being sent to us. You are responsible for the security of the information you provide until we receive it.

10.5.3 A vehicle can only be registered to one Auto Pay service at any one time. If your vehicle is registered to another Auto Pay service, then we will need to remove it from that service before we can register it to your Auto Pay. In order to do this, we will need proof that you are the Registered Keeper.

10.5.4 If you add a vehicle to the Auto Pay service online or by phone, the addition will take effect from the day we receive your request. If you remove a vehicle from the Auto Pay service, you will still be legally responsible for any Charge(s) incurred during the billing period that the registered vehicle was on your Auto Pay service.

10.5.5 If you ask us to remove a Registered Vehicle online or by phone, we will do so on the day you ask us to. You will be responsible for paying for any Charge on the day we remove the Registered Vehicle if you drive the vehicle within the Relevant Charging Zone on that day.

10.5.6 If you send us a letter to add or remove a Registered Vehicle and we agree to the change, this will appear on your Auto Pay service within 10 Working Days of us receiving your request. We will let you know the date of the change by your preferred communication channel. Until you receive this you must continue to pay the relevant Charge in another way.

10.5.7 You can register up to five vehicles on your Auto Pay service. Remember, you can register more vehicles to your Customer Account but only five of these are allowed to be Auto Pay Registered Vehicles.

10.5.8 If you are not the Registered Keeper for the vehicle(s) registered to the Auto Pay service, it is your responsibility to inform the Registered Keeper, or any other driver, that you are paying the Charge(s) and/or any Penalty Charge Notice(s) relating to that vehicle.

paul_c123

Have you cancelled your insurance too? They aren't joined up either.

dorothyjane2021

Yes I have cancelled insurance and road tax and informed the new owner who has not responded. I don’t live in London and only joined in case I ventured into Orpington which is fairly near me and is on the ULEZ. If you live in London all these things are probably common knowledge as I’m sure the guy who bought the car (from Walthamstow) knew 

prowla

I'm wondering if there is any mileage in scrutinising the points like "10.5.5 If you ask us to remove a Registered Vehicle online or by phone, we will do so on the day you ask us to. You will be responsible for paying for any Charge on the day we remove the Registered Vehicle if you drive the vehicle within the Relevant Charging Zone on that day.".

That one in particular says "if you drive the vehicle"; clearly if you've sold on the vehicle (and is it so registered with the DVLA), then you have proof that "you" did not drive it.

dorothyjane2021

Thankyou yes that is a good point I shall look into this. I have seen on other forums this has happened to many other people but novv no threads show a definitive answer or resolution….

paul_c123

prowla said:

I'm wondering if there is any mileage in scrutinising the points like "10.5.5 If you ask us to remove a Registered Vehicle online or by phone, we will do so on the day you ask us to. You will be responsible for paying for any Charge on the day we remove the Registered Vehicle if you drive the vehicle within the Relevant Charging Zone on that day.".

That one in particular says "if you drive the vehicle"; clearly if you've sold on the vehicle (and is it so registered with the DVLA), then you have proof that "you" did not drive it.

Change of registered keeper doesn't prove anything either way, regarding who was driving. You could try the "I wasn't driving" angle and name the new RK, but (AIUI) its not like speeding, its one of those things where they can rely on the civil contract defined by the terms and conditions, which has the reasonable requirement of informing them when you no longer have the car.

prowla

I would also look into whether the law (TSRGD) has any stipulations regarding this; if so, they will override any add-on T&Cs TfL may have put in place.

Also note that TfL responses may be (ahem) "factually flawed"; we recently had a case where TfL issued a fine and fabricated new wordings of the law to support their case, but the Tribunal stated "It is very alarming that the author of the enforcement authority (EA)'s case summary (4 pages of verbiage) and notice of rejection of the appellant's representations fundamentally misunderstands the regulation" and upheld our appeal.

I can't claim to have knowledge of your particular issue, but my point is that (if you are so minded) you can scrutinise what the law says and the wording of their rules and treat any communications from them with suspicion.

The problem with the automated systems is they have no place to fit in common-sense.

Goudy

TFL have continued to take the money as that vehicle with still on your autopay account.

For the charges already paid and anything up to the date you cancelled autopay, they will want that from you and your chances of getting that back are zero.
(you have cancelled your DD, so they might pass that on to a debt collection agency if they can't collect it via DD)

But for the day that autopay was cancelled, they will go after the registered keeper.
You did change the keeper yourself when you sold the vehicle, you didn't let the new keeper do that for you did you?

The new keeper might have set up autopay themselves or pay it online daily, but as the vehicle was live first on your autopay account, they'll take it from you until otherwise told.

paul_c123

I don't think the law is flawed, or the charge is outside of the law, or an automated system has made a mistake though. The car was registered to an account, it went into the CC Zone, it was detected and charged. There is no provision in the law that it becomes invalid if the RK is changed. (There is a requirement that it is only the RK who can initially register it though). In order to no longer be charged, you need to un-register the car from the account - the underlying law is very clear that this is the responsibility of the account holder.

Mildly_Miffed

daveyjp said:

Nice idea to believe DVLA and TFL would have a joined up system, but that isn't likely.

There are plenty of potential situations where you would NOT want a change of RK to trigger removal from TfL autopay, and doing so could easily lead to penalties being accrued by genuine drivers.

It's definitely safest option to require keepers to do their own removal - not least because this is something that only affects a small minority of drivers within the UK.