PCN escalated to solicitors, for my cleaning contractor doing my end of tenancy clean - more inside

danny95

Hi MSE forum,

There’s a fair few details in here, so sorry if it turns into a long one. I’ll try to be concise.

back in March time my old flats management co. told us they would be introducing permitted parking for our car park to start in June 25. Our tenancy agreement said we had unrestricted access to our flats designated parking space, and we were not consulted on the change. Luckily we were moving in July so decided to deal with it until then.

June rolls around and we have not received a permit for our space, despite numerous comms to letting agents. 

Fines started appearing mid June, every day until our move out date of July 7th,  so I contacted the management company to explain the situation and have them cancelled. In fairness to them, they were very helpful and had all the fines cancelled.

Fast forward to today, I have received a call and email from a solicitors (QDR Solicitors) demanding payment of £170 for an unpaid parking fine incurred on July 8th. On further inspections, it seems the company performing our end of tenancy clean (instructed by us) received the fine and forwarded it to our old address, but never actually got in contact (they had my phone no. and email). Thus we had no idea of it. I had no idea they had parked in our spot, as I left the keys for them before they arrived and picked them up after they had gone. I assumed they would use the visitors bay. 

I have contacted the management company again to get this cancelled, but I’m worried that, as it is now at the solicitors stage, they will be unable to do so. 

How do I go about fighting this? 

I’ve read the Newbies page but there was quite a lot of information which wasn’t too specific to my case (much on residents permits but this was not
my vehicle; vacated property; no pcn recieved; no permit issued etc.)

hopefully it will get canned, but I’d like to be prepared if not.

I’m really grateful for any advice given, thanks!

Gr1pr

Name the private parking company claimant involved in the case 

In whose name was or is the private pcn  ? The cleaning company or yours   ?

Let's see a redacted picture or copy and paste of the email demands,  no personal information or private details 

Which nation or town or city is it  ?

Unless the invoice has your details on it, then it's nothing to do with you 

Ignore QDR for now,  because letters may count, not emails,  not texts, not phone calls either 

You definitely did the correct thing contacting the management company 

Car1980

QDR act as debt collectors 99% of the time, not litigators.
Have you actually had a letter titled "Letter Before Claim"? or just threatograms?