Hire Vehicle - Carflow Won't Recognise Hirer

ali4390

Carflow replied today with the email below, this was following the RK confirming who the driver was at the time.

The RK is incredibly stressed about the situation and has demanded that the hirer pays, which the latter is close to doing to end the situation. Emails from the hirer fall on deaf ears with Carflow as they won't discuss with the hirer or driver, only the RK.

Dear RK,

Thank you for contacting Carflow again.

We have noted your further comments and the information provided. However, the subsequent provision of the hirer's details does not alter our decision.

The hire documentation provided by the registered keeper was reviewed and did not meet the requirements of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, as the hire agreement supplied was not signed and the required statement of liability signed by the hirer was not provided.

You have also stated that the hirer contacted Carflow on 23-Jul-26 and provided his name and address. However, the hirer did not confirm that he was the driver, and the correspondence did not include the documentation required to transfer liability from the registered keeper to the hirer. The fact that a person was in possession of the vehicle does not, in itself, transfer liability under Schedule 4.
The required hire documentation was subsequently provided on 18-Aug-26, outside the applicable 28-day period. The driver's details being provided at a later date does not retrospectively satisfy the requirements for transferring liability to the hirer within the relevant period.

With regard to your request for evidence of our email dated 23-Jul-26, we have confirmed that our correspondence was sent to the email address provided <redacted> at 20:00 on 23-Jul-26. A copy of our original response is attached for your records. We are unable to control whether an email is subsequently filtered, blocked or directed to a recipient's junk/spam folder.

In relation to your other requests, the matter has been reviewed in accordance with our internal appeals procedure, and our decision remains unchanged. As the required documentation was not provided within the applicable timeframe, we will not reopen the appeal or transfer liability to the hirer.

The parking charge remains outstanding.

Kind regards,

Carflow Team

ali4390

Here is the original PCN

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yarpsnehpets

Surely, all the hire company needs to do is to send the parking operator an email saying that liability is denied on the basis that the original NtK was not served in time?

ali4390

The hire company won't do or send anything now due to the stress this is causing them (despite repeated assurances about the whole process).

Unfortunately, this could all have been solved if they had just replied to Carflow's request for additional information on the 23rd July when the appeal was submitted.

yarpsnehpets

Might be worth checking with your Credit Card Company to make sure that any reserved deposit has been released back to the card - don't want the hire company helping themselves to the £100.

ali4390

Yeah that's all sorted.

I can appeal on the RKs behalf through Carflow's website.

I'm getting my head around the dates, how can the issue date be after the postage date? If we assume 2 working days for the NTK to be delivered, the 8th July as a postage date means the NTK would have arrived within the 14 day period and so I wouldn't have grounds to appeal on that basis, is that correct?

ali4390

I got my dates wrong in my initial message. The parking event was the 28th June, not the 26th, hence why I think the PCN was received within the 14 days.

yarpsnehpets

I think, rather confusingly, they are doing an element of the math for you - they are saying that it was sent on 8th July and therefore deemed delivered (aka 'served') on 10th July.

ali4390

Agreed, I just realised that.

So the 14-day NTK argument doesn't apply. I think I'm going to have to pay this one if the RK is stressing so much.

yarpsnehpets

Do you have anyway of checking the exact time you paid the fee to park?

The reason I ask is because ANPR / time on site is not actually the period of parking in legal times.

Their calculations deliberately make the time as long as possible.

There is also a 10 min grace period at the end of your parking.