Advice on potential IAS appeal and POFA defence please

igmeister

Hi,

I am a returning to this board after a long hiatus - I previously (2014) received excellent advice from the regulars on here to successfully appeal a PCN on the grounds of GPEOL (amongst other things), so thanks again for that.

Fast forward to 2026 and another member of the family has recently received a PCN for the alleged offence of breaching the terms and conditions by 'stopping in a no Stopping zone'. The key details are:

• There are multiple signs on the access road in question, and although those signs say 'No stopping' in reasonably large font, it would not be possible to read all the text and t&cs from a moving vehicle. (I am avoiding naming the location and creditor at this stage for fear of prejudicing the case - happy to do so if you think it's ok)
• The signs state that the creditor is a BPA member, however the PCN correspondence includes the IPC logo and the states that appeals needs to go through IAS.
• The vehicle in question is leased from one of the big leasing companies.
• The time stamps on the photographs in the NTK / NTH show that the vehicle was stopped for a matter of minutes (low single digits).
• The lease company received the NTK and then issued the Creditor with a 'third party authorisation letter' granting permission for the creditor to communicate directly with the long term lease holder (a family member). Note that multiple people are insured to drive the vehicle and as far as I am aware there is no evidence to identify the driver.
• A NTH was sent to the lease holder with an issue date of a few of days after the NTK (we are within 21 days of this)
• We have approached the landowner / tenant and been told there is 'nothing they can do' to cancel the charge.

Having refamiliarised with the Newbies thread and trawled several linked threads, I believe I have two potential grounds to use at an IAS appeal:

1) Consideration period: The driver of the vehicle entered the site and stopped to read the terms and conditions on the signage in order to make an informed decision on whether or not to remain on the private land. The X minutes that the vehicle was stationary is well within the time that could reasonably be required to read the text on the signage. As such, no contract was entered into.

2) Paragraphs 13 and 14 of schedule 4 of the POFA 2012:
(Here's where i need some advice please)

The NTH did not contain copies of the hire agreement or a statement of liability signed by the hirer under that agreement. We have phoned the lease company to check whether or not these documents were sent to the Creditor along with the 'third party authorisation letter' and were told they weren't and that 'these documents are not routinely provided unless requested' (unfortunately it was not clarified on who's request they would send these at the time of the call).

If the hire agreement documents had been provided to the Creditor by the leasing company, my proposed approach was going to be to use point (1) for the initial appeal to the Creditor, fully anticipating a rejection before proceeding to an IAS appeal after 21 days has lapsed with the slam dunk defence that a copy of the hire documents were not sent on with the NTH. However, if I have understood correctly, because the hire documents have not been sent to the Creditor as per Paragraph 13 (2) of the POFA, the lease company can still be held liable for the PCN after 28 days, which I expect they would pay and then recharge to the lease holder with additional admin fees.

Given that the hire documents have not been sent to the Creditor by the lease company, I'm thinking that our next move is to call the lease company back to request that they issue the hire agreement documents to the Creditor. Are you aware of any similar cases and do we think that the leasing company may refuse to supply the documents at the request of the lease holder? (Not sure why they would when it removes their liability - unless they are in cahoots with the creditors to make additional money on admin fees - maybe I'm over-thinking it!)

Assuming the leasing company agree to send the hire documents to the creditor than as I understand it the creditor has a further 21 days in which to send the documents on to the person addressed in the NTH under Paragraph 14 of the POFA. How likely do we think it would be that they would do that?

Final question for now, if the POFA argument falls down because the Creditor ultimately complies with POFA by proving copies of the hire documents, do we think that the consideration period (point 1) defence alone has any chance at IAS (I note that there is at lease one similar case that has won at IAS in a linked post from the newbies thread).

Sorry its a long post with a lot of what ifs and questions but thanks in advance for any advice provided :-)

Gr1pr

Name the private parking company and location

Ensure that the lease company do not pay it

The parking company may well be BPA corporate members, but it sounds like they are actually IPC AOS members , no problem there, nothing to see, nothing to argue about

If the NTH failed to include the hirer agreement or lease documents then there is no hirer liability, regardless of the location

igmeister

Thanks for the prompt response @Gr1pr, much appreciated.

Ok, so the PPC is Bay Sentry Solutions and location is Whitehall Riverside LS1 4BN.

I have just noticed something really interesting and potentially significant, the NTK sent to the leasing company was dated late September and lists POPLA as the appeal route, whereas the NTH is dated early October and lists IAS. They must have switched over at the start of the month. Are there any grounds for insisting that any appeal should go through POPLA?

Can we insist that the leasing company provide the hire documents to the PPC and if they do not, that they do not pay on the basis that we are contesting the charge? We now plan to call them back tomorrow to ask them to do both.

Gr1pr

It does look like they have switched to the IPC recently

Personally, I would not be asking the lease company to send any documents to Bay Sentry

Coupon-mad

"Given that the hire documents have not been sent to the Creditor by the lease company, I'm thinking that our next move is to call the lease company back to request that they issue the hire agreement documents to the Creditor."

Absolutely not! This isn't in the NEWBIES thread because that is not what to do!

You are overthinking it.

The requirement in para 13/14 of schedule 4 has nothing to do with what the lease firm did or didn't supply, when they transferred liability. The requirement is ONLY on the parking firm (their problem if they failed) so why would you try to help them comply?! Your plan makes no sense.

Just use the Edna_Basher hire car appeal and add that this is the most poorly marked 'no stopping zone' ever seen. There aren't any double red lines or repeater signs facing oncoming traffic.

Do you know how I know?

Read the thread by @leedsleedsleeds123

I remember cases well!

I would love to see the IAS say this rubbish is compliant:

Coupon-mad

Please show the NTH and the NTK.

Both sides of course.

igmeister

Thanks for setting me straight on the hire agreements point. Here is a copy of the NTK:

igmeister

And the NTH:

igmeister

As you noted @Coupon-mad, you have seen this location more than once before:
Stopping in a no stopping zone (private land) — MoneySavingExpert Forum

Fined for stopping outside the car park — MoneySavingExpert Forum

I note that hey are still using the 'Illegal Parking' wording in the images.