Court Paperwork for parking fine

[frenchtoastandcinnamon]

Evening all!

I’m after a bit of advice. In January this year I received a letter from a bailiffs (DCB) for an unpaid parking fine from a year a prior and demanding payment of £170. I genuinely had no idea about the fine as I never received the notice to keeper letter. I contacted the company who sent me a copy of this letter which says I stayed for 2 hour 3 mins when the cut off limit is 2 hours. I was slightly over but I remember the evening out as the car park had recently changed and the restaurant got me to put my reg on a tablet to extend the parking limit but this obviously hasn’t filtered through somewhere and the restaurant has since closed down so I can’t even contact them for any records they had. Had I received the notice to keeper letter I would have appealed on these grounds and paid the discounted fine had this not been successful (£45). I didn’t have £170 to pay it (I live pay to pay) so I contacted both DCB and the original parking company explaining what had happened and asked them to restart the process so I could appeal or pay the original fine but they declined. I said I was more than willing to engage in the process now I had sight of the letter but I didn’t hear anything back (and to be honest had totally forgotten about it) until the court paperwork arrived today and they now want £238.

I don’t know what to do in terms of the paperwork. I can’t afford £238 and it seems hugely unfair considering I didn’t receive the original paperwork and contacted both companies as soon as I was made aware. I don’t even have any proof that I filled in my reg on the tablet so I imagine that’s not going to be a suitable defence! If I sent over copies of my emails to both companies where I said I was happy to engage with the process/pay original fine would the court be likely to agree to this? Very stressed about all this this evening 😞

Which parking company is involved?

If you can evidence that you didn't receive the original letter, you should be able to appeal the fine outside of the usual window. If it's been a year since the incident, you may even be able to argue that it's unreasonable for them to ask you to pay it at all. How you'd prove this though, I'm not sure. Were your contact details correct on the copy of the original letter they gave you?

Submit an appeal in writing anyway (you can find templates online). They should reply to this within 56 days. Usually if they don't, you automatically win, however I'm not sure if this will be the case for you outside of the appeal window.

If they reject your appeal, you can make a formal appeal to either the Independent Appeals Service or Parking on Private Land Appeals. You'll need to find out which one the company is a member of.

You say that you've received court paperwork...is this an actual summons to attend court? It would be very unusual for this to be the case if they've only contacted you twice about the fine.

Ultimately if your appeals are rejected and they do decide to take you to court, you'll have the opportunity to present your case. It's worth considering though that if you lose, you'll be liable for court fees, legal costs etc on top of any fine. You'll end up with a CCJ which will affect your credit score for years. With a CCJ, they can also instruct bailiffs to attend your property and remove items of value if you can't/won't pay.

You should obviously take legal advice if it gets that far, but given your lack of evidence, paying may be your best option. They will almost certainly be willing to set up a payment plan.

Go to forums on moneysavingexpert and there is a wealth of help and advice to be had.

Go to the CAB. They should be able to advise on the legalities of the fine and also help negotiate a repayment plan if you are proven to be liable.

Why do people post without reading the OP properly? It is pointless talking about the appeal process. OP has already told us that the parking company has refused to restart the process so OP can appeal and that they are taking her to court.

The reason I asked which parking company is involved is that they are likely to be members of an association. These associations have codes of practice that their members are expected to follow. Most of them require a grace period of 10 minutes at the end of the parking period, so the operator should only take action against the driver once the grace period has expired. Last year, the relevant trade bodies agreed to adopt a standard grace period of 10 minutes starting from 1st October. According to the information OP has posted, she was only 3 minutes over the parking period. She therefore has an argument that the parking company is unreasonable in imposing any fine. The argument will be stronger if the alleged offence took place at a time when the relevant association required a grace period of at least 5 minutes.

@frenchtoastandcinnamon - My view is that you should defend the claim, arguing that it is unreasonable to impose a fine for a 3 minute overstay. As per my last paragraph, this argument will be stronger if the parking company is a member of an association which, at the time of the incident, required members to provide a grace period. You may also be able to argue that they have been unreasonable in refusing to allow any appeal when you failed to receive the original paperwork. However, if the paperwork was correctly addressed, you may struggle with this one. You could also explain that you entered your registration number on a tablet in the restaurant and were told this extended your parking stay. Whilst you clearly don't have any evidence to support this, the court works on balance of probabilities so they may accept this. You can also argue that the amount the debt collectors now want is clearly excessive for a 3 minute overstay.

If you lose and are unable to pay, the court may agree a payment schedule.

parking group limited

the court paperwork isn’t a court summons. It says the company has made a claim and asks me to respond to the claim

I appreciate they probably hear “I never received the letter” a lot but by the time I received the letter from DCB the fees were over 3x the original fine which is insane when I genuinely hadn’t ignored anything 😩

They are members of the British Parking Association. Their code of practice requires a 10 minute grace period before any penalty is imposed. They have clearly ignored that. I would defend the claim as per my last post.