Bolt out of the blue or Justice delayed is justice denied

an old bolt to match an old PCN

Mr Mustard thinks that there are possibly 8,000 rip van winkle PCNs which have been pulled out of their state of sleep and subjected to new processing. Someone, and who that is Mr Mustard does not yet know, at Barnet Council doesn't think they have to abide by the Code of Practice issued by London Councils which says that if there is a delay in processing at any stage of the process of more than 6 months the PCN should (emphasis by Mr M) be cancelled. Rules are of course only for little people. Some parking rules are in the Highway Code and we are expected to abide by those but apparently the council can treat other Codes as optional.

How might you hear about your PCN lurching back into life after a year of gathering digital dust on a hard disk? 

You might get a letter giving you 7 days to pay before the debt is registered with the Traffic Enforcement Centre at Northampton County Court (which acts as a clearing house for PCN across the land - no actual hearings take place there). The next document you receive would be the Order for Recovery.

You might get the Order for Recovery.

You might get the Charge Certificate (and you can do nothing much at this stage in the standard procedure except wait for the Order for Recovery or pay, as if)

You might get a Notice to Owner (if that is the case and it is more than 6 months since the Penalty Charge Notice simply write to Barnet Council and tell them they are out of time, full stop).

You might get a letter or a visit from a Bailiff which is the least palatable option.

What can you do?

The first step is to send an email to mrmustard@zoho.com with copies of every document.

If you have the Order for Recovery (form TE3) it will have with it a form TE9 which you can complete with one, and only one, of the four possible grounds. The 4 grounds are

1. I did not receive the Notice to Owner

2. I appealed against the Notice to Owner within 28 days and heard nothing back

3. I appealed to PATAS on time but heard nothing back (not very likely)

4. I have paid.

If you do this on time, and you can do it by email to the TEC, then, for option 1,  the PCN will go back to the beginning and you will be able to appeal or, for options 2 & 3 it will be listed for consideration by PATAS and presumably for option 4 the money will be chased down as a clerical error has probably occurred, be ready to prove payment. Mr Mustard doubts there will be many option 4 cases.

If the PCN has already reached the Bailiff in the form of a warrant of execution then as well as filing the form TE9 you will also have to file a form TE7 which is an application to file form TE9 outside of the time limit and you will need a good reason for being late which might be that you didn't receive earlier documents about the PCN. Mr Mustard can help you with these.

When a bailiff is sniffing around you need to move fast (the same day) to make sure he doesn't get your car removed before you have filed the forms with the TEC.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Missing any forms, get them here.