Inbuilt delays work against you - do it now

Recently Mr Mustard had a couple of cases where everything hinged on the date that a certain action was taken. Many people think that the parking department is in Sheffield as that is where the PO Box is to be found but that is merely where the scanning machines are located.

To prove or otherwise his point Mr Mustard asked for the number of documents scanned on each day in December 17 & January 18. The numbers for the full weeks are reproduced above.

He has realised that there is a problem with nothing being scanned on a Saturday. That presents a problem if your deadline is the Saturday or Sunday. If post is not looked at on Saturdays you are potentially being deprived of 2 days of your allotted 14. To avoid that don't delay in dealing with a PCN, do it now. The other way to avoid delays is to make your representations on line using the council's system or to pay on line using your debit or credit card.

Mr Mustard has emailed the parking manager suggesting some changes, as follows:

For a recent case I needed to check that scanning was being done each day & it is, which is good, but it led me to think about deadlines.

There is a disparity in the Regulations between deadlines which are an exact number of calendar days and post only being processed in the working week, Monday to Friday. If you receive a PCN on your car on a Monday you have 14 days in which to pay at 50%, or to challenge informally and preserve the discount, which expires on a Sunday. I note that scanning does not take place on a Saturday. That means that items posted on a Friday, which could reach you on a Saturday and thus in time, become out of time on the Monday.

I am sure you are always looking for ways to improve the parking service & I would like to suggest that either processing the Saturday post on the day itself or keeping it separate on the Monday and processing it first and dating it as received on the Saturday would be fairer to the motorist.

I stress that you aren't doing anything outside of the Regulations, I just think that what I suggest would be an improved service for that section of society which is more reliant on the post & cheques which is generally the elderly.

Best regards

He will let you see the reply.

Looking at the figures themselves Mr Mustard notes that Monday isn't always the day when most documents are scanned which he finds surprising as he expects that what with it containing items posted on both Friday & Saturday it would usually be the heaviest day for post. He suspects that all documents are not scanned on the day of receipt in line with the contract.

There is a world of difference between the day a document is received and the day it is scanned. Just because a document was scanned on Wednesday 28 March does not prove that it was received by the council on that very date. Put the council to proof of when they received something and they won't be able to give a categorical answer unless they date stamp it & can prove that was the correct date on the stamp.

Remember, don't dilly dally as it could cost you money.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

PCN - 50% 14 days woes - help needed

Mr Mustard has a friend with a PCN whose 50% payment, sent by post in the first week after receiving a PCN, was processed after 2 months.

He is now looking for any other examples of this to see if it was an isolated instance or an epidemic. If you have one, whether sorted or not, please email the details to mrmustard@zoho.com

Not many of us use cheques nowadays and to avoid being counted out of time it is best if you can to pay on-line using a credit or debit card as there is no doubt about the payment date.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

PCN - retain the discount & gain time to pay

So it is the 1st of the month and you have received a parking ticket or a bus lane contravention. You accept you were in the wrong and want to take advantage of the 50% discount but you are stony broke at the moment. If you pay the amount now you will be short of food or travel to work money. What do you do?

(First of all if the PCN is for parking and sent to you by post you either have to pay the 50% amount within 14 days or the full amount within 28 days. You can slow down the full amount but you lose the chance to pay at a discount.)

The 14 days starts from the date of the PCN and includes the first day, so for a PCN issued on 1 June the 14th day will be the 14 June (i.e. add 13 to the date). You can appeal using the council's computer which is a horrible straitjacket and doesn't give you a copy of your challenge, so Mr Mustard almost never uses it.

You can appeal by post but somehow they can "go missing" so Mr Mustard uses the signed for service to be sure.

Best of all is to use the email method. They don't directly advertise this on the council website or put it on the PCN but do accept representations by this method as that is how all of Mr Mustard's are done. 

The address, which shows on this link, is barnet@nslservices.co.uk

If writing Mr Mustard would wait only until day 10 and then send in your challenge.

If using the on-line system or email he would still only go as far as day 12 or 13 and then send in the challenge.

In theory this freezes the PCN from progressing until the council reply. They try to do this within 14 days but often don't manage to do so. Then they must re-offer the 14 days discount period again. If they don't they have committed a procedural impropriety (otherwise known as a blunder) and then you might as well appeal through the next two stages (in response to the Notice to Owner and after that if rejected to PATAS) which will take another 3 to 6 months and give you more time to pay up should you lose. Do ask Mr Mustard for advice if this happens to you.

If they do offer the discount again then you are most probably into the month of July and got past payday and achieved your objective.

There is always the chance that your challenge will be accepted and the PCN cancelled and then you won't have to pay anything at all. Some recent figures show, although Mr Mustard has asked for them to be looked at again as he thinks they are wrong, that of 1354 initial challenges to PCN in March 14, 252 of those PCN were subsequently cancelled (although not necessarily straight away) so that is about a 1 in 6 chance.

The more that PCN are challenged the less profitable it becomes for the council. Together we can make them behave more reasonably.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard