Camden Car pound Cock-up

 

If you have the misfortune to have your car towed by a council (now £280) you should be given a notice of your right to make a representation in writing (or sometimes also by email or on a portal) to the relevant enforcement authority (Camden Council in this case) to argue why the PCN and/or the tow was wrong. If the council reject those representations, which they inevitably will otherwise they have to give you £360 back (the tow fee + the discounted PCN, £80 in this case) the door then opens to the independent adjudicators at London Tribunals.

What you should not be given is a Notice of Appeal form to start an Appeal to London Tribunals because that stage has not yet been reached.

This is what Miss EV was also given (she had accidentally parked on an EV bay as there were two spaces with the charger sat in the road in the middle of them so it looked like two separate bays and only the right hand one had a sign - Mr Mustard has told her that finding a free bay in Camden was optimistic).

The above form explains why the first email from Miss EV to Mr Mustard was so confusing, the lady had been mislead by Camden Council car Pound which is doubtless outsourced.

Mr Mustard thinks this amounts to a procedural impropriety as it is a failure to follow the Regulations about PCNs and should be an automatic cancellation at the tribunal. That will be the first argument before the unclear signage one and only one ball needs to be kicked into the net for a cancellation.

The end, for now. 

A patient driver

The above location photo, of Acre Lane approaching Brixton Road doesn't show it very clearly but there is a section of single yellow, before some doubles reds, and on a Sunday motorists can park on the single yellow.

This led to a problem.

The driver, Mr P, found himself in what he thought was a traffic queue but he was in fact behind a parked car. Mr P wrote his own thoughtful representations.

 

 

One point that was missed was that signage was inadequate, it being turned away from passing drivers.

You would expect a reasonable length of reply given the serious points that had been made, which had the ring of truth to them. No such luck, Lambeth wrote very little:

Although the option to start an Appeal at London Tribunals is not mentioned in this formal Notice of Rejection, as the law provides, a Notice of Appeal form was provided.

Mr Mustard took over at this point and drafted the Grounds of Appeal. They were one of his better efforts, short and bang on target. He left to one side the failure to properly respond to what the representations said as that was a harder argument to get across the line and the two he did put forward were likely to bear fruit.

Mr Mustard didn't have to wait long, 11 days later Lambeth threw in the towel and cancelled the PCN.

The end.

City of Westminster: No, No, Yes.

Mr Mustard's client parked in the West End on 8 April 24. Mr Mustard hasn't asked but you really do need a good reason for it to make sense to drive into central London given that we have lots of public transport choices.

He parked in the bay on the right, where the grey van is.

There was a suspension sign in the bay.

Having looked straight across the road the driver could see that he was not opposite the Comedy Store so he stayed where he was and received a PCN.

There isn't a bay opposite the comedy store, only yellow lines.

It was 17 May before Mr Mustard made the informal challenge. The Notice to Owner had not yet been sent and any challenge sent up until then is known as an informal one. The discount had gone but given the factual error Mr Mustard expected a swift cancellation.

He was wrong, the challenge was rejected 4 days later in full denial of the facts. 

Mr Mustard went into standby mode. On 24 June the Notice to Owner was sent.

On 28 June 24 Mr Mustard made the formal representations on the grounds of the vague location.

It took a month, until 28 July 24, for Westminster to again close their eyes to the facts and issue a formal Notice of Rejection which opens the door to the tribunal.

On 18 August 24 Mr Mustard started an Appeal at London Tribunals.

On 19 August Westminster issued a charge certificate rasing the penalty by 50% to £195. That document could not by law be issued until 28 days after service of the 28 July rejection and only then if the penalty is not paid nor an Appeal started.

On 20 August Westminster noted the start of an Appeal.

On 21 August Westminster threw in the towel and cancelled the PCN.

Whether that was because the PCN was without merit or because of the procedural impropriety is not known but Mr Mustard expected to win on the vague location point in any event.

What this history tells you is that if you want to win you need to set your stall out clearly and dig in for the long haul, don't fret about the discount if you have a decent argument. Councils do stuff wrong all of the time.

The end.

Westminster decide that 4 arguments do not a representation make

This might be a bit of a long read as a lot happened but if you want to know more about processing of a parking PCN it will be useful to you.

We start on 6 September 2023 with a PCN being put on the car in Albemarle St. which has, Mr Mustard finds, associations at different times with Lord Byron and Oscar Wilde

The sign, which the driver only spotted afterwards, was missed because it was within a suspended section and turned away.

After the event, on finding the PCN, the driver thought that the sign was the one above the suspended bay sign, the one we can see the back of. Mr Mustard wouldn't find himself in Westminster in a car but if he did he would be more inquisitive before concluding that a spot of free parking was in order. We were where we were. Although Mr Mustard acts regularly for the company which owns the car the driver decided to make their own challenge on the grounds of inadequate signage which they did on 20 September.

 

The City of Westminster rejected the informal challenge on the same day. Unusual and odd as the letter apologised for the delay in responding. Who said it was a cut and paste job? The letter didn't say why the challenge wasn't accepted just that they wouldn't cancel. This is an unhelpful trend which Mr Mustard has noticed creeping in during 2023.

 

All then went quiet, as the driver wasn't sucked into paying at a discount, as she knew that the company would refer to Mr Mustard who usually finds something which which to attack the ticket. On 6 November the Notice to Owner was issued to the company as the registered keeper. On 10 November Mr Mustard was instructed and he rustled up the formal representations on the same day. He found four strands on which to make representations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A council, or the City in this case, are allowed 56 days for an on street parking PCN in which to serve their Notice of Rejection otherwise they are deemed to have accepted and must serve a Notice of Acceptance and cancel the PCN.

 

Service of a Notice of Rejection at this stage opens the door to the independent tribunal which Mr Mustard attends nearly every week and where he was expecting to win on argument #4 as he has done five times already.

 

Mr Mustard keeps an eye on enforcement authority websites so he can glean if an Acceptance or Rejection has likely been issued.

 

Something unusual happened on 20 December which was day 41 of 56, the City of Westminster wrote to Mr Mustard's client:

Mr Mustard looked at the ticking clock and thought there was the possibility that a Notice of Rejection would not be served (sending isn't enough, it has to arrive) by the 56th day being 4 January 2024.

On 4 January Mr Mustard emailed the City of Westminster as follows:

 

Not long after sending that email Mr Mustard's client, who is also very efficient, sent him a copy of the Charge Certificate which had been issued on 2 January 2024 and was a procedural impropriety as a response to representations was outstanding so the file must be placed on hold.

 

Having raised his query at a senior level the job of responding was given to 'Customer relations' (this isn't going to end well). The sort of response which makes Mr Mustard happy is short, simple and apologetic, something like this:

'Dear Mr Mustard. Thank you for your email. You are quite correct. We have cancelled the Charge Certificate and the PCn and apologise for the inconvenience. Yours etc'.

Here is what he got instead, just the 'good' bits:

Oh yes it does. If there is a procedural impropriety an adjudicator is bound to allow an Appeal by a motorist.

The 'correspondence' that the City of Westminster received was all in the one document with an image of the authority letter inserted into the text of the document which was headed 'Formal representations'.

Apparently in the City of Westminster a fundamental challenge to the legal wording and thus the right to issue a PCN isn't a representation. Nor, it seems, is a challenge that the Contravention did not occur despite that being one of the statutory grounds specified in the legislation. What we can gather from this is that the City of Westminster decided to act as if Mr Mustard had not written a word which put his client into a position where having been deemed to not have made a formal representation within 28 days of receiving the Notice to Owner they became liable for the PCN by default and then saw the penalty illegally increased by 50%.

Clearly, the City of Westminster had forgotten the contents of their own Notice to Owner, viz;

 

 

The non apology continued:

The City of Westminster are in for a shock. Mr Mustard doesn't fight many PCNs against this authority but one of his expert friends does. There are already 6 adjudication decisions made by 3 different adjudicators covering 4 enforcement authorities where this wording has been found to be wrong. 

Here is part of a tribunal decision which went against the London Borough of Hounslow and which you can quote to any other enforcement authority issuing parking PCNs on street (not through the post, they have different rules) when you ask them to cancel your PCN.

When an enforcement authority writes to you telling you that they are right and you are wrong, stop and think what is in it for the enforcement authority, £130 possibly. Look at what happened in the Post Office, innocent people were told they were the only one. The difference here is that Mr Mustard and the band of PCN experts to which he belongs know the difference between right and wrong. Success with a particular argument cannot be guaranteed as the decision above isn't a precedent, it is under the law as it stands legally persuasive and likely to be followed because the adjudicator named above has been deciding the fate of PCNs for more than the 13 years Mr Mustard has been appearing in front of him and the second adjudicator likewise. They are highly experienced qualified lawyers and came to their decisions after careful consideration of all the arguments. It matters not a jot to an adjudicator if they Allow or Refuse an Appeal as there is no financial incentive for them to decide either way, they apply the law without fear or favour.

Mr Mustard's final word for the parking department. Mr Mustard isn't a 'customer' so has no need of 'customer relations'. The City of Westminster have zero respect until they learn to say sorry when they have right royally lashed up.

Pity the motorist acting for themselves as knowledge is power and Mr Mustard knows what should be what. The more you all know, the better.

The end.

 

Are you illiterate? Barnet Council will employ you.

You are? well you can get yourself a job writing case summaries to send to the parking tribunal on behalf of Barnet Council as you will fit right in. All of the above errors came form one 3 page case summary.

The errors won't lead to the PVN (sic) being cancelled but there are some other procedural blunders in the case summary which will.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

This is what happens when you contract out services (although it is never clear in parking if an NSL or a direct employee has written a particular item) as the contractor saves money by employing cheaper people than the council did hitherto. Cheaper isn't usually better.

Haringey Council got greedy & lost the lot

Haringey Council lifted and removed the car of a friend of a friend of Mr Mustard. To see what sort of experience it was Mr Mustard went to the pound to see the car recovered. It is a tense & unwelcoming place.

In order to get your car back you have to pay the removal fee, any per night storage charges and 50% of the PCN value. That 50% is what the council will accept in full settlement within 14 days.

This is what the PCN says

This is what the balance was on the council website

That is clear then, there is nothing owing for the PCN.

The representations for a refund being refused an Appeal was made to London Tribunals. The council's case summary contained this shocking demand:

That is to move the goalposts after the full time whistle has blown and claim a penalty.

The adjudicator was not amused. This is what he said.

Asking the authority (Haringey Council) to research more thoroughly is lawyer speak for wake up & don't try that trick again.

It wasn't a ruse that Mr Mustard had ever seen before and it was never going to work for three reasons:

1. The council have a general duty at law to be fair and demanding extra payment at the Appeal stage is outwith the Regulations and manifestly unfair.

2. The council had the car and so could extract the penalty that was properly due on release of the car.

3. Contract law defines a contract as containing an offer, acceptance and consideration which all existed in this case.

Haringey Council have been ordered to refund the £65 PCN payment and the removal fee of £200. Three times in the last 3 months Mr Mustard has challenged their vehicle removals, twice they refunded of their own volition (which is rare) and this third time they have been ordered to do so. Mr Mustard just loves Haringey Council.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Enfield Council in time travel trouble.

Mr Mustard complained about the use of the non-statutory pre-debt reminder to Enfield Council on 26 January. He had previously complained about it in November and was told that all his points were valid and the reminder would be changed. The revised version was so similar that Mr Mustard didn't notice the subtle differences, he having expected radical change & possibly withdrawal of the use of the reminder as Haringey Council decided at about the time that Mr Mustard complained to them.

This is what Mr Mustard wrote on 26 January:

Dear Mr Parking Manager

Nothing has yet changed with the pre-debt reminder?

I don't think the contravention description is substantially complaint (sic) as looking at the meter on google streetmap it looks to have the red dash sticker on it. That means that payment could have been made by phone, which is not part of the alleged contravention. Surely this should have been a code 11, parked without payment of the parking charge and your PCN is unsustainable?

In the circumstances you could please cancel EF00123456.

Many thanks

Mr Mustard

There then followed a game of email ping pong which culminated in Mr Mustard's complaint being sent from parking to the complaints department from where it will end up with the Ombudsman who, his recent report Fairer Fines shows, is currently concerned about the fair treatment of motorists.

As there had been a pre-debt reminder Mr Mustard knew that a charge certificate had been issued. His client had not received the Notice to Owner and was awaiting the Order for Recovery so that the process could be rewound to the Notice to Owner stage.

On 27 January Mr Mustard's client sent him a copy of the Order for Recovery. Mr Mustard duly submitted his client's witness statement to the TEC the very same day.

On 9 February the council, as they were perfectly entitled to do, issued a fresh Notice to Owner.

On 15 February Mr Mustard's client sent him a copy of the fresh Notice to Owner and on the same day Mr Mustard went on-line to the Enfield Council computer and made representations that the PCN had been issued for the wrong contravention code.

Imagine Mr Mustard's surprise when he received a Notice of Rejection on 16 February which had been written on 14 February and which contained the following:

The order set out in the legislation is simple, it goes like this:

1 - Notice to Owner

2 - Representations against the Notice to Owner

3 - Notice of Rejection (or Acceptance) of the Representations

4 - Appeal to the tribunal (done!)

Enfield Council have decided to make Mr Mustard's email of 26 January which pre-dated the Notice to Owner of 9 February into a document which was issued 2 weeks later after the Notice to Owner.

In the four years that Mr Mustard has been fighting PCN he has never seen such a blatant procedural impropriety. They are defined as a failure to follow Parking Regulations but you could simply think of them as a council blunder.

He know has an Appeal pending which technically he shouldn't have but which he has no doubt will be allowed if it reaches a hearing which it probably won't as Mr Mustard will be filing a further complaint with Enfield Council. Mr Mustard will be making a claim for costs, which is very rare for him, as the council have been wholly unreasonable.

Mr Mustard doesn't suppose, or rather hope, that Enfield Council are playing guessing games about the representations that ordinary members of the public intend to make on a future date. If they are though, the public don't know the correct procedure like Mr Mustard does.

What the council's actions do disclose though is an indecent haste to reject Representations not yet made by Mr Mustard.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

You can't do this TfL

Here is the history of the PCN from the TfL website (quite useful now for the public - other London Boroughs please copy this)

So TfL you have issued a Charge Certificate but representations were made on 24 August so you can't do that:

but you forgot to log them despite writing for more info on 13 September which included the following line:

'Failure to provide a response within this time could result in your representation being rejected'.

No response was made and you neither accepted nor rejected the representations and so having failed to respond within 56 days you accepted the Representations by default in accordance with the relevant Regulations.

Your charge certificate is an unlawful demand for money coupled with the threat of court action. You had best withdraw it, apologise to my client and pay compensation. £130 would be about right reduced to £65 if paid within 14 days.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Freepost!

The white envelope above is the one in which the Notice of Rejection was sent out, probably by NSL on behalf of Barnet Council parking department but possibly by the council themselves.

It arrived OK without suffering a £2 surcharge

which would really have been an extra poke in the eye, but it isn't enough that the envelope actually arrived. If you have a permit and don't display it or if you don't pay for your parking, even though you meant to, then you are liable to receive a PCN . Similarly, if the council's Notice arrives but the council didn't send it first class (and this was sent unstamped which is no class at all) then the council have committed a procedural impropriety as Notices (and the Notice of Rejection is a notice) must be sent first class.

Mr Mustard knows that the envelope is the one which contained the Notice of Rejection from Barnet Council as it is a PremierTeam 731450 envelope and Mr Mustard has hundreds of them bearing a franking mark like the one on the brown envelope above (which was torn from an Evidence Pack).

Please keep all the envelopes that your Notices come in as Mr Mustard may need them if he is acting for you.

Yours frugally (but clearly not as frugal as the council have been)

Mr Mustard

Update 8 December (all's well that ends well)

Morning Mr Mustard (real name actually used)

The Notice has been cancelled, it appears that the member of staff who sent out the NoR didn’t check to see if it was correctly franked, I will speak to their team leader. I apologise on behalf of the service.  

Kind regards

Process Manager

Footnote

Mr Mustard nearly always tells senior parking management when NSL (or the parking department themselves) have blundered as it saves time & trouble all round. In this case Mr Mustard has not had to complete and post off the Notice of Appeal. NSL have not had to respond and spend 2 hours preparing an Evidence Pack. the council have not had to pay a close to £40 tribunal fee when the outcome was an inevitable loss. This is why the two parties talk to each other. When they can't agree then the tribunal decide the correct position.