You pay your parking ticket and then the bailiff clamps your car!

This story simply shouldn't have happened.

23 September 2013 - The Chipping Barnet 'D' CPZ zone, near High Barnet tube, was extended. The lady in question, Miss H, a lady in her late seventies, applied twice for a permit but partly due to the judicial review result her applications didn't get processed as her cheque was for too much money. This left her without a permit when the zone started. A dispensation was issued but no-one told Miss H that it would expire.

3 October 13 - A permit was issued but not put in the car immediately.

9 October 13 - A second PCN was issued, for £110 (the first one was paid in full).

11 October 13 - An informal challenge was made.

11 November 13 - A Notice to Owner (NtO) was issued.

?? November 13  - Formal representations were made in response to the NtO.

28 November 13 - The council (NSL) reject the representations but said £55 would be accepted if paid within 14 days of the letter (no time allowed for delivery as is customary).

6 December 13 - A cheque for £55 is sent by Special Delivery at a cost of £6.22

11 December 13 - The cheque is cleared.

18 December 13 - A Charge Certificate is issued for £165 less a credit for the £55 paid. This is a blunder of the first water and is an illegal demand for money and threatens to register the non-existent debt at the county court and then send in the bailiffs. Miss H was abroad on holiday. This was one reason why she had paid up (she wouldn't have paid anything if she had been introduced to Mr Mustard sooner than she was).

9 January 2014 - An Order for Recovery is issued.

24 January 14 - TASK bailiffs write to say they are investigating and will respond within 28 days. Mr Mustard doesn't know what prompted this letter from TASK apart from some correspondence from Miss H that was probably sent to the council (which means NSL who own TASK).

18 February 14 - The Warrant of Execution is issued.

18 February 14 - The standard first letter is sent by TASK bailiffs.

20 February 14 - Miss H phones the bailiffs and is asked to send proof of payment (which Miss H will have sent off.)

14 April 14 - A bailiff arrives at the home of Miss H, clamps her car and then knocks and asks for £408.52 which she pays as she needs her car to get about.

16 April 14 - Mr Mustard visits Miss H at home at the request of a charity who happen to know of his expertise. Miss H is upset, shocked, annoyed, seriously out of pocket and innocent of any wrongdoing.

16 April 14 - Mr Mustard emails the Parking Manager at Barnet Council (thus cutting out NSL) and outlines the above. His email includes the following paragraphs:

What should happen now is that the sum paid to the bailiff of £408.52 is refunded as it was not due for payment and in compensation the PCN value paid, of £55, should be refunded. A letter of apology should also be sent by NSL Ltd to Miss h as she has had the worry of this to deal with and can ill afford to be without the funds paid to the bailiff.

This whole mess has come about because permits were dealt with in one place (I have not studied it in detail but Miss H did try to get a permit in good time and had two applications returned by the looks of it, probably due to the judicial review of the price), customer service calls in another and enforcement in a third. The system that is in existence in Barnet is simply not fit for purpose. I know it is not your decision to be set up in this way but it isn't properly serving the residents of Barnet.

Our senior citizens should not have to suffer the attentions of bailiffs as a result of the administrative incompetence of NSL Ltd, the parking enforcement contractor of the council.

30 April 14 - Mr Mustard reminds the parking manager that he is waiting.

30 April 14 - The parking manager says he is awaiting feedback (presumably from NSL who must now be in a right sweat - this event isn't going to do their KPI any good)

20 May 14 - Mr Mustard reminds the parking manager that he is waiting.

20 May 14 - Mr Mustard receives a full reply.

Dear Mr Mustard

I apologise for the lateness of my reply. I had again been called away unexpectedly.

Miss H should not have been subjected to the Bailiffs nor paid any additional money. I confirm that a full refund of all monies paid to the Bailiff will be refunded with immediate effect. I confirm that our service provider have internally identified why this error has occurred and will be taking appropriate action. An apology letter will be sent to Miss H confirming the refund.

I apologise on behalf of the Council for the poor level of customer service Miss H has experienced. As a means of making amends I have requested 40 visitors vouchers be sent to Miss H at her address in zone D, they should arrive by the end of the week.

If I can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to email me.

Kind regards

Parking Manager

So, there is the happy ending that you were promised.

What went wrong? Just about everything.

Permit issuance was in-house back in September (it is now being dealt with by Capita which won't make things any better) and instead of rejecting the application the council should have banked the larger cheque and then sent a refund. That way Miss H would have had her permit on the day the zone extension came into force. Why this was still a problem when the council had declared on 2 August that they would not contest the parking judicial review decision is unclear.

The council should have cancelled the PCN as they knew Miss H had been issued with a permit. The fact that it had not been put in her car within a few days is not a heinous crime and she should have been given the benefit of the doubt.

When the council sent their letter of 28 November 13 they probably didn't set the computer properly to stop all action if £55 was paid by 11 December 13.

When the payment of 6 December was banked no-one thought to stop all further processing as this was an agreed full and final settlement. This is probably because cheques were sent, at that time, to Worthing and that is the offices of RR Donnelley and their job probably finished at the point of banking. It would be up to someone at NSL in Croydon to review the list of receipts and then update the processing software. That probably wasn't anyone's job either.

It looks like TASK, who shouldn't even have been involved at 24 January 14, as there isn't a Warrant in existence at that date, didn't properly follow up the promise made in their letter. NSL should not have given the query to their sister company TASK to investigate and really shouldn't use their own group company bailiff at all as there isn't sufficient scrutiny of what the bailiff does or enough independence.

It looks like the proof of payment sent in by Miss H didn't get looked at properly.

The amount charged by the bailiff was excessive (this one was under the old pre 6 April rules) even if the £117 was owing, which it wasn't.

So this is what you get when you outsource your parking enforcement to NSL and TASK. The mistreatment of pensioners. That is what One Barnet means. Remember this when you vote tomorrow. You didn't find this One Barnet outsourcing in the 2010 Conservative manifesto. What has been left out of the 2014 one? more of the same but worse?

Mr Mustard will see the apology. It had better be a good one.

At least he hasn't got to send this case to the Local Government Ombudsman, unlike Harrow Council who haven't yet twigged that when Mr Mustard sends them a complaint, that there will be plenty to complain about which they should take seriously. In Harrow they (the Newlyn employed bailiff) have removed a car that doesn't belong to the person named on the warrant which is a big no no. The compensation due will be sizeable. Mr Mustard gave them every chance to return the car and be reasonable.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Printed, promoted and published by Derek Dishman, 21 Carnarvon Rd, Barnet EN5 4LX

NSL mess up and send in NSL owned bailiff - how to profit from incompetence

never before seen, the Notice Processing Officers of NSL

Sometimes people ask Mr Mustard why he spends his time helping people. It is because the system has failed them, they have done their best, at their age they are slightly below their best and they need his help and expertise. He is happy to provide such help.

Yesterday, following a request from a friend, he went round to see a senior citizen at home who had been relieved of £406 that she did not owe. She had tried to sort it out with the council, but customer services didn't serve her well. Mr Mustard cuts through bureaucracy.

---

Dear Parking Manager

AG12345678

I represent Ms E of Barnet as attached authority. She is, I am told, and it would not be gallant to ask her to be more exact, a lady in her late seventies.

I find it necessary to complain on behalf of Ms E about the actions of your enforcement contractor NSL Ltd.

The story in brief is that on 14 April 2014 she paid the bailiff, N Brooks of Task Enforcement Ltd, the sum of £408.52 in respect of the above PCN to prevent the removal of her car.

On 28 November 13 the Notice of Rejection of Representations said "...have decided that the reduced amount of £55 will be accepted if payment is made within 14 days from the date of this letter. ..." (normally the offer would be within 14 days of service of this letter).

As she was shortly going abroad for a month Ms E decided to pay, even though she felt she had been poorly treated following the difficulties she had encountered in obtaining her permit, and the fact that she was not told that her dispensation was only for 14 days (she lives inside the recently extended D zone), in order to avoid any possible difficulty.

A cheque was sent by Special Delivery on 5 December 2013 (barcode AE123456789GB) and was signed for by "Frost" on 6 December 2013 (I have the proof of delivery). This was therefore 10 days after the offer to accept 50% in full and final settlement was made.

On 11 December the cheque was cleared so it was evidently banked pretty quickly. I have seen a bank statement.

A Charge Certificate was issued on 18 December 2013. It records the payment of £55. The council was absolutely not entitled to continue with enforcement as it had made an offer of settlement which had been satisfied.

What should happen now is that the sum paid to the bailiff of £408.52 is refunded as it was not due for payment and in compensation the PCN value paid, of £55, should be refunded. A letter of apology should also be sent by NSL Ltd to Ms E as she has had the worry of this to deal with and can ill afford to be without the funds paid to the bailiff.

This whole mess has come about because permits were dealt with in one place (I have not studied it in detail but Ms E did try to get a permit in good time and had two applications returned by the looks of it, probably due to the judicial review of the price), customer service calls in another and enforcement in a third. The system that is in existence in Barnet is simply not fit for purpose. I know it is not your decision to be set up in this way but it isn't properly serving the residents of Barnet.

Our senior citizens should not have to suffer the attentions of bailiffs as a result of the administrative incompetence of NSL Ltd, the parking enforcement contractor of the council.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

TASK jump the new charges gun

Every time that Mr Mustard looks at a PCN case which has got as far as the bailiff, he has been unhappy, because it is wrong in some way. Each time, Mr Mustard finds himself making a complaint to Barnet Council. Let us look at the "Notice" above.

This Notice was sent to a lady who has already proved, by production of a letter from the DVLA, that she was not the owner of the vehicle on the day in question as she had sold it prior to the PCN being issued. NSL, acting for the council, and Task (part of NSL) seem to be suffering from self profiting selective blindness. Both of them will have done a check of who the vehicle is registered to, near the start and at the end of the process.

This Notice should have been issued under the old rules as enforcement started prior to 6 April 14 but it isn't acceptable under those. It is simply a bullying letter of the worst kind but as it claims the fee under the new regime, Mr Mustard will judge it on that basis.

Firstly it is an illegal demand for money with menaces against a party who is not liable to pay.

There is no breakdown of the amount due. Mr Mustard knows that this is for a £110 PCN increased by 50% (+£55) and then by £7 to register at the Traffic Enforcement Centre, attached to Northampton County Court. Thus £172 is due for the PCN. The new rules (Statutory Instrument no. 1 of 2014 - Taking Control of Goods) allows for a fixed fee of £75 for debts under £1,500. That is how we reach £247 but the lady in the street isn't going to know that.

So far we have an excessive fee and a failure to provide a breakdown of fees.

The first communication from a bailiff (now called an Enforcement Agent) should be called a Notice of Enforcement and not a Notice of Intended removal. This is the start of the Compliance Stage.

It should give 7 clear days notice that a visit will take place. This letter does not allow the customary 2 days for postal service.

It does not explain the additional fees and expenses that may be applied if payment is not made. Some exact details are required.

The letter says goods are now at risk. They are not. They are not at risk until 7 clear days after the first Notice.

How to pay should include opening hours and days.

The Notice refers to previous notices and visits. If that were the case this is not the Notice that would be sent and we should have moved onto the Enforcement Stage for which, for a PCN, the fee is £235. These type of missives have often been sent when there have been no previous visits or notices.

Mr Mustard's final point is about the awful grammar. The sentence starting "Despite previous visits" does not make sense. The sentence which starts "To avoid this" contains the phrase "by the return" - by the return of what exactly? Letters and Notices of this standard do not put Barnet Council in a good light.

A council has a duty of care in respect of the way a bailiff goes about its business on behalf of the council as creditor. It should not sensibly delegate that oversight to a contractor, like NSL, especially when they are in the same group of companies as the bailiff concerned, as in this case.

Mr Mustard will keep on complaining about bailiffs until the message gets through and files of bailiffs are spot checked and until the use of bailiffs from the same group of companies is stopped as there is a clear conflict of interest.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Update: 17 April 2014

This has now been looked at by council management, possibly at the request of a councillor, and the PCN has been cancelled.

Bailiffs

The use of bailiffs to collect council tax has been in the news this week with the Citizens Advice service worried about the speed at which they are resorted to, charges being made for visits that never took place and councils not keeping any data about the actions of the bailiffs (in respect of whose behaviour they have a duty of care).

Mr Mustard usually gets involved with parking tickets before bailiffs are instructed and much prefers to keep it that way. He has however helped a few people and the following table gives you an idea of how the penalty for a simply traffic contravention (which may not even have taken place but any failure to follow the proper procedure means that you end up guilty) can increase to a disproportionate amount.

	Original	Value of	Bailiff	Bailiff	Extra paid	Notes
#	PCN £	Warrant £	Claim £		or claimed £
1	110	172	1,571	Newlyn	1,227	Car put on low loader to force payment
2	110	172				on the day the motorist returned from USA
3	130	202	431	Newlyn	229	visit stage (max 3)
4	110	172	389	Newlyn	217	visit stage (max 3)
5	110	172	185	Task	13	Initial letter
6	110	172	389	Newlyn	217	visit stage (max 3)
7	110	172	389	Newlyn	217	visit stage (max 3)
8	60	97	110	Task	13	Initial letter
9	110	172	623	Newlyn	451	visit stage (max 3) Overcharge
10	60	97	110	Task	13	Initial letter
11	110	172	185	Task	13	Initial letter
12	110	172	1,164	Newlyn	992	Vehicle taken to car pound
13	110	172	1,181	Newlyn	740	Vehicle taken to car pound
14	110	172
15	60	97
16	110	172	457	Newlyn	285	visit stage (max 3)

Amounts in black bold type were actually paid (before Mr Mustard was involved).

Amounts in blue were not paid and many of the PCN were subsequently cancelled due to illegal behaviour by the bailiff.

Amounts in red were not paid (save for a without prejudice settlement of £100 in the £740 case) and the vehicles were both recovered from the pound.

Although all the residents were in Barnet these cases includes ones for Camden and Harrow councils.

Bailiffs don't have to send the a warning letter before they visit but if they do it will cost you £11.20 + vat. If you owe the debt, pay it at this point.

After that you can be charged £28 + vat for debts under £100 (a £60 PCN will have become £97). For debts over £100 the bailiff charges should be 28% of the first £200 and 5.5% of the balance. Schedule 1 of The Enforcement of Road Traffic Debts (Certificated Bailiffs) Regulations 1993 states that aggregate costs and charges for attending to levy distress and for actually levying distress should not be more than 3 times the above amounts. On a £110 PCN, the debt due to the council rises to £172 so maximum charges should be £144.48 + vat (= £173.38).

In addition, Mr Mustard has seen clamping fees and vehicle removal fees and cancelled towing fees which is how you end up owing an extra £451 (or more). Once your car is removed an extra £30 a night or so will be added for storage.

It is clear that on file #9 that Newlyn were asking for more money than they were due to receive at a time when they had not yet (illegally) clamped the vehicle (which belonged to Motability).

Dealing with bailiffs who have your car in a clamp or a pound is very difficult. Please do what you can to avoid this situation by responding properly to all PCN paperwork.

The government are slowly getting round to bailiff legislation; not a moment too soon.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard

Mr Mustard was sad (but is OK now)

At the end of September Mr Mustard was sad. A lady phoned, early one evening, whose car had been taken by the bailiff on behalf of Barnet Council when she was outside the health centre with her toddler (not yet 2) and her disabled grandmother as, having just moved flat, she didn't have the £450 that the bailiff demanded otherwise he would remove her car. When dealing with bailiffs time is of the essence and Mr Mustard was on his way out to a meeting and was also at the hospital the next morning for a procedure and so he just couldn't help. Instead he passed the caller on to a bailiff advice line.

The lady, we'll call her Miss Ford, had 3 parking tickets from 2012 that she didn't know about for two reasons. The first was that she wasn't driving the car at the relevant times; her sister, now living abroad, was the driver and hadn't given her the parking tickets (always assuming she did get them as a lot do go missing). The second reason was that she lived in a block of flats each of which had its own letterbox but the postman used to leave the post in the communal hall. Sadly, the main street door was not locked and so anyone could steal the post which also happens a lot to facilitate identity theft.

So just like my other recent bailiff case, of Mr Toyota, the first that Miss Ford knew was when she had the shock of coming out of the health centre and seeing her car with a clamp on it. She had to call a minicab to get home.

Now there is a procedure within the legislation which is meant to provide justice in situations like this one. The motorist files a witness statement within 28 days of receiving the Order for Recovery. If you don't get the Order for Recovery then you file a witness statement out of time and explain why you are late in applying which must be the reason why you didn't get the various council documents. The flaw in this procedure is that the council can oppose it and they appear to routinely oppose such applications pretending that all is right with the world when it obviously wasn't (the use of bailiffs for PCN is a subject on which Mr Mustard plans to write in detail with his recommendations to the Chief Operating Officer). The application is considered by Court staff at the Traffic Enforcement Centre (TEC) attached to Northampton County Court. It is a sausage machine for churning out PCN related matters which otherwise all the local county courts would have to deal with. It would be better if each local county court did handle applications for its area as then local knowledge would build up and a more considered approach could be taken.

If the Out of Time witness statement is rejected, and this takes 4 to 6 weeks to process, during which time your car is stuck in the car pound, then you can ask for the matter to be considered by your local County Court. You can have a paper based decision (a bad idea as you can't influence an undecided judge) but a far better idea is to pay £80 and have an audience with a District Judge. The previous case, of Mr Toyota, took 3 months to get in front of the judge and during this time your car remains stuck in the car pound. If you convince the judge to allow your witness statement out of time the PCN is rolled back to the start so that you can make representations, or the case is referred to PATAS, and your car is released. If you don't convince the judge then you need to settle the £1,000+ bailiff bill or your vehicle will be sold and probably for less than it is worth on the open market.

In the case of Miss Ford the council (NSL) opposed the Out of Time witness statement on the grounds that they had sent everything to the address shown on the vehicle log book even though they knew of the postal delivery difficulties. They simply wanted to keep the enormous advantage they had over a by then 7 months pregnant lady. There was no compassion, sympathy or empathy in the internal emails Mr Mustard has seen; it was, per the council / NSL, all her own fault that she didn't get her post, post which she wasn't expecting to receive and she received all her bills by email so a letter was a rare event. The TEC duly refused the application. That was when Mr Mustard became involved as he had finished with his hospital visits.

He studied the 3 PCN. Let us call them 1, 2 & 3. He had 14 days in which to file the application to be heard in the local county court although he was minded to do a deal to have certainty and to save time and court fees.

PCN 1:

Pre dated December 12 so had invalid wording.

The locus of High Rd (FN) was too vague a description as Miss Ford wouldn't know where in the High Rd due to her not being present when the PCN was handed to the driver.

PCN 2:

Pre dated December 12 so had invalid wording.

The Charge Certificate was issued 26 days after the Notice to Owner whereas 28 days is the minimum clear period.

PCN 3:

Pre dated December 12 so had invalid wording.

There was a delay of 9 months between the Charge Certificate and the Order for recovery whereas there should not be more than 6 months.

Mr Mustard's main concern was to get the car back so despite Barnet Council being procedurally incorrect on all cases a settlement deal was offered of £110 (the value of one PCN) in return for the return of the car and the closure of all 3 files.

The counter-offer received was that the council agreed to unequivocally cancel PCN1 & PCN2 if a reduced fee of £450 was paid for PCN3 which they felt was OK. Now Mr Mustard had written 3 pages of detailed argument about:

• the PCN
• about service of documents
• about statements of truth
• about the bailiff himself
• about the attitude of staff, and
• about how vulnerable individuals should be treated

and got a page and a half in response.

One vital piece of information received in the reply was about the service of the Charge Certificate and Mr Mustard was told (full marks for honesty to the parking client side person involved) that it had been returned undelivered by the Royal Mail.

That was the smoking gun. That document being returned meant that the council (acting by their agents NSL) were not entitled to issue the Order for Recovery and weren't entitled to instruct a bailiff to seize the car. Oh dear.

Why did Mr Mustard ask this question? It was because he had put the 3 council witness statements (actually signed by an NSL employee whose identity Mr Mustard has chosen to redact as he must be junior and that is the deal Mr Mustard has with the Chief Operating Officer) side by side and noticed a sentence that wasn't there. Here they are:

to mislead by omission (bit obvious though)

So Mr Mustard wrote again to the parking client side of Barnet Council and copied in the Chief Operating Officer in the undoubted belief that he wouldn't be impressed with the council (NSL) cheating and pointed out that the Notice Processing Officer would have a hard time in front of the District Judge and that regulation 22 of the General Regulations 2007 had been breached. Although Mr Mustard could now demand the return of the car for nothing he would stick with his £110 without prejudice offer. It only took a little over 24 hours for this to be accepted and it has been paid so the pregnant lady (now 8 months) can collect her car and once again start taking her disabled grandmother to weekly medical appointments. Mr Mustard's sadness receded.

What does it show us though?

There is a Notice Processing Officer at NSL who is not doing the right thing.

The parking client side at the council can't properly monitor NSL's behaviour at a distance.

The parking client side are honest.

Misdemeanours like this have the potential to ruin the reputation of the council and they would have been a long time recovering if they had sold this car off.

The NSL contract needs a through auditing as to whether they follow the PCN process properly.

If NSL own the bailiff involved, TASK in this case, which they do, then the temptation to say no to everything to make more money for NSL must be enormous.

Once the council / NSL have you backed into a corner they don't want to let you out even if right is on your side (this episode has taken Mr Mustard two months to the day to resolve during which time a pregnant innocent lady has suffered without the use of her car).

It's all about the money.

The use of bailiffs to collect PCN is a big stick for a little problem.

Outsourcing carries huge risks and parking is the last service that should have been outsourced.

Yours frugally

Mr Mustard