Do I have a chance with popla? Options

[SchenJen]

Hello.

I think I have made a dog's dinner of this.

I am the keeper of a car which was parked in my residents only car park.

The permit I was given had the wrong details so I informed the management company who said that they'd get a new one out and ensure my car was not ticketed. The driver has not been putting the permit in when they park as the permit's registration does not equal the actual registration.

My car received a windscreen sticker on the 7th with a typo in the reg (attached here).

I received an NTK with the correct reg.

I should have appealed saying "not POFA compliant" but I decided to contact the management company and expected there to be an understanding. Anyway, they rejected my appeal and gave me a popla code on a letter dated 19th April stating that I should appeal to popla within 28 days. I replied saying that they should reconsider and they sent me another rejection letter with the same popla code on a letter dated 26th April saying to appeal to popla within 28 days.

I contacted DVLA to find out if anyone contacted them to get my details about 11 days ago but I haven't heard back yet.

Today I received a letter from a debt recovery company dated 16th May saying to pay up.

Am I too late to contact popla?

This post has been edited by SchenJen: Thu, 24 May 2018 - 18:05

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[Eljayjay]

As you are not getting very far with this, I think you need to take stock and try something different.



It sounds pretty obvious from what you have said that you are the tenant of a buy-to-rent landlady who owns the head lease to the property.

That being so, you need to get a copy of her head lease as it will give details of her parking rights and the covenants which go with those rights.

If your landlady will not provide a copy of the head lease, you can obtain your own copy from the Land Registry by completing form OC2 and paying a fee.

So, get a copy of the head lease and come back when you have it. I shall then gladly tell you what you need to look for in the lease.

In a residential case, the head lease is a key document and is likely to be your greatest friend.



Alternatively, you could give the parking company the opportunity to do some work for its money by trying to get your head around the letter below and, if you like it, send it.

In effect, the letter is saying to the parking company, if you believe that you have a right to issue tickets in my parking space, prove it.

The letter was originally drafted for a residential case as a response to a letter before claim/letter of claim – they are the same thing – but it can be sent at any time.

If the parking company does not reply to the letter when it is first used, then you would have lost nothing. Furthermore, you can use a slightly modified version of it as a response to whatever else you receive up to and including the letter before claim/letter of claim.

Of course, in the very unlikely event that the parking company provides a complete response to the draft letter, the information and documentation supplied by them will be very useful to you.

If I were you, I would send the letter today – using first class mail, handing it in at a Post Office counter, and requesting a free certificate of posting – sit back and relax until you receive what, if anything, comes next.



Dear <salutation>,

Thank you for your <letter/email/parking charge notice> reference <their ref> of <date> in relation to a parking issue at <location>.

I am the registered keeper of the vehicle on which the parking charge notice was placed.

If your company wishes to continue its attempt to recover the alleged parking charge, it will need to establish its right to the money through the County Court.

Before taking court action against me, however, in accordance with The Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims as made by the Master of the Rolls as Head of Civil Justice, your company must send me a letter of claim.

The purpose of The Pre-Action Protocol is to give both your company and myself an opportunity to narrow the issues between us. That being so, after the letter of claim has been sent, your company must give me a window of time in which to respond to the letter and to request information and documents from it.

If your company would like me to reconsider my position before we get to that stage, it may wish to provide now the information and documents, which I shall otherwise request later, so that we can attempt to narrow the issues between us now. If so, please arrange for your company to send me the following:-

<tab> the parking agreement between your company and the owner or occupier of the land purporting to grant the right to your company to charge for parking on the land;

<tab> the site plan provided by your company to its accredited trade association;

<tab> a copy of the written contract for the alleged debt;

<tab> the accredited trade association’s code of practice to which your company claims to adhere;

<tab> if there is a lease governing parking on the land, a copy of the lease;

<tab> if a lease exists and contains express provision to allow your company to operate a parking scheme on the land, a note of the specific clauses in the lease applicable to this situation;

<tab> if a lease exists and any rules or regulations have been made in accordance with its provisions to allow your company to operate a parking scheme on the land:-

<tab><tab> (a) a copy of those rules or regulations duly signed, etc. by the person(s) who made them; and
<tab><tab> (b) a note of the specific clauses in the lease in accordance with which those rules or regulations were made;

<tab> if a lease exists and it granted individual rights to park on the land to a particular person, e.g. the lessee, a note of the name and address of that person and a copy of the instrument which either transferred those individual rights from that person to your company or transferred a share of those individual rights from that person to your company – if there is more than one such person, please provide the same information and documentation for each of them;

<tab> if a lease exists and its terms do not permit third parties, e.g. your company, to enforce the lease’s terms, a note explaining how your company has concluded that it has acquired such a right;

<tab> if a lease exists and your company’s parking scheme has not been introduced in accordance with its provisions, a note explaining how your company has concluded that its alleged parking contract with the driver has acquired primacy of contract over the lease; and

<tab> notes giving details of the due diligence process undertaken by your company to ensure that not only the contract between your company and its principal but also the purported contract between your company and the driver met the “Implied term about care and skill” requirement contained in the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982.

Of course, I am sure that, like me, your company has great respect for the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims and, particularly, its aims as expressed in its paragraph 2. In these circumstances, I am sure that your company would like to narrow and, if at all possible, resolve the issues between us by providing the information and documents requested above at the earliest possible opportunity.

In that event, I shall gladly reconsider my position on receipt of them.

As I am sure you will realise, in the event that your company does not provide the information and documents prior to court action being taken against me, I shall apply to the court for your company’s claim to be struck out for its failure to comply with The Protocol.

Furthermore, in the event of court action being taken against me, I shall launch a counterclaim against your company.

I look forward to receiving your reply.

Yours sincerely,

[nosferatu1001]

All that messes about with your crfedit score is a CCJ

The "J" is for JUDGEMENT. A pending claim can do NOTHING. Only if you lose AND you refuse to pay within one month with a CCJ stay on your file. So STOP PANICKING. Also, you need to get out your thread adn read up. Youve asked nothing that hasnt been asked before - its a common issue, you can comfort yourself by seeing youre not alone, or unique here!

[Churchmouse]

1-What IF the contract doesn't explicitly state anything about parking apart from the one or two lines already mentioned in the thread? That doesn't explicitly state that one parking spot is included in the rental agreement. Will that alone stand up in court?

Your situation is not the same as would apply to a leaseholder with a specific assigned space, but it is a common one. Those two "parking" provisions certainly imply that parking is allowed under the terms of your tenancy agreement. It is impossible to say for certain what might "stand up in court" because there are always different ways of looking at things. You could get a judge that irrationally hates PPCs, or one who thinks that if you got a ticket, you must have done something wrong...

But, as I mentioned earlier, the ball's in their court. Nothing will happen unless the PPC decides to file a court claim.

--Churchmouse

[hcandersen]

If you don’t have your correspondence with the management company, then get it.

Do you have this in writing? If not, get it now.

Dear ****,
You’ll remember that I spoke/wrote to you on *** and *** about the situation regarding the demands from *** for parking wihout a permit. You will recall that you advised me ******.

However, I still do not have the permit, they have not cancelled their demands and ******.

Frankly IMO until you get court papers from **, then your main focus on the offensive should be the management company.

Don’t sideline this part and risk getting drowned in parking process. You have a legitimate complaint, pursue it and don’t go into defensive mode.

[SchenJen]

Further to my complaint to the BPA, POPLA have re-assessed the evidence properly and have overturned their decision.

I cannot thank the contributors to this thread (and the wider pepipoo community) enough.

@Eljayjay I have kept a copy of your letter and will be trying to get a copy of the head lease (not sre if it will help me as per churchmouse's comment, I might just ask the landlady to amend the contract), so thank you for your effort.

@hcandersen, I do have it in writing and I assure you I will be writing a strongly worded letter to them telling them to work harder for their money.

I am not a rich person by any measure (otherwise I would have put down a deposit for a flat of my own) but if there's a pot that we can contribute to to help with court costs of a user's invalid pcn then I would be happy to contribute.

One thing I noticed from POPLA's response was that it seems they can still issue a valid NTK if they reference the incorrect VRN on the NTD...Can someone explain this to me please?

As the recording of the vehicle registration has been questioned and has been shown differently on the NTD issued to the vehicle the operator must validate its issuance of it. In this instance, the operator supplied a copy of a NTD and NTK recording the correct vehicle details without referencing any incorrect recording of the vehicle details on the NTD issued.

[Albert Ross]

The only use would be to acknowledge a mistake; and ask you to name the driver, they couldn't invoke keeper liability.
There still would be no requirement to name the driver.

[Redivi]

Valid for what ?
It still fails POFA

The Notice to Driver is the document attached to the windscreen, not the corrected one sitting in the operator's filing cabinet

Valid to whom ?
If it references the incorrect registration number, it's not the OP's vehicle

[Eljayjay]

Well done!

Obviously, I hope that your problems are over but...

If you live in a leasehold property (even if you are not the lessee), it is always worth having a copy of the head lease because it sets out the rights and obligations of those who are parties to it.

For a sub-tenant, such as yourself, it is useful to know what your landlord's rights and obligations are.

So, just in case there is a next time, I would obtain a copy of the lease now.

I have probably mentioned before that, if your landlord will not let you have a copy, you can obtain your own copy from the Land Registry by completing a form OC2 and paying the appropriate fee.