Thread: Help - Outstanding fine for driving with foglights on

I need some advice on how to respond to the following:-

My partner was issued a fine whilst away for the weekend last September. He had been driving with his fog lights on and had forgotten to switch them off. He must have mislaid the fine ticket and forgotten about it & it never got paid.

He received a letter at his parents address around mid May 09 - the letter advised that the court had issued a warrant to sieze goods unless he made payment within 14 days, this letter was actually dated 7th April 2009????

He wrote back to the courts explaining that the letter had only just been received and advised them he had been made redundant & asked if he could have an extension until 1st July 2009 to pay the outstanding fine.

A letter was sent from the court dated 5th June 2009 advising that they were no longer dealing with the account as it had been passed to a DCA, they sent contact details for the collection company, this info advised that a distress warrent had been made to recover goods.

The collection agency have not contacted my partner so he called them, their automated line advised the amount owed is £90 {was £45}.

What can he do - is there anyway he can just make the inital repayment of £45 to the court concerned or will he have to pay the £90?

We rang the court who advised the account was passed over at end of May 2009. They advised they had had a backlog of post hence only replying to our letter recently. They also claim that they had sent a court summons and another letter at the start of this year but they simply havent been received??

Any advice greatly appreciated
Thanks

Originally Posted by masjntt

They also claim that they had sent a court summons and another letter at the start of this year but they simply havent been received??

The bit in bold above just doesn't make sense,

Driving with foglights on would have been a non-endorsable, police-issued FPN.

Once the FPN was issued, there are only three lines of action open

1) Pay it - this obviously has not happened;
2) Elect to fight it. This means that positive action must be taken by the recipient to reject the FPN and elect for trail. In this case, the FPN will be replaced by a summons;
3) Ignore it - which it what seems to have happened here. In this circumstance, the fine will be enforced in the same way as any other Court fine; via court appointed bailiffs.

As your partner has failed to either pay or fight the FPN, then he is liable. I suggest that he pays this now, before the warrant is executed and goods removed.

I fail to see how you can 'forget' that you have been stopped by the Police and given an FPN.

Hi

Thank you for your reply & advice.

With regards to what I wrote about the court sending a letter & court summons via the post well this is what we were told by the court yesterday when we queried why the account had been passed to bailiffs and our letter regarding payment ignored. So am not sure why they would tell us this if this wasnt standard procedure ???

We will take your advice re paying the fine - thanks

My partner is frequently stopped by the police and is asked to produce his documents on average once a fortnight, he is a motor trader so is often in different vehicles and doesnt always have his documents with him. So that in conjunction with the reason why he was away that weekend {brother dying}, he did quite simply forget about the FPN. As soon as a letter reached him he responded immediately but the courts did not reply to the letter until after they had passed the letter to bailiffs despite my partner making an offer of payment.

I agree that my partner shouldnt have forgotten about the FPN, but I think that the court shouldnt have passed his file over to bailiffs given the fact that my partner had contacted them with an offer of payment and was waiting for a reply from the court to check this was acceptable.