Bailiff letters arrived, first knowledge of any fines!?

[windcriesmary]

I got home today to find 4 letters addressed to me. I opened one and found that it refers to an unpaid penalty charge notice. It states that a warrant has been issued by the county court which has been passed onto them (the bailiffs). It requires me to pay £197 within 7 days or a bailiff will turn up.

 

I opened the rest of the letters and found that they have sent two separate notices of charges followed by a copy of each letter. So I actually have not one but two fines! I phoned the company and spoke to them to ask what I am supposed to owe as this is the first time I had heard anything at all about the matter.

Apparently its for two offenses where I have stopped on a loading bay, both in October 2008. Having looked at the location I imagine that I had stopped to use the cash machine having no idea that this wasn't allowed. One of the notices is for a Sunday.

 

Now here comes the bit where I could be at fault, I only recently remembered to send off my V5 form to say I had moved address. I moved from my old address around the time they say these penalty fines are from. So if the letters had gone to my old address, the reason for me not having any knowledge until now, do I have any leg to stand on?

I'm worried as they are giving me 7 days to pay up and I really dont have enough cash to pay a fine that equals almost £400.

 

Any help greatly appreciated!

[melsy784]

If the tickets were issued by your local authority and are being enforced by a private bailiff - yes you can do something but you need to act quick !

Get online onto www.trafficpenaltytribunal.gov.uk and apply for first an application to make a statutory declaration out of time and at the same time file a statutory declaration stating you did not receive the ticket and any subsequent correspondence.

Print copies of these off and fax them immediatly to the bailiffs office - this stops all enforcement action

Your case will then be considered by a tribunal who are independant - you will get notice of the hearing and this will allow you to put forward your case

 

Hope this helps !

[windcriesmary]

Thanks for that, I'll head to there now and have a look. I was just wondering if I might find it hard to appeal anything as i was at fault for not changing my address on the V5 in time. Or could I argue that they should have been able to track me down easily enough seeing as I'm on the council register etc for my current address. The landlords in our previous house also had our new address, so they could have asked them. Thanks again

[melsy784]

You can appeal on the grounds that you did not receive the ticket at the time of the offence or the notice to owner form because you had moved house

You must point out if you did notify DVLA of your change of address any delay in changing your address must be due to them - not you

If you are successful and your statutory declaration is allowed this will revert the ticket back to its original amount and you can either pay it or object to its issue

[windcriesmary]

Great help thankyou. I just worry, as I left it only until quite recently to get the V5 sent off, I had completely forgotten to do it, noticed the address was the old one and posted it off. So with the date the ticket was issued being October last year the DVLA would definitely not have known at that time that I'd moved.

[windcriesmary]

New problem, the penalties are from London, on the tribunal it only deals with outside London? Any options?

[lamma]

Patas

[windcriesmary]

Patas

 

Thanks just looking at the website now. They don't make it easy

[lamma]

If they did more people would appeal !

[windcriesmary]

Very true, I'll give it a go.

[windcriesmary]

hmm I phoned the council in camden where the penalties we're issued from, I thought it was a good idea to know exactly what the penalties are for. It relates to two times where I stopped on a loading bay where there is no loading at any time. Not sure where it says this though. I did explain that my reason for getting out of the car had been to use a cash machine not for 'loading' but I guess that doesnt work.

The guy I talked to was fairly sure that if I appeal they will ignore it due to the fact that I was too late to inform the DVLA of my address change. He also seemed to think that the bailiff could still charge me for time while the witness statement is being looked at.

So should I risk it and appeal or accept defeat and try to get the bailiffs to agree to a payment plan?

[windcriesmary]

ok so the best offer the bailiffs can give me is to pay around £130 a month for 3 months. They wont take less, should they be able to offer me an easier payment plan, I'm not in a good position to be paying that much a month at the moment at all

[Jamberson]

Hi.

 

Before a PCN can be enforced, you are entitled to receive a Notice to Owner for each one and exercise your right of appeal against the two charges. If you did not receive the Notice to Owners, because you moved, then you have grounds to contest this enforcement.

 

If you failed to notify DVLA, that's one issue, but it's not something which can be used by the local authority as a mechanism to insist you pay the bailiffs and their associated fees.

 

Forget the issue of the original contraventions for the moment - you have a right to contest the bailiff warrants if the Notice to Owners went to your old address.

 

While you do so (which you do by filing an "Out of Time Statutory Declaration", one for each PCN), the local authority should instruct the bailiff to hold fire, so if I were you I would get them filed ASAP. It's not as complex as it seems.

 

My advice would be to ask Northampton County Court for the forms at once (remember, "Out of Time", which is important) and get them filed as soon as you can. There is a slim chance the bailiff will act in the few days between now and your filing the forms, but if you've communicated with them already about payment plans, chances are they will not jump on you just yet.

 

Get the forms filed, then hopefully the bailiffs will be called off completely and you'll be back with two charges which you can appeal with the authority - or just pay them at the normal charge.

 

Normally filing the Out of Time Statutory Declarations entails filling them in by ticking the box which says "did not receive the Notice to Owner", and in the explanation bit, explain that you moved house and did not update DVLA quickly enough. (Don't fill in loads of stuff about the parking contravention itself - it's not relevant to this process.)

 

Then, take them to your local County Court and advise the person on the desk that you want to file them. They will witness this, stamp them for you, and then you need to post them to Northampton County Court. It doesn't take long.

 

If they are rejected for some reason, you will be notified in writing and won't incur anything extra meantime. If they succeed, you've at least saved a load of fees.