My Congestion Charge Surprise Ticket!

[ringway]

Hi everyone,

In February my job took me to Strand, London.

It was an eventful day (too longwinded to post here) and I recall entering the congestion charge zone. Oops I thought..

I never heared from the authorities and assumed, because of this, (although I'm not sure of the congestion charge rules) that I was in the zone at a time when no charge would be levied.

However, I recently recieved an "Order of recovery of unpaid penalty charge" requesting payment of £185.00!

I gather the fee for entering the C/C zone is £7.00 which I would have willingly paid had I known it was due.


Now the intesting bit..

My S210, Sprinter and Omega are registered to my company which is RINGWAY ******.

In their infinite wisdom the DVLA listed the S210 as being owned by RINGHAM ******!
I did visit the DVLA office to have their error corrected and received the V5 with the correct details.

I'm sure the RINGWAY vs RINGHAM error may have a lot to do with me not recieving the initial penalty notification, but I fear that I may struggle to get the penalty down to the original £7.00 fee.

Does anyone know where I stand in relation to the above?


Thanks in advance.

Paul.

 

[Stratman]

You don't stand, you grovel.

 

[jaymanek]

problem is, you will never get it down to £7 as if you dont pay it the same day, the minimum fine is the £40? I think.

So your best bet is to call customer services and explain, maybe they will come to some compromise...

 

[flango]

Paul

See HERE for the process looks like you have missed the first 2 communications so I would challenge it.

Interesting point for you on the bailiff front . A bailiff in the UK has no right to enter your house or sieze your property. A true bailiff must be acting under a distress warrant or liability order issued by a magistrates court and magistrates are loathed to sign them. Bailiffs are not allowed to sieze

tools, goods, vehicles and other items of equipment necessary for use by you in your employment, business or vocation;
clothing, bedding, furniture, household equipment and provisions as are necessary for satisfying the basic domestic needs of you and your family

There is a lot of crap talked about what bailiffs can and can't do and this is SWMBO area of expertise, the ammount of them she has taken to court and won I have lost count of, particularly when it comes to home repossesions or missed rent payments and they have tried to sieze goods.

A bailiff acting on behalf of someone collecting unpaid fines has no power at all, no magistrate would ever sign an order to allow them to enforce collection.

Just PM me the full details and I'll get SWMBO's pal to look at it for you if you want, I remember you talking about this at the Peak District GTG

Just thought I'd bring the bailiff thing up at the same time

 

[markjay]

It's £8, and you won't be able to pay that any more, but from experience if you write to them (or these days - email) and say that you never received the original PCN by post, they may allow you to pay the original half-fine with no penalties.

 

[neilrr]

Someone on this site will tell you how to get that fine thrown out - http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?act=idx

 

[jonnyboy]

Paul

See HERE for the process looks like you have missed the first 2 communications so I would challenge it.

Interesting point for you on the bailiff front . A bailiff in the UK has no right to enter your house or sieze your property. A true bailiff must be acting under a distress warrant or liability order issued by a magistrates court and magistrates are loathed to sign them. Bailiffs are not allowed to sieze

tools, goods, vehicles and other items of equipment necessary for use by you in your employment, business or vocation;
clothing, bedding, furniture, household equipment and provisions as are necessary for satisfying the basic domestic needs of you and your family

There is a lot of crap talked about what bailiffs can and can't do and this is SWMBO area of expertise, the ammount of them she has taken to court and won I have lost count of, particularly when it comes to home repossesions or missed rent payments and they have tried to sieze goods.

A bailiff acting on behalf of someone collecting unpaid fines has no power at all, no magistrate would ever sign an order to allow them to enforce collection.

Just PM me the full details and I'll get SWMBO's pal to look at it for you if you want, I remember you talking about this at the Peak District GTG

Just thought I'd bring the bailiff thing up at the same time

Off topic, I'm having a similar issue with Oxford Court as they have now twice convicted me of failure to provide driver details (a company vehicle was GATSO caught speeding and we genuinely didnt know who drove) despite the fact I have never received a court date. They are shocking, absolutely inept, incapable of seeing reason, they have appointed bailiffs, agreed it is an error, yet are unable to call off the bailiffs (who you cannot speak to - they don't respond to emails either).

Madness. Good reading about bailiffs rights though. Cheers.

 

[MOCAŠ]

Flanaia1, I hear what you're saying about bailiffs not being able to act without a signed warrant, but it seems the process has been streamlined in relation to PCN enforcement. The page about bailiffs on the direct.gov website includes a link to info about PCN enforcement, which is handled centrally via the national Traffic Enforcement Centre (TEC):

The local authority has to wait for 14 days after sending you the charge certificate. They can then apply to the Traffic Enforcement Centre (TEC) at Northampton county court for an order to recover the penalty charge. This is called an 'order for recovery' and it tells you that the debt has been registered with the TEC. This will register the charge 'as if it is a county court judgment' and add court costs to the amount you owe. The order is sent to you by the local authority along with a form called a 'statutory declaration' which you can use to dispute the charge.

WARNING: You have 21 days to fill in the statutory declaration form if you want to object to the charge. If you do not file a valid statutory declaration with TEC within 21 days of the date on the Order for Recovery, the Local Authority may enforce the Charge by requesting a warrant. Once the warrant has been authorised by TEC, the Local Authority will employ private bailiffs to execute the warrant.

You can object after the 21 days allowed but you need to have a good reason why your application is late. You also have to fill in an'application to file a statutory declaration out of time' as well as the normal statutory declaration. If you do not fill in a statutory declaration, the court will carry on enforcing the charge against you.

So, it appears from this that the issuing of a Warrant of Enforcement via the TEC would not involve a specific application to a magistrate. Is that correct?

It's also interesting to note what bailiffs can/can't do, and seize:

If the bailiffs come to your home, you don't have to let them in. They can't force their way in, but they can enter through an open window or an unlocked door.

Forced entry includes pushing past you once you have opened the door to them, or leaving their foot in the door to prevent you closing it. Such action would make the whole process illegal.

Bailiffs recovering unpaid magistrates' court fines, however, do have the power to force entry, but this is always a last resort.

Bailiffs trying to recover money you owe to HMRC are allowed to break into your home, providing they have a magistrates' warrant - but this method is rare and only used as a last resort.

Bailiffs can't take essentials such as clothing, bedding, cookers, fridges, most furniture and the 'tools of your trade' (for example, a computer you use for work). They can take non-essential items such as your television, and also possessions outside your home (for example, your car or garden equipment).

 

[MOCAŠ]

Just to summarise the revelant amounts in relation to a (one-off, non-discounted) Congestion Charge:

• If you pay in advance or up to midnight on the day: £8
• If you pay by midnight the following day: £10
• After that, a 28-day PCN for £120 is issued, which is reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days.
• If you don't pay or challenge the PCN within 28 days, a Charge Certificate may be issued, which puts the amount owed up to £180.
• The next step is the Order of Recovery, which presumably adds a £5 admin fee to the total.

Ringway, as mentioned in my previous post, your next step is to make a Statutory Declaration (and a Statutory Declaration Out of Time if it's been more than 21 days since the date of service of the Order for Recovery). If your Statutory Declaration is accepted on the basis that you did not receive the original PCN, the PCN is re-issued at the full amount (£120). It's not clear from the information on the TfL website whether the 50% concession for payment within 14 days still applies at this point.

 

[ringway]

Many thanks for the advice everyone.

I had no idea that two previous notices had been issued - thanks for the information.


I think the first thing I'll do is call the helpline in the morning and see if I can negotiate a lower fee.

I think it goes without saying that if I'd received the initial notice, I would have paid it straight away..

Thanks again.

Paul.

 

[flango]

Flanaia1, I hear what you're saying about bailiffs not being able to act without a signed warrant, but it seems the process has been streamlined in relation to PCN enforcement.

So, it appears from this that the issuing of a Warrant of Enforcement via the TEC would not involve a specific application to a magistrate. Is that correct?

It's also interesting to note what bailiffs can/can't do, and seize:

You are correct a warrant of enforcement by the TEC does not go via a magistrate and thats where it all begins to fall down, there is a lot of contradiction between bailiffs appointed without magistrates permission by the TEC but approved by the county court and bailiffs acting in accordance with warrants of distress etc.

Basically if the TEC appointed bailiff puts one foot wrong then slam them in court, SWMBO did this on behalf of my old boss and took the private bailiff to the cleaners, she then engaged her pal a barrister and went after the local authority for appointing a bailiff and won that one as well. The local authority in question (near London) now don't employ bailiffs to recover PCN or arrears at all.

Will get chapter and Verse when she comes in just to make sure I get it right

Basically TEC appointed bailiffs have no balls

 

[oldcro]

Basically TEC appointed bailiffs have no balls[/QUOTE]

What! Are they employing female bailiffs now?

 

[Londonscottish]

problem is, you will never get it down to £7 as if you dont pay it the same day, the minimum fine is the £40? I think.

So your best bet is to call customer services and explain, maybe they will come to some compromise...

+1. I've been caught out by this before (due to my own ineptness) and have called and asked for leniency (grovelled, basically) and have got away with the £60 charge. The tele ops have obviously got a fair bit of leeway.

So if you can't get it thrown out on a technicality this is the sensible plan B.

 

[312 Sprinter]

http://www.autoalert.me.uk/doc/FOI_CDRA_V2_190606.pdf

Are the rules for appeals. It was obtained under the freedonm of information act apparently.

 

[ringway]

http://www.autoalert.me.uk/doc/FOI_CDRA_V2_190606.pdf

Are the rules for appeals. It was obtained under the freedonm of information act apparently.

Very detailed information. Many thanks.

 

[bluevenetian]

on the Ringway Ringham issue -- was the address the same? A few years ago I received a 180 quid fine for a driving infringement. The letter said that since I had not paid the initial fine of 40 odd quid the matter had gone to court and I now owed 180 quid.
I had not received any earlier letter because while most of the address was correct, the postcode was not. When I phoned the local authority which issued the ticket, they merely stated they had used the postcode provided by DVLA. This was plainly nonsense since the DVLA had been happily sending me tax disc reminders with the correct postcode. To cut a long story short, I had to go to a magistrates court and have a magistrate declare what my correct postcode was -- I went to Bow St shortly before it closed. I then challenged Camden council over the initial infraction and received the worst written piece of officialise/jargon I've ever received. I could not work out for the life of me whether they had accepted my challenge or what.....so I did nothing and so far I've not heard a peep out of them since

 

[ringway]

Anticipating a stonewall stance and fearing the worst, I called the helpline this morning and was pleasantly surprised at the helpfulness of the man I spoke to. He understood the situation and pointed me in the right direction to get the PCN back to the (I think) £40 level.

I went to the nearest Magistrates Court and had the the paperwork witnessed, signed and stamped by a court official. :bannana:

I pity those who work in the courts. What a grim place.

Makes me glad that I've twice managed to escape jury service.

Thanks everyone, for all the useful advice and offers to help.

 

[petecb]

had a similar thing happen to me , didnt know id gone in the congestion zone , first thing i knew it was 6 months later and i had a £500 bill from a balif . told me it had already gone to court but couldnt tell me which one . I tried getting in contact with the respective aurthorities but they said they werent dealing with it anymore and to only speak to the balif company . I had no correspondance from anyone apart the the debt letter from the balif . I tried fighting it for 2-3 months but in the end I told the balifs that i had split up from my wife and moved out and if they wanted payment they would have to accept installments . They were happy to do this as if not they wouldnt have an address to persue me on . A bit sneaky but I didnt have the cash to outlay at that time. All i can say is dont expect alot of help from the court , its easy money as far as they can see .

 

[markjay]

Anticipating a stonewall stance and fearing the worst, I called the helpline this morning and was pleasantly surprised at the helpfulness of the man I spoke to. He understood the situation and pointed me in the right direction to get the PCN back to the (I think) £40 level.

I went to the nearest Magistrates Court and had the the paperwork witnessed, signed and stamped by a court official. :bannana:

I pity those who work in the courts. What a grim place.

Makes me glad that I've twice managed to escape jury service.

Thanks everyone, for all the useful advice and offers to help.

Result

 

[MOCAŠ]

Good news, Ringway, but I'm not sure there is a '£40 level'. If the next step is the re-issue of the original PCN, then it'll either be £120 or (if the 14-day concession still applies) £60. Still, either way it's better than £185 and the threat of bailiffs, toothless or otherwise.