What with advice changing from that given a year or so ago,
I thought I would just ask a couple of questions regarding a recent private parking charge.
a charge was sent to the registered keeper of a car parked on council owned land that had a private parking firm (Premier Park Ltd) enforcing access to a site by way of APNR system.
The driver has to access said site to gain entry to the work place, and had been using the site for several months whilst the ANPR was active, without any charges at all.
Driver was led to believe the car was registered on the system by his employer, but in fact wasn't.
Although when employer was approached, the car was immediately registered.
This was too late obviously to avoid the one off PCN, even though the car was parked prior to and after the PCN issued.
Employer insisted to ignore all letters from the parking firm, and consequently the registered keeper (who wasn't the driver) is a few months down the chain with increasing charges applied against them.
No appeal at all has been made (taking the employers advice quite literally)
Advice also from other drivers on same site that have also received PCN's from the same private firm, have said they totally ignored all letters, and after several months, the letters stopped coming.
In this case, the keeper has had a couple of debt collector letters demanding payment, and also suggesting if payment is not received or failure to acknowledge the letters, it will result in a solicitor stepping in and court action following.
So the question are:...
Can you ignore a letter implying court action is imminent ? ,
and what would be the consequences of ignoring this?
Is court the only way to settle this now?
Would the keeper (who wasn't the driver) have to go to court, or can the driver go instead?
Is it now too late to appeal anyway?
(The appeal I guess would go to the Parking firm, not the debt collector)
Others have suggested a letter accompanied with a cheque to cover the original charge could be sent, explaining the extra charges added to the original fine are excessive, and the enclosed cheque is sent with the understanding that the charge is now dropped, and no further letters are to be sent..... etc etc
But does that actually work?
Also, cheques and letters in the post all take time, so could overlap yet another demand with yet higher costs en-route to the keeper. Which would take priority so to speak?
Any advice is greatly appreciated....
Thanks