my wife parked the car in Colindale and I got a pcn from parking control management, addressed to me the registered keeper, I wanted to fight it but I think I'm way out of my depth , i was under the impression that because i was the registered keeper and not the driver I wouldn't be liable, i also read that i should ignore the letters and wait for it to go to court the 26/02/2017 PCN was issued 05/04/2017 i received a keeper liability letter, which states that under the protection of freedoms act 2012 schedule 4 states the registered keeper of the vehicle becomes liable, and its too late to name the driver and everything is on me , i thought it was just threats and i should wait it out 31/05/2017 23/06/2017 i have now two debt recovery letters from Trace asking 160 pounds any suggestions would be greatly appreciated having looked into this further i see that there is a very strong case for defence,and its getting favourable decisions in county court Defence I assert that I am not liable to the Claimant for the sum claimed, or any amount at all, for the following reasons: 1.***** I was, at the relevant date, the registered keeper of the vehicle in question. On the material date, I stopped in the layby for a very brief period of time. I did not see any nearby signage prohibiting this. 2.***** I subsequently received a Notice to Keeper from the Claimant, alleging that a charge of £100 was due to them. I did not send an appeal to the Claimant. or a further appeal to the Independent Appeals Service (IAS), the allegedly independent body appointed by the Claimant’s trade body, the Independent Parking Committee (IPC). My research revealed that the IAS, far from being independent, is a subsidiary of the IPC, which in turn is owned and run by the same two Directors who also run Gladstones Solicitors, the individuals in question being John Davies, and William Hurley. Such an incestuous relationship is incapable of providing any fair means for motorists to challenge parking charges, as well as potentially breaching the SRA Code of Conduct. As such, the Claimant does not come to this matter with clean hands. 3.***** The Claimant’s signage with the largest font at this site states “No Customer Parking At Any Time”. A further sign with much smaller writing and higher up states “The loading bay is only for authorised vehicles actively loading & unloading when delivering to the commercial tenants of Heath parade”. It is submitted that if these notices are attempting to make a contractual offer, then as they are forbidding they do not fulfil the basic requirement of a contract, which is that each party to the contract must offer valuable consideration to the other party, on clear terms capable of acceptance. In this case neither the Claimant, nor their principal the landowner, is offering anything to motorists. The notices cannot, therefore, reasonably be construed as having created a contractual relationship between the Claimant and the Defendant. The above point was recently tested in the County Court at High Wycombe, in the case of Parking Control Management (UK) Ltd v Bull & 2 Others (B4GF26K6, 21 April 2016), where District Judge Glen dismissed all three claims, stating in his judgment that: *“If the notice had said no more than if you park on this roadway you agree to pay a charge then it would have been implicit that PCM was saying we will allow you to park on this roadway if you pay £100 and I would agree with Mr Samuels’ first analysis that essentially the £100 was a part of the core consideration for the licence and was not a penalty for breach. The difficulty is that this notice does not say that at all. This notice is an absolute prohibition against parking at any time, for any period, on the roadway. It is impossible to construct out of this in any way, either actually or contingently or conditionally, any permission for anyone to park on the roadway. All this is essentially saying is you must not trespass on the roadway. If you do we are giving ourselves, and we are dressing it up in the form of a contract, the right to charge you a sum of money which really would be damages for trespass, assuming of course that the claimant had any interest in the land in order to proceed in trespass.” While this is a County Court decision and therefore not binding, it is on all fours with the present case and may be considered as persuasive. A full transcript of the Approved Judgment for the above case will be provided in the event that this case proceeds to a hearing. 5.***** In addition, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 rules that if signage has multiple interpretation the interpretation most favourable to the consumer applies. It is clear from this the signage with the largest font should apply. 6.***** In the alternative, if it was held that the signage was contractually valid, it would be impossible for a motorist to have read the terms and conditions contained therein from a moving or stopped vehicle, and if the vehicle is stopped, the ‘contravention’ according to the Claimant is already committed. 7.***** The above point was recently tested in several cases regarding Hayes and Harlington station. There a similar situation arises as the vehicles were charged for briefly stopping but the signs are far away from vehicles and high up In all cases it was ruled that no contract was entered by performance as the signage could not be read from a vehicle. No transcripts are available but as PCM UK were the claimant in all cases they will be fully aware of the cases;*C3GF46K8,*C3GF44K8,*C3GFY8K8**,* 8.***** *The IPC code of conduct states that a grace period must be allowed in order that a driver might spot signage, go up to it, read it and then decide whether to accept the terms or not. A reasonable grace period in any car park would be from 5-15 minutes from the period of stopping. This grace period was not observed and therefore the operator is in breach of the industry code of practice. Additionally no contract can be in place by conduct until a reasonable period elapses. 9.***** Thus the signage is simply a device to entrap motorists into a situation whereby the Claimant sends them invoices for unwarranted and unjustified charges, for which motorists can have no contractual liability due to the terms and conditions not having been sufficiently brought to their attention. This activity is bordering on, if not actually crossing the boundary of, a criminal offence of Fraud By False Representation. my question is what do i do, do i ignore it and take it to court or contact the debt recovery company and let them know that according to my defense they are wasting their time