german friend afraid to go thru customs -old PCN and congestion charge from 2009

[Help911]

Hello everybody,

 

I've googled so much and found your board to be very helpful.

 

 

Hopefully, you are able to help a friend of mine as well.

 

The issue is the following:

 

 

My friend was in London in 2009 with his car (German).

 

 

As there were bikes on the back, the car did not fit in any of the car parks.

 

 

And as there was no parking on the street,

 

 

he eventually ended up using a parking lot that was for residents only.

 

 

Upon his return, he had received a parking ticket for that.

 

After he returned from his vacation,

 

 

he had also received a further ticket via post.

 

 

It said that he had

 

 

a) not paid the London city toll and

 

 

b) entered the restricted area (environmentally) without the "green sticker".

 

 

Each would have cost 1,000GBP (or 800?!)

but they said one they wouldn't charge as they would accept that a foreigner wasn't aware of that.

 

 

He doesn't remember which of the two he should have been aware of and was thus fined.

 

 

So one ticket was 800-1,000GBP,

the other one around 240GBP.

 

 

A google search informed him that it was not possible to execute the fine for a foreigner, so he did not pay.

 

 

At the beginning, there were a few letters from debt collectors and the amount went up like crazy, but after two or three letters, they stopped trying.

 

He was in London in the summer of 2009.

 

 

He avoided travelling to the UK as the only info he had found was a summary of statutes of limitation in the EU

where the UK was mentioned and it said those fines were expiring after 3-7 years.

But he doesn't know which number applies to the UK.

 

The problem is:

 

 

He will travel via Heathrow soon.

 

 

On the way back, he had planned a longer stop-over to see a friend (half a day).

 

Could they still make claims for the tickets?

 

 

For both options, i.e. also just stopping over in Heathrow, or only when leaving the airport on the way back?

 

He had totally forgotten about this. It will have been 5.5 years by then.

 

 

Would he risk anything if travelling or is he safe?

 

Thank you SO MUCH in advance!

[dx100uk]

haha where has he read all that from? or you?

 

you cannot be arrested for a flippin' parking ticket

nor for failing to pay the congestion charge.

 

forget all about them.

 

we got rid out debtors prisons in the early 1900's.

 

he is safe to come and go as he pleases.

 

dx

[Jamberson]

Nothing will happen. Even assuming the parking/congestion people knew he'd landed in the country (which is impossible), they have no powers to do anything. No-one would care less, even if they somehow knew.

 

The only remote possibility is that if he lived back in the UK, and registered a car here, bailiffs might find him and re-activate the debt somehow. But even that's a remote chance.

[Help911]

haha where has he read all that from? or you?

 

you cannot be arrested for a flippin' parking ticket

nor for failing to pay the congestion charge.

 

forget all about them.

 

we got rid out debtors prisons in the early 1900's.

 

he is safe to come and go as he pleases.

 

dx

 

Thanks for your reassuring answer!

There was one report in a German newspaper that just generally said that tickets for traffic offences in a number of European countries (incl. UK) expired between 3-7 years, but it couldn't be told from the article which country referred to which number.

When googling about the UK specifically, it just said that some traffic offences could be punished with imprisonment when the fine is not paid, but didn't specify. Glad this isn't the case

 

So even if it's not imprisonment, he naturally wouldn't want to be a couple thousand pounds either (to which the sum had cumulated over the time when he got the letters from the debt collectors). This is also expired?!

Thank you!

[Help911]

Nothing will happen. Even assuming the parking/congestion people knew he'd landed in the country (which is impossible), they have no powers to do anything. No-one would care less, even if they somehow knew.

 

The only remote possibility is that if he lived back in the UK, and registered a car here, bailiffs might find him and re-activate the debt somehow. But even that's a remote chance.

 

It's good to know that the systems are not "hooked". I would have assumed that there is like a note entry when they scan his passport. Haha. Glad life hasn't become THAT technological then! Thank you so much!!

[Jamberson]

Britain is subject to heavy surveillance - I think we have more CCTV cameras than any other country, and Blair gave the US government permission to monitor everything we do while also monitoring it themselves - this very message is in their files!

 

Nevertheless there are some quaint things like the Data Protection Act which mean that councils don't just swap data (let alone openly share it) with other bodies.

 

Incidentally, be careful if you read things about "fines". That word means something specific - PCNs for parking aren't fines, and I don't think congestion charges are either - so whatever might be true of fines is not true of other forms of penalty charges. A "fine" for a "traffic offence" might be, for example, a court fine for speeding - which is a criminal offence. Not paying the fine has consequences. Parking contraventions aren't criminal offences and don't result in fines.