Council impounded car wrongfully, car finance company have sent account to debt colle

[nicknock]

Hi

I have a really complicated situation and just don't know what my options are.

Ive had an ongoing issue with my local council and parking tickets and am involved in a stage 2 complaint with next stage being legal action.

I received a number of parking tickets even though I had paid for parking using the relevant app. These tickets have built up and with bailiff charges were over £2000! I appealed the tickets and never got a response then my car was clamped and towed and the council have refused to release it even though I have provided evidence that I have paid. They are now not responding to me at all so I have to take legal action. They have had my car for two months and the additional travel costs have crippled me.

Also, I was made redundant so have had a bit of a struggle financially on top of that. I informed my car finance company of this and got behind by two payments but told them I would be able to clear the balance by end of October/beginning of November.

I rang to pay my arrears and have been told my account has been passed to a debt collection company! I wanted to hand the car back in December as I'm at the half way point of payments but they are now saying I've lost that right.

The extra travel costs I have incurred because the council seized my car have made it impossible to keep on top of the finance payments.

I have spoken to a couple of solicitors who haven't really known what to do about the council situation and now I'm stuck with an £8k debt and no car! Please can someone help!

Thanks

[Kati]

Re: Council impounded car wrongfully, car finance company have sent account to debt c

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[R0b]

Re: Council impounded car wrongfully, car finance company have sent account to debt c

Hello,

I don't know much about council parking tickets but lets just break all of this down because it seems to me there are gaps missing here. It would be helpful to answer the questions below.

1. You parked and paid for the parking using an app, do you still have the app which shows that payment was made?

2. From my own experience, there are usually several stages to the appeal for a council parking ticket and you will get several letters before bailiffs come round. Usually this would involve the council's own appeals procedure, then if they reject it you can make a formal appeal with a tribunal and failing that then you pay. Obviously if you don't make a formal appeal then there may be an 'Order for Recovery' letter sent to you meaning that unless the ticket is paid, the bailiffs will come knocking. So, at what stage are you saying you appealed and are you saying you never received any letters at all? or did you ignore them?

If you can prove that the letter was sent to them in time and to the correct address but they ignored it then the council will be at fault here and you would have a claim for trespass to goods via civil proceedings. There may also be the possibility that you could send a Statutory Declaration to the Traffic Enforcement Centre (or London Tribunals if PCN in London) which would reverse matters back to the stage where the council has to reconsider whether to continue chasing you and at that point you have the option to make a formal appeal at a tribunal if they do. I think you might also need to send an out of time witness statement/extension too.

As for the car on finance, I think you need to establish whether or not you received any default notices from the lender. Your right to voluntary terminate the agreement is available until the lender terminates the agreement themselves, usually for breach of contract and before they can do that they must send you a default notice - so the debt collector may be chasing the arrears only or chasing the full amount under the agreement but you need to make sure they've followed the correct process. Again, if you have ignored that and did nothing about then I'm afraid that would be your fault, not theirs unless you can show that they failed in their duty to treat you fairly and take into account your difficulties of making payment.

I think the first steps would be to appeal the PCN via the TEC / London Tribunals. I would suggest you read the basic guidance offered on the .Gov website that explains it all - particularly points 3 and 4 about getting a court order and asking for extra time to challenge the court order - https://www.gov.uk/appeal-against-a-...-charge-notice. Maybe someone else has better knowledge of the PCN process for councils.

You should also investigate the issues about the car finance situation at the same time. Confirm whether the agreement has in fact been terminated or not and take it from there.

[Amethyst]

Re: Council impounded car wrongfully, car finance company have sent account to debt c

Just for ref most parking apps allow you to set up and log in to your account on their websites to download the parking receipts purchased via a particular mobile for a particular registration. I've used RINGGO a couple times recently and just logged into their website using my phonenumber and car registration and have a list of the parking events and can download the receipt/invoice/evidence which shows date, how much was paid, start time, end time etc. So if I ever did get a ticket wrongly it would be pretty straightforward to appeal it. Looks like PaybyPhone do very similar too.