Foreign Car VRN Same As UK VRN

[Freddieab]

Hello all,
I will try to keep this brief but I am at my wits end.
An elderly relative received a parking ticket from West Sussex County Council.
The first letter said a vehice bearing the VRN ***350 was ticketed and remained unpaid.
He was a bit confused by this as the VRN was that of a friend of his who was a Swiss citizen and died in 2019.
The VRN related to a motorcycle that his friend bought in the UK and registered at the elderly relatives address before exporting it to Switzerland.
This was explained to the council in a letter but they first responded requesting a death certificate in 14 days and then rejected his appeal as no death certificate was forthcoming.
The next letter showed a picture of the vehicle. To his amazement it was a car with a German VRN that had the same digits and numbers as the motorcycle!
He ignored the letter due to the stupidity of it but it has now gone to TEC and he is concerned that bailiffs will come to his house.
A letter was sent to the TEC explaining the situation and they said to complete a TE7 form.
Firstly the charge relates to his deceased friend and secondly you only have 4 choices to tick on the form.
In bold writing beneath these it says stating a falsehood can lead to contempt of court, therefore as none of the choices are relevant it can not be completed without stating a falsehood.
The council said they cant do anything unless the TEC reject the charge.
The Traffic Penalty Tribunal said they cant do anything as it is with TEC.
TEC have requested a completed TE7 form.
It has been explained to all of them that this charge is for a foreign CAR with the same number as a UK MOTORCYCLE that was exported in 2019 and is in the name of a dead foreign national.
None of the organisations seem to be able to do anything about it and if/when the bailiffs come the elderly relative is not going to be able to prove all the items in his home are his and that the named person does not and never has lived there.

Can anyone offer some advice or suggest someone with common sense that can rectify this issue.
Thanks in advance

[atticus]

Has this TE7 form been completed and submitted? On what you say, that would appear to be a step that may help.

[Freddieab]

On the TE7 it states

“You must give the specific reasons why you are applying for an extension of time or filing an out of time application.
These should NOT be the reasons why you are disputing the original penalty charge.”

Then we have to attach a TE9 which only allows for the 4 irrelevant choices.

[R0b]

He ignored the letter due to the stupidity of it but it has now gone to TEC and he is concerned that bailiffs will come to his house.

This above kills any out of time application. Unfortunately you can only make an out of time application based on the four instances listed in the TE9 form, no ifs or buts or other exceptions.

A costly mistake by him but maybe he will learn from it next time not to ignore something like this in the hope it will go away, which we all know rarely does especially council tickets. If he feels really aggrieved by the situation then he can look at legal proceedings for a judicial review but that is a very costly job and expect to pay in the region of thousands if not tens of thousands if he loses and I would suspect he would be on a hiding to nothing because he has to accept that he ignored the letters and, elderly or not, that doesn't give him an adequate excuse for a court to overturn what the law says.

The situation may be somewhat different if he has mental or physical difficulties that prohibited him from being able to do anything but that would likely require medical expert evidence which would add to any legal costs and there is no guarantee of a successful outcome.

My advice, unless your relative can rely on one of the four options, pay up and chalk it up to a learning experience.