Quote:I am the hirer of the vehicle. This appeal is made strictly in that capacity. No admission is made as to the identity of the driver and I will not be identifying the driver.

PCN reference: [PCN REF]
Vehicle registration: [VRM]
Site: [SITE / ESTATE NAME AND ADDRESS]
Date of alleged event: [DATE]
Notice to Hirer issue date: [NTH DATE]
Allegation as stated on the notice: [ALLEGATION]

1. No hirer liability under PoFA Schedule 4 due to mandatory document failures

The operator seeks to hold me liable as hirer under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (PoFA). In the case of a hired vehicle, Parliament imposed additional and more onerous conditions before liability can be transferred away from the unknown driver. These conditions are not procedural niceties; they are the legal gateway to hirer liability.

Paragraphs 13 and 14 of Schedule 4 create a tightly defined statutory mechanism. Paragraph 14(2) is explicit: a creditor may only recover a parking charge from a hirer if the Notice to Hirer is accompanied by specified documents. Those documents are not optional and are not capable of being supplied later at the creditor’s convenience.
The statute requires that the Notice to Hirer be accompanied by:

   (a) a statement signed by or on behalf of the vehicle-hire firm confirming that, at the material time, the vehicle was hired to a named person under a hire agreement;
   (b) a copy of the hire agreement itself;
   (c) a copy of a statement of liability signed by the hirer under that hire agreement;
   and, as part of the statutory chain in paragraphs 13 and 14, a copy of the Notice to Keeper served on the hire company.

The function of these documents is obvious and deliberate. Together, they are the only lawful means by which a parking operator can demonstrate that the person it is attempting to pursue is in fact the hirer, that the hire agreement existed at the material time, that the hirer accepted contractual liability under that agreement, and that the underlying Notice to Keeper complied with PoFA in the first place. Without all of them, Parliament has not permitted liability to be transferred.

In this case, none of those documents were served with the Notice to Hirer. Instead, the notice states that documents are “available upon request” and instructs the recipient to request them within 14 days. That approach is legally ineffective.

An operator cannot lawfully require a hirer to take additional steps (such as requesting documents) to activate statutory liability; the statute places the burden squarely on the creditor to serve the documents with the notice.

PoFA does not permit liability to arise conditionally, prospectively, or upon request. The statutory wording is framed in the present tense and requires that the Notice to Hirer is accompanied by the listed documents. An invitation to ask for them later reverses the statutory burden and defeats the purpose of the safeguard. If “available upon request” were sufficient, the statutory requirement to serve the documents would be rendered meaningless.

This is not a technical defect. It goes to the root of jurisdiction. Where the mandatory documents are not served with the Notice to Hirer, the statutory right to pursue the hirer never arises at all. There is no discretion for an assessor to overlook this failure, and no power for the operator to cure it retrospectively by later disclosure or by producing documents during an appeal.

Even if the operator now produces some documents in its evidence pack or during an appeal, that does not remedy non-compliance. The statutory condition is that the Notice to Hirer was accompanied by the documents at the time of service. If they were not enclosed then, PoFA hirer liability never arose.

Accordingly, as a matter of law, hirer liability does not arise in this case. In the absence of full and contemporaneous compliance with PoFA Schedule 4, the operator’s only remaining cause of action would be against the driver. The driver has not been identified, and I am under no obligation to identify them.


2. No contract formed with a resident exercising pre-existing tenancy rights and authorisation

This is a residential location. My tenancy commenced on [TENANCY START DATE]. PPM signage was present on site, however the managing agent/landlord controlled and issued resident permits and authorisation and required payment for parking. On [ENFORCEMENT TRANSFER DATE] the managing agent transferred day-to-day administration/enforcement to this operator and (by their circular) asserted that resident bay allocations and vehicle details had been provided. The present PCNs arise from a failure in that administrative handover and/or whitelist data, not from any lack of resident authorisation.

My tenancy contains the following wording (verbatim) which is relevant:

   

Quote:“Property means the property identified in the Tenancy Particulars and (unless specifically excluded) includes any loft, cellar or other spaces within the building together with boundaries fences garden parking spaces garages and outbuildings (if any) and any part or parts thereof belonging to the Landlord.”

“Common Parts means those parts of the Building retained by the Landlord or Superior Landlord (if any) for the provision of services to the Building and/or for use as common access ways and facilities in common with by other residents of the Building and includes any boundaries fences garden parking spaces garages or outbuildings…”

“For so long as the Tenant complies with the Tenant’s Obligations to give the Tenant exclusive possession of the Property, the use of the Contents and access to the Common Parts without interruption during the Term.”

“The Landlord’s Agent shall have no authority to amend or vary this agreement. No amendment or variation of this agreement will be effective unless confirmed in writing by the Landlord or subject to the Landlord’s express prior written authority.”

Whether present on site or not, the operator cannot impose new contractual obligations on a tenant exercising pre-existing tenancy rights and authorisation granted via the landlord/managing agent, nor can signage convert an administrative permit/whitelist failure into a contractual debt. The operator cannot impose new contractual terms on a tenant by signage or ANPR operation in a manner that overrides the tenancy grant and the tenant’s authorised use. The tenancy does not confer any power on the landlord’s agent or a third-party contractor to unilaterally vary the agreement and charge the tenant for parking as though the tenant were a transient visitor contracting with a stranger.

Further, I have written authorisation from the managing agent confirming my vehicle was permitted/whitelisted and a parking arrangement existed. The operator’s assertion of “unauthorised parking” is therefore denied. Any failure to migrate whitelist data is an administrative failure between principal and contractor and does not create a contractual breach by an authorised resident.

3. No standing shown and no proof of authority to contract and litigate

The operator is put to strict proof of standing. It is not sufficient to assert that it manages the car park.

The operator must prove, by production of a contemporaneous and unredacted contract, that the landowner (or a party with sufficient proprietary interest) authorised it, at the material time, to:

   (a) offer parking contracts in its own name;
   (b) impose and recover parking charges; and
   (c) pursue legal proceedings in its own name.

In a residential context, where land is already subject to tenancy rights, the operator must also demonstrate that its authority genuinely permits interference with those pre-existing rights and does not exceed the landholder’s own powers.

No such proof has been provided. In the absence of strict proof, the operator has no locus to pursue this charge.

Given this is a residential site with permits/whitelisting historically issued by the managing agent, the operator must also prove it was authorised to cancel or override resident authorisations and to levy charges against authorised residents for administrative ‘non-registration’.

4. Signage incapable of overriding tenancy rights or forming a contract in any event

The operator relies on signage requiring a ‘valid E-permit’ or vehicle registration. That does not create liability for an authorised resident where permits were issued/controlled by the managing agent/landlord and the signage does not state that the permit must be issued by PPM or that an existing resident permit would become invalid.

Separately, the operator is put to strict proof that the signage was present, prominent, readable, and capable of forming a contract at the material time, including strict proof of:

   (a) the exact signage relied upon and its wording at the time;
   (b) its location relative to where the vehicle was parked;
   (c) the prominence of the parking charge term; and
   (d) evidence of a period of parking rather than mere entry and exit timestamps.

Conclusion

This appeal must be allowed because:

   (a) hirer liability under PoFA fails due to the absence of mandatory documents served with the Notice to Hirer;
   (b) the operator cannot form a contract with a tenant exercising pre-existing tenancy rights and express authorisation;
   (c) the operator has failed to prove standing or landowner authority; and
   (d) no contractual formation or actionable breach has been established.

Procedural fairness and competence of determination

Finally, I note that the IAS states that appeals are determined by legally qualified assessors, typically solicitors or barristers. Decisions are anonymous and unsigned and provide no verifiable indication of the assessor’s qualification, practising status, or independence.

Given that this appeal turns on core legal issues including contract formation, the distinction between prohibition and contractual offer, evidential proof of parking as opposed to momentary presence, locus and landowner authority, and statutory compliance with PoFA, I invite the IAS, in its decision, to confirm (without disclosing personal data) whether the assessor determining this appeal is a practising solicitor of England and Wales, a barrister holding a practising certificate, or another legally qualified person, and to confirm that no conflict of interest exists.

If the IAS declines to provide even this minimal confirmation, I request that it explains how that position is compatible with transparency and confidence in ADR that expressly relies on claimed legal expertise as a marker of credibility. If the appeal is dismissed, I further request that this is done by reasoned legal analysis engaging with the issues above, rather than by conclusory assertions.

• no keeper liability (keeper was Hertz)
  
• no hirer liability (no NTH served)
  
• no identified driver
  

Quote:I am the Hirer of the vehicle. This appeal is made strictly in that capacity. No admission is made as to the identity of the Driver and I will not be identifying the Driver. Any attempt to infer Driver identity is denied.


PCN reference: [PCN REF]
Vehicle registration: [VRM]
Site: [SITE / ESTATE NAME AND ADDRESS]
Date of alleged event: [DATE]
Operator’s stated allegation: [ALLEGATION]
This appeal concerns a Parking Charge Notice for which no Notice to Hirer was ever served. The operator has therefore failed to invoke, engage, or comply with the statutory mechanism required to pursue a Hirer. As a matter of law, liability cannot arise against me.

1. No Hirer liability can arise because no Notice to Hirer was ever served
The operator initially issued a Notice to Keeper to the vehicle-hire company. That notice was subsequently forwarded to me by the hire company. Acting on advice given by the operator’s representative, I submitted an early appeal against that notice. The operator rejected the appeal.

Crucially, however, the operator never served a Notice to Hirer at any point.

This omission is fatal.

Under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (“PoFA”), an NTK served on a hire company does not create liability against the Hirer. It is merely a preliminary step. Parliament has imposed a strict and mandatory requirement that, if an operator wishes to pursue a Hirer, it must serve a compliant Notice to Hirer in accordance with paragraphs 13 and 14 of Schedule 4.

If no Notice to Hirer is served, the statutory chain ends. There is no gateway to Hirer liability.

No amount of correspondence, early appeals, portal submissions, or rejection letters can substitute for service of a Notice to Hirer. Liability under PoFA arises by operation of statute, not by conduct, implication, or administrative convenience.

In this case:

• No Notice to Hirer was served
• No statutory transfer of liability ever occurred
• No lawful cause of action exists against me as Hirer

The operator cannot retrospectively create liability by asserting that I should be treated as a “Hirer Keeper”, nor by relying on an NTK that was never addressed to me and was never capable of imposing liability on me.

As a matter of law, this appeal must succeed on this ground alone.

2. No contract formed with an authorised residential occupier
This PCN arises at a residential site where the vehicle was authorised to be present under a paid residential arrangement administered by the landlord/managing agent.

The operator’s signage requires residents to hold a “valid permit”. It does not state that permits must be issued by the operator, nor does it state that permits previously issued by the managing agent are invalid. At the material time, the managing agent was responsible for resident parking administration and had authorised the vehicle.

A third-party contractor cannot unilaterally impose a new contract upon a residential occupier who is already entitled to park by virtue of tenancy rights and express authorisation. There was no offer capable of acceptance and no breach of any term.

Any failure to migrate resident permit data during a management handover is an administrative failure between principal and agent. It does not convert an authorised resident into an unauthorised parker and does not create contractual liability.

3. No standing and no proof of landowner authority
The operator is put to strict proof of standing. It must demonstrate, by production of a contemporaneous and unredacted contract, that it was authorised at the material time by the landowner (or a party with sufficient proprietary interest) to:

• offer parking contracts in its own name;
• impose and recover parking charges; and
• pursue legal proceedings in its own name.

In a residential context, that authority must extend to enforcement against authorised occupiers and interference with resident permits. No such proof has been provided.

4. Evidential and signage deficiencies
The operator is further put to strict proof of:

• the exact signage relied upon at the material time;
• its location and prominence relative to where the vehicle was parked;
• the prominence of any parking charge term; and
• evidence of a genuine period of parking rather than mere presence or ANPR timestamps.

No such proof has been supplied.

Conclusion
This appeal must be allowed because:

• no Notice to Hirer was ever served and Hirer liability cannot arise as a matter of law;
• no contract was formed with an authorised residential occupier;
• the operator has failed to prove standing or landowner authority; and
• no actionable breach has been established.

Procedural fairness and the asserted legal competence of the IAS assessor
Finally, I note that the IAS states that appeals are determined by legally qualified assessors, typically solicitors or barristers. Decisions are anonymous, unsigned, and provide no verifiable indication of the assessor’s qualification, practising status, or independence.

Given that this appeal turns on core legal issues, including statutory construction of PoFA, the creation (or absence) of liability by service of notices, contract formation in a residential context, and standing, I invite the IAS to confirm in its decision, without disclosing personal data, whether the assessor determining this appeal is a practising solicitor of England and Wales, a barrister holding a practising certificate, or another legally qualified person, and to confirm that no conflict of interest exists.

If the IAS declines to provide even this minimal confirmation, I request that it explains how that position is compatible with transparency and consumer confidence in an ADR scheme that relies on claimed legal expertise as a marker of credibility. If the appeal is dismissed, I further request that this is done by reasoned legal analysis engaging with the issues above, rather than by conclusory assertions.

Quote:I am the Hirer of the vehicle. This appeal is made strictly in that capacity. No admission is made as to the identity of the Driver and I will not be identifying the Driver. Any attempt to infer Driver identity is denied.


PCN reference: [PCN REF]
Vehicle registration: [VRM]
Site: [SITE / ESTATE NAME AND ADDRESS]
Date of alleged event: [DATE]
Notice to Hirer issue date: [NTH DATE]
Operator’s stated allegation: [ALLEGATION]

The operator purports to hold me liable as “Hirer/Keeper”. That is denied. There is no such legal category as “Hirer-Keeper”. Liability can only arise against a Hirer (if at all) by strict compliance with the statutory conditions in Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (“PoFA”). Those conditions were not met. Further, this is a residential context in which the vehicle was authorised to be present under the tenancy and under the landlord/managing agent’s permit arrangement. The operator is put to strict proof of standing, contractual formation, and any lawful basis to levy charges against an authorised residential occupier.

1. No Hirer liability: failure to comply with PoFA Schedule 4 paragraphs 13 and 14
The operator seeks to rely upon PoFA to transfer liability from an unidentified Driver to me as Hirer. In hire cases, Parliament imposed additional, mandatory safeguards. These are not technicalities; they are the legal gateway to Hirer liability.

PoFA Schedule 4 paragraph 14(2) is explicit. A creditor may only recover an unpaid parking charge from a Hirer if the Notice to Hirer (NtH) is accompanied by prescribed documents. Those documents are not optional and are not capable of being supplied later at the operator’s convenience. They are the only lawful means by which the operator can demonstrate that the person pursued is in fact the Hirer and that the statutory chain of liability has been complied with.

The statutory requirement is that the Notice to Hirer is accompanied by:

(a) a statement signed by or on behalf of the vehicle-hire firm to the effect that, at the material time, the vehicle was hired to a named person under a hire agreement;
(b) a copy of the hire agreement; and
(c) a copy of a statement of liability signed by the Hirer under that hire agreement;

and, to complete the statutory chain, a copy of the Notice to Keeper (NtK) served on the vehicle-hire firm.

In this case, the Notice to Hirer was not accompanied by the above documents. Instead, the operator purported to reverse the statutory burden by stating that the documents were “available upon request” and instructing the recipient to request them within 14 days. That approach is legally ineffective. PoFA does not permit liability to arise conditionally, prospectively, or upon request. The statute requires the operator to serve the documents with the notice. An invitation to ask for them later defeats the safeguard and would render paragraph 14(2) meaningless.

This is not a minor defect. It goes to the root of jurisdiction. Where the mandatory documents are not served with the NtH, the statutory right to pursue the Hirer does not arise at all. There is no discretion for an assessor to overlook this failure and no power for the operator to cure it retrospectively by later disclosure, by producing documents in an evidence pack, or by obtaining documents from the hire firm after an appeal is submitted. If the documents were not enclosed at the point of service, PoFA Hirer liability never arose.

Accordingly, as a matter of law, the operator has no lawful basis to recover any sum from me as Hirer under PoFA. In the absence of full compliance, the operator’s only remaining course would be to pursue the Driver, who has not been identified and whom I am under no obligation to identify.

2. No contract formed with an authorised residential occupier and no breach of any term
This is a residential site. The vehicle was authorised to be present by virtue of the tenancy arrangement and the landlord/managing agent’s permit system. The operator’s assertion of “unauthorised parking” is denied.

The signs relied upon do not state that permits must be issued by the operator. They simply state that residents must hold a “valid e-permit”. At the material time, resident permits and authorisation were issued and controlled by the managing agent/landlord under the paid residential arrangement. The operator’s signage does not state that a permit issued by the managing agent is invalid, nor does it state that residents must “register with” the operator or that any earlier permit regime is void. The signage therefore cannot support the operator’s allegation that the vehicle was present “without authorisation” where a valid resident permit existed under the scheme that actually governed residential authorisation.

More fundamentally, a third-party contractor cannot impose a new contract upon a residential occupier who is already entitled to park by virtue of pre-existing rights and authorisation. There is no offer capable of acceptance in those circumstances; the occupier is not a transient visitor seeking permission to park from the operator. The operator’s attempt to re-characterise authorised residential parking as a contractual licence granted by the operator is misconceived.

If the operator contends that authorisation depended upon internal whitelist administration following a management handover, then any failure is administrative between principal and agent. It does not create a contractual breach by an authorised resident and cannot lawfully give rise to a £100 charge.

3. No standing: strict proof required of landowner authority and scope of enforcement powers
The operator is put to strict proof of standing. It is not sufficient to assert that it “manages” the car park. The operator must produce a contemporaneous, unredacted contract demonstrating that the landowner (or a party with sufficient proprietary interest) granted the operator authority at the material time to:

(a) offer parking contracts in its own name;
(b) impose and recover parking charges in its own name; and
(c) pursue legal proceedings in its own name.

In a residential context, this must extend to strict proof that the operator was authorised to enforce against residents and to override or interfere with resident permits/authorisations historically issued by the landlord/managing agent. The operator must prove that its mandate genuinely permits imposing charges against authorised occupiers for alleged administrative non-registration/whitelist issues. Absent strict proof, the operator has no locus.

4. Signage and evidential deficiencies: no proof of contractual terms, no proof of breach, no proof of a period of parking
The operator is put to strict proof of the signage relied upon at the material time, including its content, location, prominence, and the legibility of any charge term. In particular, the operator must prove:

(a) the exact wording of the signs in force at the material time;
(b) that the signs were positioned so that a Driver would necessarily see and understand them before parking;
(c) that the parking charge term was prominent and unambiguous; and
(d) that the operator has evidence of a material period of parking and not merely entry/exit timestamps or momentary presence.

Where the allegation is “unauthorised parking”, the operator must also prove what constitutes “authorisation”, who issues it, and how any resident permit could be rendered invalid. The operator has not done so.

Conclusion
This appeal must be allowed for multiple independent reasons:

(a) PoFA Hirer liability fails because the Notice to Hirer was not accompanied by the mandatory hire documents (and the chain document) at the time of service;
(b) no contract was formed with an authorised residential occupier and no actionable breach has been established;
(c) the operator has not proven standing or landowner authority to contract and litigate in its own name, still less to enforce against authorised residents; and
(d) the operator has not proven clear contractual terms, prominence, or a period of parking sufficient to establish a breach.

Procedural fairness and the asserted legal competence of the IAS assessor.
The IAS states that appeals are determined by legally qualified assessors, typically solicitors or barristers. Decisions are anonymous, unsigned, and provide no verifiable indication of the assessor’s qualification, practising status, or independence. Where an ADR scheme relies on claimed legal expertise as a marker of credibility, it is reasonable to expect decisions to demonstrate that expertise through structured legal analysis rather than assertion.

I therefore invite the IAS to confirm in its decision, without disclosing personal data, whether the assessor determining this appeal is a practising solicitor of England and Wales, a barrister holding a practising certificate, or another legally qualified person, and to confirm that no conflict of interest exists. If the IAS declines to provide even this minimal confirmation, I request that it explains how that position is compatible with transparency and consumer confidence in ADR.

This request is directly relevant. The present dispute involves core legal issues: contract formation, the distinction between prohibition and contractual offer, evidential proof of parking as opposed to momentary presence, locus and landowner authority, and compliance with mandatory Code requirements. A legally trained decision-maker will recognise that these are determinative questions and will address them by reasoned analysis. If the IAS intends to dismiss the appeal, I request that it does so by engaging with those legal elements rather than by conclusory statements such as “signage was present” or that the charge was “issued correctly”.