10 PCNs from Parking & Property Management Ltd

[b789]

Type of parking ticket: Parking Charge Notice (PCN) or Charge Notice (CN)

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Country: England/Wales

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Parking operator: Parking & Property Management Ltd

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Operator (Other):

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First Awareness: Other

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Awareness (Other): Notice from vehicle hire company, Hertz.

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Date of Alleged Contravention: Wed 28/01/2026

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Issue Date on Notice:

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Method of Issue: By post (ANPR/camera)

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Issue Method (Other):

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Driver Identified: No – the driver has not been identified

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Who Identified Driver: Not applicable

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Driver Disability/Protected Characteristic: Yes

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Location Known: Yes

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Location Type: Residential car park

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Location Name: Voyager House, Stanwell Road

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Responded to Notice: Yes

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Initial Appeal Made: Yes

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Appeal Response Received: Yes

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Secondary Appeal: No

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Secondary Appeal Outcome: Not applicable

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Debt Recovery Letters: No

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Letter of Claim: No

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County Court Claim: No

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Court Stage: Not applicable

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Evidence Available: Yes

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Your role in this case?: Hirer/Lessee

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Role Explanation:

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Additional Information: This is for 10 PCNs. Operator has officially rejected initial appeals. No copies or required documents included with NtH as required under PoFA para 13 & 14 to be able to hold the Hirer liable.
SAR issued.

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[b789]

I am advising on this case. I have seen the Hirers lease for this residential property. This is my evaluation of the situation so far:

This is a residential parking case involving a hire vehicle, multiple PCNs, and a managing agent who has attempted to wash their hands of responsibility after appointing a parking contractor years after the tenancy was granted.

The tenant’s assured shorthold tenancy commenced on 12 October 2023. The tenancy agreement is a standard but important one because it expressly defines both the “Property” and the “Common Parts” as including parking spaces, unless specifically excluded. There is no exclusion. The tenancy also grants uninterrupted access to the Common Parts for the duration of the term and, critically, contains two separate clauses stating that the landlord’s agent has no authority to amend or vary the tenancy unless expressly authorised by the landlord in writing.

In October 2025, the managing agent sent a circular to residents stating that responsibility for parking enforcement had been transferred to Parking & Property Management Ltd, with enforcement commencing on 28 October 2025. This is over two years after the tenancy was granted. That timing matters. The parking operator was appointed after the tenancy came into force and therefore sits beneath it in the contractual hierarchy.

The tenant pays for parking and had an existing whitelist/authorisation arrangement with the managing agent. When the tenant changed vehicles to a hire car, the managing agent confirmed in writing that the new vehicle was authorised. When PPM took over enforcement, that whitelist information was not properly carried across. PPM then issued a run of PCNs, all alleging “unauthorised parking”.

Every PCN was initially sent to Hertz as registered keeper. Hertz charged the tenant £20 per PCN as an “admin fee” and, at one point, remotely disabled the vehicle due to unpaid admin fees, causing loss of work. Hertz then named the tenant as hirer, and PPM issued Notices to Hirer.

Those Notices to Hirer are materially defective. None of them were accompanied by the mandatory documents required by PoFA Schedule 4 for hire vehicles. Instead, they state that documents are “available upon request” and instruct the hirer to request them within 14 days. That is not PoFA compliance. For hire vehicles, PoFA requires that the Notice to Hirer be accompanied by all of the following: a signed statement from the hire firm confirming hire at the material time, a copy of the hire agreement, a copy of the statement of liability signed by the hirer, and a copy of the original Notice to Keeper served on the hire company. Failure to serve those documents with the Notice to Hirer is fatal to hirer liability. That defect cannot be cured later.

One early appeal was submitted by the tenant after Hertz forwarded an NTK, before any Notice to Hirer was received. That appeal was rejected. The wording of that initial appeal is being treated cautiously, because everything turns on whether the driver was inadvertently identified. On the material available so far, the tenant consistently wrote as hirer and did not explicitly identify the driver, but this still needs to be locked down via SAR disclosure.

The operator’s rejection letter is the usual boilerplate. It asserts PoFA compliance without addressing the hire-specific requirements. It states that documents are “available upon request”, which is effectively an admission of non-compliance. It relies on signage and ANPR entry/exit times. It also asserts that the PCNs are valid because the vehicle was not registered on their system, ignoring the tenancy, the pre-existing authorisation, and the managing agent’s written confirmation.

The key legal position is this:

First, supremacy of contract. The tenancy predates the operator. The tenancy grants rights to use parking spaces and the common parts without interruption. The managing agent has no power to vary the tenancy, and the parking operator has even less. A permit scheme or ANPR enforcement introduced two years later cannot override or rewrite the tenancy. Signage cannot create a new contract with a tenant exercising existing rights. This applies regardless of whether the operator has ever seen the tenancy agreement. Knowledge is irrelevant.

Second, authorisation. The tenant had express written authorisation from the managing agent. An administrative failure between principal and agent does not turn an authorised resident into an “unauthorised Parker”.

Third, PoFA. Hirer liability fails outright because the Notices to Hirer were non-compliant. In the absence of PoFA compliance, the operator can only pursue the driver. The driver has not been identified.

Fourth, standing. PPM has produced no evidence of landowner authority capable of overriding residential rights or conferring standing to contract with tenants and pursue charges in their own name.

Where we are now is that multiple PCNs are live, some appealed internally, some not. The managing agent is refusing to intervene, claiming the charges are “valid” and must be appealed, despite the fact that they caused the problem and have contractual control over their agent. A formal complaint is ongoing.

The next step is to submit IAS appeals for each PCN, not with any expectation that the IAS will fairly adjudicate a residential supremacy-of-contract case, but to create a clean, consistent paper trail. Each IAS appeal will use identical wording, asserting hirer-only status, denying driver identification, setting out the PoFA failures, asserting supremacy of contract and lack of standing, and putting the operator to strict proof. This locks the issues in place for any later Letter of Claim or court proceedings.

Parallel to this, a SAR is being pursued against the operator to obtain full disclosure of correspondence, notes, whitelist records, and the exact wording of all appeals and notices. The Hertz admin fees will be dealt with separately, depending on the wording of the hire agreement and whether private parking invoices fall within any permitted category of charge.

At this stage, the case is legally strong. The operator’s position relies on signage, ANPR, and a permit system imposed long after the tenancy began. The tenancy and PoFA both cut straight through that.

The following is the suggested IAS appeal, for what it's worth, but establishes the paper trail that they have been advised of their legal position.

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:

   

“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.

[Popeye]

Hello mate,

I am the tenant who received these PCN, I appreciate the excellent write up as usual.

Just a small correction. PPM had the signs up by the time I moved in however it was the management agent who were in charge of issuing permits and who advised I pay £50 extra with the rent to secure parking, my contract was therefore with the landlord. PPM signs only mention residents having valid permits, the signs do not say that permit is to be issued by PPM.
I think what happened is that the management agent transfered all responsibility for the car park to PPM on 28th of October, did not pass the residents' vehicle list to PPM (2025) and PPM decided to issue tickets to me.

I have submit official complaint to the managment agents, they should have responded by 20th of December, they didn't until 9th of January when one of their employees sent me an email asking "if anyone responded to my appeal yet" because "we were on holiday". I intent to escalate the complaint to the property ombudsman and to my MP eventually.

[b789]

Thanks for the clarification @Popeye, and it actually helps rather than hurts.

I’ve made a few small but important edits to the draft IAS appeal above, to reflect this, without weakening any of the legal points. The substance of the case is unchanged.

The fact that PPM’s signage was already present when you moved in does not alter the legal analysis in any material way. What matters is not the physical presence of signs, but who held authority, what contractual relationship existed, and whether any enforceable obligation arose from those signs in the context of a residential tenancy.

At the point you took up the tenancy, parking was administered by the managing agent, not PPM. You were instructed by the agent to pay £50 per month to secure parking, and the agent issued or controlled permits and bay allocation. Your parking rights therefore arose from your tenancy and your paid arrangement with the landlord/agent, not from any contract with PPM.

The signage itself is neutral or helpful to you. It states that residents must have a valid permit. It does not state that the permit must be issued by PPM, nor does it explain how or when an agent-issued permit would become invalid or require replacement. Even on the operator’s own signage case, you complied: you were a resident and you did have a valid permit issued by the party who, at that time, had authority to issue it.

What appears to have happened, and what the evidence supports, is exactly as you describe. When responsibility for enforcement was transferred on 28 October 2025, the managing agent failed to pass across the resident whitelist and permit data. PPM then enforced based on an incomplete database. That is an administrative failure between principal and contractor. It does not turn an authorised resident into an “unauthorised parker” and it does not create a contractual breach by you.

This distinction is important. Your case is not “I didn’t know about the signs” or “the signs weren’t there”. Your case is that you were already authorised, already paying for parking, and already compliant with the only condition the signage actually states: having a valid permit. Nothing on the signs required you to do anything further, and nothing on the signs transferred permit authority from the managing agent to PPM.

On the legal side, the operator still faces the same fundamental problems.

First, PoFA hirer liability still fails. The Notices to Hirer were not accompanied by the mandatory documents at the time of service. Whether PPM later obtained the hire agreement is legally irrelevant. Liability under PoFA either arises at service or it does not arise at all. “Available on request” is not compliance, and I’ve strengthened that point in the IAS wording to close off any later-document argument.

Second, contractual formation still fails. Even if signage existed, there was no offer capable of acceptance by a resident who already had permission and a valid permit. A third-party contractor cannot impose a new contract on a resident for something the resident is already entitled to do, particularly where the compliance mechanism was controlled by the landlord’s agent.

Third, standing remains unproven. PPM still has to show that it had authority not merely to enforce parking in general, but to override or interfere with existing residential permits and arrangements issued by the managing agent. That is a much higher bar than simply saying “we manage the car park”, and it has not been met.

Fourth, the managing agent’s conduct strengthens the complaint route. The delay, the “we were on holiday” response, and the absence of a substantive reply within their own complaints process all point to maladministration. Escalation to the Property Ombudsman is entirely appropriate, and involving your MP once that process is engaged is sensible given the number of PCNs and the consequential losses (Hertz admin fees, vehicle disablement, loss of work).

Where things stand now is this…

The IAS appeals should proceed using the slightly revised wording. The purpose is not to expect a fair outcome from IAS, but to lock the statutory failures, tenancy position, and standing issues firmly on the record.

The managing agent complaint should be escalated formally. They are the principal and PPM is their agent. They cannot avoid responsibility by telling a resident to “appeal to PPM”.

The SARs remain important, particularly to establish when PPM first requested the hire agreement and what data was or was not transferred at the handover.

None of your clarification undermines the core case. If anything, it reinforces that this is a textbook example of a resident being penalised due to an administrative failure during a contractor handover, coupled with a parking operator attempting to paper over statutory defects by asserting compliance that does not exist.

You remain on solid ground.

[Popeye]

Hello B789,

I am trying to submit the appeal on the IAS portal but I am concerned because I can't submit an appeal unless I am the keeper or I accept I was the driver. We know they're not independent and work for the cowboys so how do I go forward?

This what they're asking: Is the appellant being held liable for the charge?
Choose:
Yes/no

Was the appellant the driver at the relevant time?
Choose:
Yes/No/I am not prepared to say

Was the appellant the keeper at the relevant time?
Choose:Yes/No.

If I choose: I'm not prepared to say (to the driver question) and No to the keeper question, I get this: Unless you were either the driver or the keeper at the relevant time you may not continue with this appeal.


What to do?

Also I noticed a sentence they sneakily inserted into all the NTH "... we have the right to recover the unpaid charge from you, as the hirer keeper of the vehicle.", it seems they're to bypass POFA this way or they think they can, or it could be an error but it's on all 10 of the NTHs. Does it change anything?

[Popeye]

Another update:

So far I've started 7 appeals on the IAS portal, not submitted anything yet, but there are issues with 3 of the PCNs. 1 of them, the very first one, this is the one I contacted PPM rep by phone and they advised I appeal through their portal with the evidence that I am a resident and they'll just cancel it, so I was appealing with the NTK forwarded to me by Hertz; PPM rejected the appeal but they never sent NTH, just the rejection.

The other two PCNs I unfortunately did not appeal to PPM on time and I expect they'll be sending it to their debt collection.

Wha do you think I should I do about these? I can't submit appeal through their portal anymore, should I just send a postal appeal anyway?

[b789]

What you are seeing on the IAS portal is not a quirk, and it is not something you are expected to “solve” by finding the correct combination of answers. It is a deliberate structural feature of the IAS process.

The law recognises three distinct roles in private parking cases: Driver, Keeper, and Hirer. PoFA explicitly creates Hirer liability as a separate, conditional mechanism. Your case sits squarely in that category. You are not admitting to being the Driver, you were not the Keeper (Hertz was), and the only reason the operator is attempting to pursue you at all is because it asserts Hirer liability under PoFA.

The IAS portal simply refuses to recognise that statutory reality. It is designed to force appellants into conceding either Driver identity or Keeper status. When it tells you that you may not continue unless you were the Driver or the Keeper, that statement is legally wrong. PoFA does not say that only drivers and keepers may be pursued; it says that hirers may be pursued only if strict conditions are met. The IAS system is not aligned with the law and you cannot make it so.

That does not mean you stop. It means you proceed in a way that preserves your legal position while navigating an obstructive interface.

When you answer that you are being held liable, you are stating an objective fact. The Notice to Hirer (NtH) expressly asserts liability against you. When you state that you are not prepared to say whether you were the Driver, you are exercising a lawful right. When you indicate that you were the Keeper, you are not making a substantive admission; you are satisfying a procedural gatekeeper imposed by a non-statutory ADR scheme that otherwise blocks access entirely. That is why your written appeal matters far more than any dropdown menu.

Your written appeal is explicit. It states that you are appealing strictly as Hirer, that you do not admit to being the Driver, that Keeper liability is denied, and that any forced tick-box confirmations are rejected and overridden by the written statement. In any later forum that actually applies the law, substance prevails over form. No court is going to treat an IAS UI constraint as determinative when the written position is clear and consistent.

The wording you have noticed in the Notices to Hirer about recovering the charge from you “as the Hirer Keeper” does not improve the operator’s position. It actively undermines it. There is no such legal status as “Hirer Keeper”. PoFA does not recognise it. Liability cannot be created by inventing labels or by asserting entitlement in a notice. Either the statutory conditions are met or they are not. Here, they are not. The mandatory documents were not served with the NtH, and an instruction to request them later is legally ineffective. Liability never arose and cannot be cured retrospectively.

Engaging with the IAS is not about expecting fairness. It is about locking the operator’s failures onto the record: the failure to establish Hirer liability under PoFA, the failure to form a contract with an authorised residential occupier, and the failure to show standing or authority. Whether the IAS allows or dismisses the appeal does not change the underlying legal position. A dismissal that avoids those issues often strengthens your position later.

Nothing in what you have described weakens the case. The portal behaviour and the wording in the notices are both symptoms of the same thing: assertion replacing law. Your approach remains correct.

As the IAS appeal process is a kangaroo court and has no bearing on anything going forward if it is unsuccessful (likely), it is really just for the record. Remember, the IAS is not "independent".  The IPC and IAS are both owned by Uniti, all owned/controlled by Will Hurley Ltd and a couple of years ago, he also registered a commercial Ltd company called The Independent Appeals Service Ltd with himself as the sole director. It's all part of a big con.

I will give you a separate IAS appeal for the first PCN where no NtH was issued. Then I will deal with the two PCNs not appealed in time and finally the IAS appeal for the remaining PCNs.

The first PCN is actually much less of a problem than it feels. What happened here is procedurally untidy on the operator’s side, not yours.

They issued an NTK to Hertz. Hertz forwarded it to you. You appealed early, before any Notice to Hirer was served. PPM rejected that appeal. They then failed to serve a Notice to Hirer at all.

That sequence matters. Under PoFA, an NTK served on a hire company does not create liability against the Hirer. It is merely a step in the statutory chain. The operator only acquires any right to pursue the Hirer if — and only if — it then serves a compliant Notice to Hirer with the mandatory documents.

If no NTH was ever served, then PoFA hirer liability never arose, full stop. The fact that you appealed early does not create liability, does not waive statutory requirements, and does not “convert” an NTK into an NTH. The statute does not allow that. Liability arises by service of a compliant notice, not by correspondence.

In practical terms, that PCN sits in a worse position for the operator than the others. They rejected an appeal made without standing, failed to follow the statutory route, and are now left with:

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

That PCN is effectively dead from a PoFA perspective. Use the following for the IAS appeal:

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.

The two PCNs that were not appealed in time are not a problem, and you do not need to “fix” or chase them now. In fact, doing nothing further at this stage is the correct tactical position.


What happens next is predictable and legally uninteresting. Because they were not appealed internally, the operator will almost certainly pass them to a debt recovery agent. That step has no legal effect whatsoever. Debt collectors are not a party to any contract allegedly breached by the driver, they have no standing, they cannot determine liability, and they cannot add enforceable sums. Their letters are designed to intimidate the low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree into paying out of ignorance and fear.

Nothing about debt recovery correspondence alters the legal position on those PCNs.

The key point is this: failure to appeal does not create liability. There is no requirement in law to exhaust an operator’s appeal process. An internal appeal deadline is a private administrative rule, not a statutory one. Missing it does not waive statutory protections, does not cure PoFA failures, and does not convert an unenforceable charge into an enforceable one.

Those two PCNs still suffer from the same fundamental defects as the others:

• no PoFA-compliant Notice to Hirer
• no identified Driver
• residential authorisation under the tenancy and permit arrangement
• no standing proven
• signage incapable of overriding tenancy rights

Debt collection letters cannot cure any of that. Strategically, those PCNs are now parked. You do not engage with debt collectors. You do not argue with them. You do not “appeal” to them. You keep everything they send and ignore it.

If — and only if — the operator later issues a Letter of Claim (LoC), which must come from the operator or its solicitors, not a debt collector, that is when you respond. At that point you set out, in full, that:

• no Hirer liability arises under PoFA
• no Notice to Hirer was served or it was non-compliant
• no Driver has been identified
• the vehicle was authorised under a residential arrangement
• the operator has no standing to pursue the claim

Until that point, there is nothing to do.

From a wider strategy perspective, the IAS appeals you are submitting on the other PCNs do the heavy lifting. They lock the operator’s legal failures onto the record. If the operator later tries to litigate on the two “late” PCNs, you will be able to point to identical facts, identical signage, identical tenancy rights, and identical PoFA defects already raised and ignored.

In short:

• Debt recovery is noise, not risk.
• You do nothing in response.
• The legal position on those PCNs does not worsen.
• They are dealt with later, if at all, at pre-action stage.

You remain in control of this. So, here is the IAS appeal you should submit for each of the remaining PCNs. One for each:

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”.

[Popeye]

Hello B789,

Thank you again for the excellent write up. The IAS portal seems to have a maximum 1000 limit, the appeal wording is around 1600, should I submit it as an attachment and write in the portal the main points and point to the attached documents for the full wording?

[b789]

Yes. Upload the appeal as a pdf attachment and just put “see attached appeal”.

[Popeye]

Update:

I submitted 1 appeal, I have until the 11th of February to submit the rest. IAS portal says PPM have until 3rd of February to respond to the 1st appeal; I'm waiting to submit the rest after seeing their response to the first appeal, I intend to tailor subsequent appeals based on what they say on the first appeal.

I attached my tenancy agreement, email exchanges with the management agent and the NTH (which clearly says contact us for the hire agreement). I wanted to submit a picture of their signs but I've held that back, I want to see if they will submit a picture of the signs here or something else; I don't think they've ever been at this site.

A total of 7 tickets (out of 10) are with the IAS appeal process; a few days ago I received an email from BWlegal about the first ticket asking for payment, I just got rid of it, I also received 2 letters from PPM about the other 2 tickets, I think I'll send a postal appeal as their portal isn't accepting any further appeals.

I'm also expecting the SAR information from Hertz in a week or two which should tell me what information they gave to PPM.