Parking Fines

My client has 2 penalty charge notice parking fines from different councils, that are with different debt collection agencies. One if these companies is definately bailiffs, I am not certain about the other one as it’s not a company I have heard of and I haven’t been able to speak to them yet, but there is no mention of them being bailiffs on the letter I have seen.

I am assuming the debt that is with the bailiff company has been to court already, because the bailiffs are threatening to visit rather than the company simply acting as a debt collection agency, although I will obviously double check this as cl wasn’t certain.  Cl is on JSA and cannot afford the £8 per week minimum payment they will accept.  I offered to send a finacial statement showing his income and expendture but they said it wouldn’t make any difference.  Assuming they are allowed to take bailiff action, although they are unlikley to be able to seize goods (he is homeless and uses a c/o address, and no longer has the car) obviously they are going to keep adding charges every time they send someone out. Is there anything else that we can do? 

Also am I right in my understanding that these are civil fines not criminal fines and that therefore the main risk of not paying is escalation of costs rather than anything else?

Hi. This is really outside the area of expertise for this site as it’s a money advice issue. However, you may want to have a look at the Citizens Advice information on this topic

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/search.htm?query=parking+fine+enforcement

In my experience ( I used to work for a CAB in a past life) given your client’s circumstances the bailiffs will usually return the warrants to the respective Councils as “Nulla Bonna”. You should go back and make representations to the bailiffs on your client’s behalf, given that effectively he has no goods or assets for them to seize. If the warrants are returned you should then negotiate directly with the Councils to accept a more affordable repayment plan from your client. If the bailiffs refuse to return the warrants then you should make a complaint to the bailiff companies and the Councils concerned as they should have a Service Level Agreement with the bailiffs which should lay out very clearly the expectations and standard of behaviour in these situations.

Before you go back to the bailiffs you may also want to examine the fees that have been applied to see that they are fair and reasonable and within the parameters allowed for by law. In answer to your final point, yes they are civil penalties, not criminal if they are simply parking fines as you stated. I hope that this is helpful.