London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham (18 014 907)

Category : Transport and highways > Parking and other penalties

Decision : Upheld

Decision date : 27 Aug 2019

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: Ms X complained about the Council towing away her car and charging her for outstanding penalty charge notices and storage charges. The Ombudsman finds the Council was at fault for failing to respond to Ms X, failing to warn her it would remove the car and failing to consider properly the information she provided. Had there been no fault Ms X could have avoided six penalty charge notices and the storage charges for her car. The Council has agreed to cancel six penalty charge notices and the storage charges.

The complaint

  1. Ms X complained about the Council’s action to tow away her car and charge her for outstanding penalty charge notices and storage charges. She says the Council’s actions were unreasonable in her particular circumstances, are causing her financial difficulty and affecting her ability to work.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
  2. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

  1. I have considered information from:
    • Ms X’s complaint and a telephone conversation with her;
    • the Council’s complaints procedure; and
    • the Council’s responses to my enquiries.
  2. I gave Ms X and the Council the opportunity to comment on a draft of this decision. I have taken account of their comments before making this final decision on the complaint.

Back to top

What I found

  1. The Council has responsibility for enforcing parking regulations in its area. Where councils have that responsibility, regulations set out when their civil enforcement officers can clamp or remove a vehicle after issuing a penalty charge notice (Removal and Disposal of Vehicles Regulations 1986, as amended). An officer can remove a vehicle parked in a parking place in contravention of parking restrictions. Where a vehicle already has three or more penalty charges (PCNs) outstanding, an officer can remove it 15 minutes after issuing a further PCN.
  2. Ms X lives in an area covered by parking restrictions. To park on the road near her home at certain times she needed to display a valid permit, show a pay and display voucher or pay for the parking by telephone.
  3. To be eligible for a residents parking permit the Council requires an applicant to provide:
    • their current driver’s licence;
    • proof they are the keeper or main user of the vehicle. (If it is their own vehicle they need to provide their vehicle registration certificate showing their name and address in the Council’s area. This is issued by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and is also referred to as a log book and a V5C.); and
    • proof they live in the Council’s area.
  4. The Council allows people to buy a temporary residents permit, lasting 30 days, while they get together all the documents needed for a full residents permit.
  5. Ms X had a residents parking permit in the past when she had a different car.

Events June 2018 – October 2018

  1. Ms X bought a new car in June 2018. The car did not have a registration certificate. Ms X parked her car on the road near her house without a permit or paying for the parking. The same month a Council enforcement officer first put a penalty charge notice on the car. The PCN (and all following PCNs) were for the contravention of parking in a residents’ parking place without displaying a permit or pay and display voucher and without paying the parking charge.
  2. The Council served two more PCNs in July 2018 which Ms X challenged. She told the Council after she bought the car the seller had reported it as stolen. She said she could not get it insured or say it was hers until the police dismissed the charges against her.
  3. The Council issued five more PCNs. The day of the eighth PCN the Council responded to her challenge. The Council said the problems she reported did not stop her paying for parking. The letter explained, if she did not pay, the Council would send a Notice to Owner to the car’s registered keeper. It said the keeper could challenge the PCNs by appealing to the Environment and Traffic Adjudicators. Ms X provided further details and said she would register the car in her name once the police confirmed she owned it. She said the police had told her to leave it where it was, near her home. This was because a broken window led to the alarm triggering and she had to be able to go out and stop it. The Council said again it would send a Notice to Owner to the registered keeper.
  4. In mid August Ms X told the Council the police had now told her she could drive the car so she said she would get it insured. But she was now concerned all the PCNs (18 by then) would be for her to pay. The Council replied at the end of August and asked her to send documentary evidence for her claims. It gave no indication what sort of evidence was needed but said it would only cancel the PCNs if there was clear supporting evidence enabling it to do so.
  5. The police enquiries continued but the police eliminated Ms X from their enquiries in early September.
  6. Ms X then applied for a temporary residents permit. The Council says Ms X provided everything she needed for a temporary permit but failed to pay for it. The Council cancelled the application because of non payment. Ms X says she did not complete her application because the ongoing police enquiry meant she could not guarantee getting a registration certificate before the end of the temporary permit period. The Council was still saying she needed a registration certificate to get a full permit.
  7. By the end of September 2018 Ms X was worried the Council would tow away her car. She explained her concerns to the Council in an email. She said she could not get a registration certificate until the police investigations were complete. Since she had been eliminated from the police’s enquiries she had no way of knowing when that would be. She asked the Council to exempt the car from future PCNs until the car’s history was resolved or allow her to get a full residents parking permit on the proof she did have of her ownership, a sales receipt.
  8. Ms X says she also telephoned the Council to say much the same. The Council has not confirmed any such conversations. It says any telephone recordings would no longer be available. Ms X says she was assured by telephone the Council would respond to her concerns in due course and her car would not be removed. She says the Council told her it would deal with her correspondence and would not remove the car.
  9. Between this contact from Ms X and 11 October civil enforcement officers issued six more PCNs. On 11 October an officer issued a PCN in the morning and the car was removed later the same day. When it was removed it had 46 unpaid PCNs.
  10. On 13 October the police provided a statement Ms X could use, headed ‘to whom it may concern’. The statement:
    • confirmed the police’s investigation was about the alleged theft of the car at the end of June
    • said the police had refused Ms X’s request to move the car because she had to be near to attend to the alarm
    • confirmed Ms X had bought the car and the police had the sales receipt
    • confirmed the police eliminated her from their enquiries in early September.
  11. Ms X continued to contact the Council and sent it the police statement. On
    22 October the Council asked her to provide:
    • the date she bought the car
    • if any, the dates she tried to buy a residents permit (apart from the September temporary permit application it knew about)
    • a detailed letter from the police with dates when she was first questioned or arrested and dates when the police told her not to remove the car. The Council said it needed this to help explain why she only applied for a permit in September after buying the car in June.
  12. Ms X provided the dated sales receipt. She said she could not get anything else from the police. On 23 and 24 October the Council said she had not provided enough information. It said only when it had the dates related to the information requested could it consider the chronology of the PCNs and the circumstances leading up to removing the car. The Council said it was unable to help further until she provide further evidence. Ms X says she could not provide anything else.

The Council’s complaints procedure

  1. Ms X made a formal complaint to the Council at the end of October about its removal of her car while she was awaiting for a reply from the Council.
  2. The Council responded in November using the information Ms X had already provided. It said she could have paid for a temporary permit or paid for parking another way. It did not uphold the complaint. However, due to the circumstances Ms X described, the Council said it had cancelled the 35 PCNs issued until the date the Council cancelled her temporary permit application for non-payment. That left 11 outstanding PCNs amounting to £1,565 and storage charges of £1,080, a total of £2,645.
  3. The Council explained it usually required someone collecting a car from storage to provide the registration certificate and a current insurance certificate. It knew she could not do this. It offered to release the car and waive the storage charges if Ms X:
    • paid the outstanding PCNs (£1,565) by 7 December 2018;
    • confirmed where she would store the vehicle so it would not receive further PCNs
    • provided two forms of identification; and
    • arranged to collect the car by delivery truck as it was uninsured and had no MOT certificate.
  4. Ms X was unhappy with the Council’s response. The Council considered the complaint further at Stage 2 of its complaints procedure. The Council decided the complaint had been investigated appropriately and a fair and reasonable offer of resolution made. It closed the complaint.

Current situation

  1. Ms X’s car is still in Council storage. There are still 11 outstanding PCNs on it.
    Ms X has no registration certificate for the car, it is uninsured and has no current MOT certificate.
  2. The Council says it is not pursuing payment for the outstanding PCNs because it has no details of the car’s registered keeper.

Findings

  1. Anyone parking where Ms X did without a permit or paying for the parking is contravening the parking restrictions. So they can expect the Council to issue PCNs.
  2. Ms X is clear she owns the car but she has not ever been the registered keeper. The Council’s requirements for a residents parking permit include a registration certificate to prove an applicant is the keeper or main user of the vehicle. Ms X still does not have a registration certificate. She has never applied to the DVLA for one. The registered keeper of a car can challenge PCNs and appeal them to the Adjudicator. But that right of appeal has never been available to Ms X.
  3. The circumstances immediately after Ms X bought her car are unusual. She could not drive the car until the police allowed her to. However, at any time she could have paid for parking on a daily basis.
  4. By early September 2018 the police were no longer preventing her driving or moving the car. At that point she could have bought a temporary parking permit, paid for parking on a daily basis or had the car taken somewhere where it would not get any more PCNs.
  5. The law allows the Council to remove a car with 46 PCNs. Ms X raised concerns the Council would remove the car in an email to the Council in September 2018. The Council failed to respond to her. In the unusual circumstances of this case, and given Ms X’s continuing contact, I would not have expected the Council to remove the car until it had responded and warned her the Council would remove the car. Ms X got neither a response nor a warning before the Council removed the car and that is fault. Had the Council warned her of impending removal, Ms X could have moved the car elsewhere, whether she could drive it or not. By doing so she would have avoided the Council’s storage charges and the last six PCNs issued.
  6. The Council was also at fault in October 2018 for not properly considering the information Ms X provided at that point. This caused some avoidable distress to Ms X as she could not provide any more information than she had. The Council considered her information two weeks later through the complaints procedure. At that point it considered the unusual circumstances and used its discretion to cancel all but the last 11 PCNs.

Back to top

Agreed action

  1. The Council has agreed that within four weeks of this decision it will:
    • cancel the last six PCNs issued;
    • cancel the storage charges for the car; and
    • allow Ms X to collect the car under similar terms as it set out in
      November 2018. However, now the condition of the car has deteriorated, the Council will require Ms X to prove that, on release of the car, she will store it off the road.

Back to top

Final decision

  1. I have now completed my investigation because the Council’s agreed actions will remedy the injustice caused to Ms X by its fault.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

Print this page

LGO logogram

Review your privacy settings

Required cookies

These cookies enable the website to function properly. You can only disable these by changing your browser preferences, but this will affect how the website performs.

View required cookies

Analytical cookies

Google Analytics cookies help us improve the performance of the website by understanding how visitors use the site.
We recommend you set these 'ON'.

View analytical cookies

In using Google Analytics, we do not collect or store personal information that could identify you (for example your name or address). We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data. Google has developed a tool to help you opt out of Google Analytics cookies.

Privacy settings