When the Paperwork Doesn't Add Up: Why a Hire Company's 62 Appeals Failed

Most of us think of a parking or traffic penalty as a one-off annoyance. This case involved sixty-two penalty charge notices (PCNs), a total bill of £8,060 in the appeals alone, and a tribunal adjudicator who was not remotely persuaded by the paperwork put in front of them.

It is a useful case for ordinary drivers because it shows how tribunals judge documents. If you ever try to pass a PCN to someone else, the adjudicator will look closely at whether your evidence is genuine, consistent and complete.

The case: two vehicles, 62 PCNs

The appellant was Sunshine Ventures UKBD Ltd, a company describing itself as a car rental business. It was the registered keeper of two vehicles, and Islington Council had issued it 62 PCNs for them.

• 60 PCNs related to one vehicle (LS18 OSV). Of these, 58 were moving traffic contraventions involving prohibitions on motor vehicles, and the rest were parking contraventions.
• 2 PCNs related to a second vehicle (DF65 GVN), both moving traffic contraventions.
• All the contraventions took place between 16 April and 12 July 2022.

The contraventions themselves were never disputed. The council also said that, counting PCNs not before the tribunal and a third vehicle, the unpaid liability stood at £22,357 as at 25 July 2022, across 185 PCNs. The adjudicator made clear they were only deciding the 62 appeals in front of them.

What the company argued

The company did not say the vehicles hadn't committed the contraventions. It said someone else should pay: a man named as Mr Yared, who it said had hired the vehicles.

Its position had two layers:

1. The vehicles were on hire. It supplied a hiring agreement with Mr Yared and asked the council to transfer liability to him.
2. The agreement was then terminated. When the council refused to accept the agreement, the company produced a termination letter. Its notices of appeal suggested Mr Yared kept using the car anyway, that the police were investigating, and that the company "cannot do much more about it".

What the council argued

Islington said both documents were essentially a contrivance, created to send it on a "wild goose chase" after a hirer who would never pay. It didn't have to prove exactly what was going on, only that the company hadn't made its case.

The council pointed to its experience with this company's vehicles. Its notices of rejection said that where liability had been transferred to a named hirer, the PCN typically went unpaid with no contact, and that some people named as hirers had said they had never hired anything and that their identities had been misused. The council also said that a low proportion of penalty charges were ever paid by those named. Later, its Parking Fraud Team wrote that it would no longer transfer liability to purported hirers of the company's vehicles.

The decision: appeals refused

The adjudicator refused all sixty-two appeals, and liability stayed with the company.

The legal reasoning, in plain English

1. The burden was on the company

The registered keeper of a vehicle is presumed to be its owner, and that is the person the PCN goes to. If the keeper says someone else should be liable, it is up to the keeper to prove it, on the balance of probabilities (meaning "more likely than not").

Hire firms do have a recognised route here. Broadly, where a vehicle is let under a hiring agreement and the hirer has signed a statement acknowledging liability for penalty charges, the hire firm can ask for liability to be moved to the hirer. A hire firm also has a separate ground that the vehicle was being used without its consent. But both need proof, and this case turned on whether the evidence was believable.

2. The two arguments pulled in opposite directions

The adjudicator noted that the company's two positions were mutually exclusive. Either Mr Yared had the car under a valid hire agreement, or the agreement had ended and he kept it without permission. The company also never said when termination happened. Since the first contravention came just eleven days after the agreement supposedly began, termination clearly couldn't explain all of them.

3. The hiring agreement had fundamental problems

The adjudicator was careful to say that small drafting errors happen and that the company may not have used a solicitor. But the problems here went well beyond typos:

• No price. The contract didn't state the hire rate. A clause on missed weekly payments pointed to an "item 3" that actually dealt with registration and tax.
• No deposit amount, even though a clause referred to deductions from one.
• Garbled and contradictory wording, such as a reference to the "excessive jurisdiction of the United Kingdom laws" and to "UK laws guidelines". A termination clause appeared to clash with another clause allowing termination without notice.
• Mix-ups between vehicles. For the second vehicle's appeals, the company submitted the first vehicle's agreement. One agreement for the second vehicle did exist, but Mr Yared's signature looked radically different from the one on the first vehicle's agreement, and the two agreements covered almost the same period. That would have meant one man hiring two vehicles at once for months, with no explanation, despite a clause banning subletting.

4. The termination letter didn't help

The letter had no date, but gave 30 July 2021 as the return date. This might have been a typo for 2022, but the company never explained it. It was not addressed to Mr Yared, there was no evidence it was ever sent, and for the second vehicle's appeals the letter referred to the other vehicle. It also spoke of "no contact" voiding the agreement and a "refusal of an extension", neither of which matched anything in the contract.

5. What was missing mattered as much as what was there

The adjudicator drew attention to the lack of ordinary business records. There was no initial enquiry from Mr Yared, no witness statement from anyone at the company who dealt with him, no evidence of any checks on him, and no emails. The letter threatened an immobiliser, police action and recovery, but there was no evidence any of this happened: no crime reference number, no civil claim, nothing. The adjudicator said that, in effect, there was no sign of any steps an owner of a valuable asset would be expected to take if someone kept their vehicle without consent.

6. How the adjudicator weighed the council's evidence

Some of the council's evidence about other cases was hearsay, and the adjudicator said there was no direct evidence for one specific assertion about a stolen identity. They gave it only "limited weight". Its real value was context. By 4 July 2022 the company knew exactly why liability was being refused, and with over £8,000 at stake, would be expected to produce its best evidence. It didn't.

7. Genuine versus "sham" documents

The adjudicator's central reasoning is worth remembering. Genuine contracts, even with the odd error, tend to be consistent with themselves and with known facts, because the parties actually need to rely on them if there is a dispute. A sham document only has to look like an agreement for a third party, so it often falls apart when examined closely. The number and nature of the anomalies here fitted the second pattern much better.

Lessons for drivers

This is general commentary, not legal advice, and most drivers will never be in a position like this. But some points carry over.

1. If you say someone else was responsible, you must prove it. Being the registered keeper puts the starting burden on you. Naming another person is not enough without credible evidence behind it.

2. Consistency matters. Evidence that contradicts itself, or your own arguments, undermines credibility. Make sure documents match the correct vehicle, dates and people. If you are dealing with a vehicle you no longer have, our guide to what to do about a fine for a sold vehicle covers the general approach.

3. Back up documents with the paper trail around them. A signed agreement on its own proves little. Emails, messages, ID checks and payment records show a real relationship. Tribunals notice when that supporting material is missing, particularly when you would naturally have it.

4. Respond to the council's concerns when you learn of them. Here, the company knew from early July 2022 what the issue was and still did not address it. If a council explains why it rejects your evidence, deal with that point directly. Our guide to making formal representations for PCNs may help you structure that.

5. Be wary if you rent or lend vehicles, and take advice. If you run a vehicle-hire or similar business, or regularly lend a car, the rules on transferring liability are technical. Where thousands of pounds are at stake, as here, consider professional legal advice and check the current official guidance from the relevant authority. Our post on renting cars and parking fines covers the renter's side.

Key takeaway

Passing a penalty to someone else only works if your documents are believable, consistent and backed up by the records a real transaction would leave behind. If the paperwork doesn't add up, a tribunal will notice, and the PCN stays with you.