bailifs re parking ticket

[shades]

i had a car which i sold to my sister at my mothers address last year. During which time i sold my house aswell. A year later the bailiffs came to re-posses my sisters car for an unpaid parking ticket. It emerged that it was a ticket on my name and they had been writting to my previous address regarding this. i had no knowledge of this ticket. My sister was under stress not knowing what this was about and was speaking to the bailifs over the phone from work in london and was threatened to have the car removed if she did not pay 400.24 pounds which she did. As soon as she contacted birmingham city council it became clear the fine was for me. i immediately wrote to them providing a solicitors letter confirming the date i sold the property and stating i was the person liable for the ticket not my sister and please send me details of what i need to pay.its now been 9 weeks and i have heard nothing. i have rand numerous occasions and just get told the manager is not in the office i leave my number and no-one ges back to me ..please can you advice me as to what i need to do as i feel it was very unfair for my sister to pay a fine which was mine and which was going to wrong address. shades Sun 29/08/04

[AllYourBase]

Why don't you just give her the cash?

[wizard]

SimonC exactly what I was thinking. Your only other option after this would be to get a Solicitor involved.

[shades]

my argument is they were writing to me at the wrong address had i known about this parking ticket i would have endevoured to pay it without it escalating to this amount.

[Mrs_Pegasus]

If you want an answer from B'ham CC I would recommend you send a letter marked Private & Confidential to the Treasurer/Head of Finance (you should be able to find the correct title and name on their website). I would be sure you have all your dates in order, i.e. the date you sold the car and how soon the DVLA were notified. Normally a council will give you 14-28 days to pay and then they will contact the DVLA for the owners details. It costs the Council to find out these details so they will normally wait longer. I find it odd that they chased your sister at the right address even though you are saying they were writing to your old address? How did this change? If they asked the DVLA again, then surely they would also have seen the name had changed. A bailiff can only seize a car once they are satisfied the car does belong to the debtor which in this case it didnt, all your sister needed to do was show them to log book/insurance docs etc to have bought some time to sort this out before money passed hands. They would have also needed to ensure there was no outstanding finance on the vehicle. Another question, did you not have a forwarding address for your old address like the service the PO operate??? Good Luck

[BenDToy]

It would appear that you (or your sister) failed to tell DVLA the correct ownership of the vehicle. I think you owe your sister some money, not the Council.