Summons sent to wrong address

Head The Wall

I have looked through previous posts here but none seem to relate to the exact situation my OH was involved in this week.

I'll start and list out when we lived at each address

Address A - February 2007 - March 2008
Address B - March 2008 - August 2010
Address C - August 2010 - Present

At all times whenever we moved house at motor tax renewal time the new address was registered.


My OH had an unpaid parking fine from May 2010 when we lived at Address B. The council I am presuming posted out a summons to Address A where we hadn't lived for a couple of years to inform us of a court appearance.

Subsequently at the court appearance April 2011 at which we obviously didn't attend the OH was convicted in her absence. A warrant was issued to either pay a E250 fine or 3 nights in Mountjoy.
A guard arrived at the door Tuesday evening with this warrant, We were obviously shocked that it had gotten this far without us being made aware of it and it wasn't really an option for herself to go to Mountjoy so we had to pay up.



My problem is whoever filed the original paperwork (which I am presuming is the council) didn't make a concerted effort to find out where we lived. Someone obviously had to check some database as they had our address from a few years back but I don't understand why the council didn't use our most recent address (C) which they had on their system. The car was re taxed in February this year but leaving that aside you would expect that it at the very least would have been sent to address B.


The cynic in me believes they are deliberately sending summonses out to addresses they know are incorrect so people will be unaware of the court case and the council ends up getting its money and costs.

Do I have options here and can I appeal it? I know it may involve getting a solicitor but I think there is a good case to get it revoked. Based on the info below they had access to our last known abode but didn't use it, therefore the summons wasn't correctly served so we shouldn't have been obliged to appear in court in response to it.

Would a solicitor even be needed if we were to appeal it as we have documentation showing that the council always had our current address and for some reason didn't use it. We wouldn't be afraid to stand up in court unrepresented as we have nothing to hide

Service of the summons

The rules which govern the service of summonses are to be found in the Rules of the District Court (Order 10). Basically a summons can be served on you in the following ways:

Personal delivery: by handing a copy of the summons to you or by leaving it at your last known abode or your place of work, or with your spouse, child or other relative.

Postal delivery: by ordinary or registered post to your last or most usual place of abode or to your place of business or employment.

Where service is affected by personal delivery, the summons must be served at least 7 days before the date fixed for your court case. In the case of registered post, the period is 21 days.

If a summons has not been correctly served, you are not obliged to appear in court in response to it. However, if you are present in court, there is no reason why the proceedings against you cannot proceed. In other words, any defect in the service of the summons is corrected by your appearance in court.

Reloc8

You've paid the fine so there's no point in appealing it. If you did appeal it you might not have gotten any reduction anyway - you're not denying the unpaid parking ticket ? At most, an appeal would have knocked 100 - 150 quid off the fine.

You could launch a High Court challenge by way of judicial review proving that you were not correctly served despite your address being available at all times to the council, the car being correctly registered etc, if you wanted to expose yourself to 00,000's of euros in legal costs.

I wouldn't advise that though.

Move on.

Head The Wall

Yeah, I wouldn't be going down the challenge route just thought that there might be an easier way to appeal it.

I understand it may be opening a can of worms but to me the summons wasn't served correctly so it should all be thrown out. This effectively happens with the speeding offences that get to court, they are dismissed because they can't prove the fine was received correctly.


I just think it's a flagrant abuse of the system that's going on here as we effectively didn't get our day in court. You may feel a bit different if you didn't have money on you when a guard arrived to the door in a situation like this and you had no option but to go to prison for something you were completely unaware of.


The guard actually arrived 1 hour before we had moved out of the house we were in, OH is gone to UK now and I'm off in a few weeks, if we were gone an hour quicker he wouldn't have been able to serve the warrant and problem would be solved. Lucky for him.

I'm not gonna waste money on it but will follow it up, cheers for the input

Croc

The summons was not sent to the wrong address, you failed to notify the relevant authority of change of address so it was sent to the address the vehicle was registered at.

J K

I hope the missus is traveling under a false identity.

Cause that warrant could cause awful problems for her if anyone runs a check on her going through air/sea ports etc.

later12

Croc wrote: »

you failed to notify the relevant authority of change of address

Did you read the OP?

At all times whenever we moved house at motor tax renewal time the new address was registered.

Of course the OP has a strong argument here, the only question is whether or not it is one worth pursuing in financial terms.

Reloc8

J K wrote: »

I hope the missus is traveling under a false identity.

Cause that warrant could cause awful problems for her if anyone runs a check on her going through air/sea ports etc.

Eh no...the warrant was live for unpaid fine...the fine has been paid...she has no issue whatsoever to worry about.

Reloc8

Head The Wall wrote: »

I just think it's a flagrant abuse of the system that's going on here as we effectively didn't get our day in court. You may feel a bit different if you didn't have money on you when a guard arrived to the door in a situation like this and you had no option but to go to prison for something you were completely unaware of.

I absolutely agree - if that happened you would run to a solicitor immediately with some prospect of getting her released more or less immediately.

On the service issue - service of a summons is not really the major consideration once it has been delivered in accordance with the District Court Rules - i.e. personal service is not required.

When a court hearing is complete a notice of fine is then sent out by the Court office - this usually prompts people to do something about the case if they didn't go to court at first.

What's very strange here is that the car was registered to a correct address in this instance, hence both the summons and notice of fine would have issued to that address. Unless the address was ambiguous (not in a devious way - townlands etc.) or inaccurate, its highly unusual that you got neither.

In any event, I don't think you suffered any real financial penalty as at most if you'd gone to court the fine might have been about 100 euro less - and you now have an interesting story for the dinner table ! You're making the right decision not to pursue further.

(ps - photoshop up a few 'Wanted' posters for the Wife )

Croc

later10 wrote: »

Did you read the OP?

Of course the OP has a strong argument here, the only question is whether or not it is one worth pursuing in financial terms.

I did read the OP "later10" and I stand by my original statement, he should have notified a change of address when he moved and not a few months later when he taxed the car

eco2live

Do the 3 days. Its not that bad

J K

later10 wrote: »

Did you read the OP?

Of course the OP has a strong argument here, the only question is whether or not it is one worth pursuing in financial terms.

One problem for Head the Wall is that he forgot to send the VLC/Log Book into the Motor Tax Office accompanied with form RF111 when he changed address. Even when he was taxing the car he says he put a new address on the RF100 but it seems he forgot to give them the VLC / Logbook. They take the old Log Book and send out a new one with updated details - and they update the National Vehicle File with the new address.

If he was to pursue a case in this he would be asked why he had in his possession over a number of years a Vehicle Licencing Cert with a previous address / false address on it, for this car, and that the authorities some how had a different address for him.

Head The Wall

Reloc8 wrote: »

service of a summons is not really the major consideration once it has been delivered in accordance with the District Court Rules - i.e. personal service is not required.

(ps - photoshop up a few 'Wanted' posters for the Wife )

The district court rules state that it should be posted to the last or most usual place of abode. I would argue that they did not send it to my last known place of abode, the prosecutor is the council and they had our most recent address so to me they did not fulfil their obligations to serve.

I'll pass on the photos , she's just glad we had the money to pay it, many others might not have. I'm just curious to follow this through as I'm sure it's not the first time this has happened

Croc wrote: »

I did read the OP "later10" and I stand by my original statement, he should have notified a change of address when he moved and not a few months later when he taxed the car

Going on the paperwork we currently have re the court date the summons would have been posted while the council had our current address on their system as Address C, I can understand there may possibly have been a mixup in dates and that it may have potentially gone to Address B but it didn't, it was sent to address A a residence we moved out of three years previously.

That to me is just plain careless and sloppy, do you think it would be correct for someone who may not have been able to pay the guard to end up in prison over a clerical error?

J K wrote: »

One problem for Head the Wall is that he forgot to send the VLC/Log Book into the Motor Tax Office accompanied with form RF111 when he changed address. Even when he was taxing the car he says he put a new address on the RF100 but it seems he forgot to give them the VLC / Logbook. They take the old Log Book and send out a new one with updated details - and they update the National Vehicle File with the new address.

If he was to pursue a case in this he would be asked why he had in his possession over a number of years a Vehicle Licencing Cert with a previous address / false address on it, for this car, and that the authorities some how had a different address for him.

That's, incorrect, see below. They had our correct address they just didn't use it.

Renewing your motor tax


In general, two forms are available for the purpose of renewing motor tax - Motor Tax Renewal Form RF100A (pdf) and Motor Tax Renewal Form RF100B. The only difference between these two forms is that the RF100B is a computer-printed form which is automatically posted to you about a month before your tax is due to expire, while the RF 100A is available from your Motor Taxation Offices, Public Libraries and Garda stations.


To renew your motor tax where there is no change in owner/vehicle details (e.g. name/address/engine size) you can complete Form RF100B (computerised reminder form) or Form RF100A.
To renew your motor tax where there is a change in owner details (e.g. name/address) you must use Form RF100A.
To renew your motor tax where there is a change in vehicle details (e.g. engine size) you must use Change of Particulars Form RF111 Pages 1,4(pdf) and Pages 2,3(pdf).

Cheers for the responses anyway folks, may just chat to a solicitor and see what they think. As much as it would kill me I would rather give the E250 to the solicitor than the council if they think there's a good chance of getting it refunded.:pac:

According to this post someone has been successful doing this

Grolschevik

Just to add my two cents, a speeding fine I got (garda van) and all related correspondence came to the address that the motor tax people have (my address changes were submitted online) and not to the address that my VLC bears.

Which reminds me -- I must do something about that...

J K

Head The Wall wrote: »

That's, incorrect, see below. They had our correct address they just didn't use it.

When you change address you have to send you're vrc/vlc to shannon with the new address details filled in. They send you a new certificate.
Additionally next time you tax your car you cannot do it online. You must fill out rf100 with your new address on it.

You talk about "they" having your address. One address is recorded on the National Vehicle File in shannon. That this information is up to date on the database is important for reasons such as the problems that you got yourself in.

Head The Wall

J K wrote: »

When you change address you have to send you're vrc/vlc to shannon with the new address details filled in. They send you a new certificate.
Additionally next time you tax your car you cannot do it online. You must fill out rf100 with your new address on it.

You talk about "they" having your address. One address is recorded on the National Vehicle File in shannon. That this information is up to date on the database is important for reasons such as the problems that you got yourself in.

Any time we moved house the car was taxed in the tax office using the RF100A form so yes they did have our most current information. The fact that it is not on the VLC in my physical possession is irrelevant really. I had to request a new VLC for my own car a few months ago and they had my current address which I presume they had from me registering a new address when I taxed my car.

You'll just have to accept you are wrong here and the council made an error in posting out the summons to a very old address so therefore the summons should not be classed as served.

MagicSean

I too would like to know who "they" are.

Head The Wall

I'm presuming it's the council, they are mentioned in the warrant as the prosecutor

MagicSean

The town council or the county council?

source

Head The Wall wrote: »

Any time we moved house the car was taxed in the tax office using the RF100A form so yes they did have our most current information. The fact that it is not on the VLC in my physical possession is irrelevant really. I had to request a new VLC for my own car a few months ago and they had my current address which I presume they had from me registering a new address when I taxed my car.

You'll just have to accept you are wrong here and the council made an error in posting out the summons to a very old address so therefore the summons should not be classed as served.

The RF100 form is a form that the local council hold with vehicle details. You may have been up to date as far as the Tax office was concerned. However for fines and summonses the information is taken from the National Vehicle File, which is held by the Department of the Environment.

If you look at the back of your vehicle registration cert, you'll see that you must fill in the form to notify the Dept of your change of address by sending the new information to Shannon. The Dept then updates the NVF and AGS get your most current information.

While you may have thought that you were updating your details, all you were doing was telling the motor tax office. I know it might seem like a stupid system, but it's the one that's there. Your vehicle is still registered to your old address, unless you send in the vehicle registration cert, no matter how many RF100's you fill in.

As for your assertion that the council made a mistake, they get the address information for summonses from the NVF, so they couldn't have gotten the wrong address unless it's the address you have given the Dept of Environment.

Grolschevik

J K wrote: »

Additionally next time you tax your car you cannot do it online. You must fill out rf100 with your new address on it.

I've done this online. Unless the rules have changed in the last three years?