Parking Fine

Askabout

Does anyone know if council will accept payment for a parking fine after the 56 days has run out. Forgot to pay it on time

Roger Hassenforder

Askabout wrote: »

Does anyone know if council will accept payment for a parking fine after the 56 days has run out. Forgot to pay it on time

If you havent got the summons, go in and pay it. If you have got the summons, go in and pay and it will be struck out in court.

geoff35

Askabout wrote: »

Does anyone know if council will accept payment for a parking fine after the 56 days has run out. Forgot to pay it on time

Hi there, If you missed the deadline, they will not take the payment under any circumstances, you will have to go to court. Happened to me recently. If you go to court, plead guilty, if you did honestly commit the offence, your looking at a 100 euro fine, don't go, it will be 200 plus costs. I had no solicitor. Its all over in one minute if you plead guillty.

clerk

geoff35 wrote: »

Hi there, If you missed the deadline, they will not take the payment under any circumstances, you will have to go to court. Happened to me recently. If you go to court, plead guilty, if you did honestly commit the offence, your looking at a 100 euro fine, don't go, it will be 200 plus costs. I had no solicitor. Its all over in one minute if you plead guillty.

Yeah but if you attend you can be waiting around for hours on end depending on where your case is in the sequencing.

I was in there once ( professional ) and witnessed a session and my feedback would be:
a) Don't attend and take you're chances - might be €200, might be Nil (struck out ) - there were a load of cases struck out as the traffic wanden or whatever was not in attendance - lap of the Gods stuff.
b) If you do attend plead guilty - because for anyone that doesn't the Judge basically starts a punch and Judy show in front of roughly 200 people. I was in there another Day for something else ( professional again ) and there was a grown man who didn't pay a fine and the Judge humilated him and he broke down crying and said his wife had left him and he'd had a nervous breakdown. It was genuinely one of the sadest things I ever saw in my life, I think it was for €200 or something. Basically the man didn't have the €200 but was too ashamed to admit it until the Judge forced him !!! It's a funny old Republic we live in with the Bankers and this poor man.

....and then of course you have the crowd who won't pay any fines and just laugh at the system and when you see some of the stuff going on, fines getting struck out by friends in high places etc., you wonder are they right ? :rolleyes:

celica00

I was there recently with my friend too and I saw a few cases before his own case.
In the end it's true, if you go to court it's best to plead guilty if you really are.
They don't wanna hear why you didnt do this or that, if you are guilty, say yes.
if not (really) explain, then they will leave off the fine

clerk

celica00 wrote: »

They don't wanna hear why you didnt do this or that, if you are guilty, say yes.
if not (really) explain, that they will leave off the fine

To be honest the very strong impression I got, was that the Judge didn't want anybody pleading "not guilty" as it takes time ( his/her time etc. ) so basically they hammer you if you plead "not guilty".

The Judge that was there the Day took the stance that you to prove you were " not guilty" which is fair enough because it is a court afterall but basically when the arguments got into technical issues I got the strong impression he hadn't a clue about the Motor trade ( l know a bit about the Motor trade myself ) and he got very frustrated and he didn't in my opinion listen to the testimonies at all, he had no interest in my opinion. Basically as far as he was concerned you were guilty until proven innocent.

Having witnessed it I would never plead not guilty even if I was "not guilty" ( for the sake of €200, bearing in mind the judge seems to be able to set whatever fines he likes ( within the law ! ) as far as I could tell )!!!

Bit of a joke of a process to be honest. it's not like these people are after shooting someone, it's just a parking fine for christ sakes. It was all very melodramatic by the Judge - I guess that's the system, but it's very 19th Century. Like the Lord of the manor.

celica00

I assume you are right, I can't tell too much about it as I thankfully didnt have any experience besides going in with my friend.

But I think this is probably the case.
If you can not prove you are NOT guilty, you are guilty, simple as.

What I witnessed was, that often they were guilty but tried to find a reason why. Which the judge probably doesn't want to hear if he sits there the whole day listening to peoples problems.
However, they should be familiar with their topics (motor trade etc).

Its the same again...trying to avoid work and be done with it quickly.

But very often you are in court for a reason, I would actually love to know how many of those people where really not guilty....

Ludo

clerk wrote: »

The Judge that was there the Day took the stance that you to prove you were " not guilty" which is fair enough because it is a court afterall but basically when the arguments got into

erm...isn't that the exact opposite of what a court is meant to be?

clerk

Ludo wrote: »

erm...isn't that the exact opposite of what a court is meant to be?

Yes - basically.

The case I was aware was of was that a private individual had purchased a car off a Company. But when the private individual received the "change of ownerhship forms" off the Company he wrote the selling Company down as the owner and sent it to Shannon. So the registered owner of the vehicle was not the legal owner if you follow me. Legally the individual ownes the vehicles as they paid for it. The individual insurers/taxes and NCTs the car ( albeit the docs would be sent to the registered owner ).

But the documents, including the 'parking fine' where sent to the Company as that is what the Shannon office system says.

So basically the Company ( not an individual ) got a summons and the Company pleaded not guilty, as it was a clerical error ( which by the way was not the Company's fault). The judge asked us to prove that the documents were filed in error there and then in Court, which was a ridiculous request for a parking fine because the ownership docs were with the private individual who was not in Court !!!! The Judge also stated that the Company would be legally responsible if the car was crashed, which is totally incorrect, the Company were not the legal owner. When the judge was told that, he asked the Company to prove they were not the legal owner with documents there and then, so I guess ( he didn't clarify ) that we were supposed to bring the cheque proving the sale ( with an invoice ? and whatever else the Judge was going to dream up in Court that Day ). This was all despite the testimony of the Company being given under oath !!!

In the end the Judge got all agitated and just struck his hammer and said €250 fine or whatever. I don't give a bollox about a fine of €250 or whatever, it was the Company that was going to have to pay the fine, but it was the principle of the matter. It was a simple clericial error, the way he was going on you're swear it was an attempt to overthrow the Government or something.

We sorted it all out with the individual with a few phonecalls in the Days after our big Day out in Court. :P He was mortified and all apologies as it happens. Much ado about nothing.

In our general experience most Judges haven't a clue about the Motor trade. I guess when you're driving a 2014 Merc or whatever you don't need to worry about it breaking down and having to talk to mechanics etc.

twowheelsonly

The joy of being guilty in court for a parking fine is that there will be €75 costs attached on top of whatever fine the Judge imposes.
This is council costs for administration and having the Traffic Warden present in court. If one warden has 50 cases in court the same day that 75 will be attached to every one of them for his attendance. massive cash cow for the CCC.

clerk

twowheelsonly wrote: »

massive cash cow for the CCC.

and the judiciary...that was the overwhelming impression l got about the thing to be honest.

That and the fact that the Court is set up to intimate the ordinary person. I certainly would not fancy having to face off to one of them top solicitor types, quoting from Victorian law books and an unsympathetic judge ( which was the strong impression l got the only 2 Days l attended with work ).

The next Day we attended we brought the Company solicitor pleaded guilty and it was a piece of piss, fine of a couple hundred for the Company. Just a cash cow the whole thing. The gas thing was a Govt. offical came down from Dublin to give evidence against us in the case.

The item did not any involve money and whether it involved the law was debatable ( according to our Solicitor ). Now this jumped up Govt. bureaucrat who brought the case forward was getting paid by the state for his Day in Court, plus travel expenses up and down from Dublin to Cork and the Govt. received back a few hundred for a net loss of a couple of hundred after yerman was paid all his entitlements !!! Great Country we live in.

Basically it was paying the bureaucrat to take the case ( whether he won or not ). Gas crack altogether - l'd say he has a lovely earner going there.

We ended up sitting around all Day and when it came up it lasted about 5 minutes. :rolleyes: Never again will l go, but it was an eye opener.

the beer revolu

My wife had a very different experience regarding a parking fine.
Without going into the whole story, it involved an parking permit that was delayed through inefficiencies in the system and we felt hard done by. After trying to reason with the fines office with no joy, we decided to go to court.
Briefly explained the situation to the judge who promptly threw the case out because we were entitled to a permit and subsequently got one.

Justice was done:D