PCNs needs to be delcared?

Hi All,

Sorry, if this question has been asked many times already. But i would like to know from people who already applied for their BC applications and got approvals with same situation.

Do the paid PCNs from council(on your name) needs to be declared on BC application? I have 2.

Will this have any impact on approval?

Thanks!

metallicaf wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 25, 2019 12:11 pm

Hi All,

Sorry, if this question has been asked many times already. But i would like to know from people who already applied for their BC applications and got approvals with same situation.

Do the paid PCNs from council(on your name) needs to be declared on BC application? I have 2.

Will this have any impact on approval?

Thanks!

Declaring PCN does not make anysense. PCN are issues to the Car not the owner. There could be more than one owner of car.

Council does not share this data with Police or Home office.

I generally tend to agree with the view that many people here have - since parking PCNs are tied to the car, do not mention a specific name, are not shared with police and the HO, and there is no admission of guilt and thereby do not go on your criminal record, technically there is no sensible reason as to why they should be declared. Unless of course they have not been paid and things escalate to court.

However, Guide AN explicitly states that any traffic offences, including parking tickets must be declared even though they would not normally be taken into account (as they are not criminal offences) unless you have a lot of them in a short period of time in which case they go against your good character.

There have been reports from members on here that did not declare any PCNs at all despite having received some, and this did not impact their application, i.e. it was successful. It's no surprise, as it would be completely infeasible for the HO to be checking with all UK councils about potential PCNs issued against any car that you may be the registered keeper for, only for any uncovered PCNs to be disregarded.

On the other hand, the HO do have the right to revoke citizenship in the future, if they so decide, in light of evidence that the application was made with the use of fraud or deception. If Guide AN explicitly asks to disclose parking tickets, at least on paper the interpretation would be that not disclosing these is effectively witholding information.

Given the discrepancy between the nature of a PCN and Guide AN, my personal advice - since you only have two anyway - would be to declare them for peace of mind and avoid potential future issues.

I too had two PCNs - one in 2014 and one 2016 - that I had completely forgotten about when I was filling in my application, so I decided to play it safe and send a further letter to UKVI as soon as I remembered about the PCNs, updating them on the matter. I am still waiting to hear back about my application so I cannot really speak for the outcome just yet.

The reason is that most applicants are not familiar with the law. What most people think of a parking ticket is the ones stuck to the windshield issued by the councils generally for parking without paying or parking in the suspended bay, etc.
The LAW is very clear that these form of parking ticket are NOT criminal offences or criminal matters. It is simply a CIVIL issue. However a parking ticket (FPNs) issued by the police force or DVLA (e.g for parking in a public road without vehicle tax paid) are in fact CRIMINAL offences, are issued under your name and would be stored on the police/DVLA/etc database. The guide also very clearly talking about these type of parking tickets when discussing fixed fines.

@Zimba,
I stand corrected - in detail, unlike other posts on the matter. Thanks for your input and the clarification! Your "parking" FPN example certainly lead to a "eureka" moment in my head.

On a side note, surely this should be considered a problem of Guide AN and what I would personally consider incorrect and inappropriate use of wording. While PCNs are very clearly by law, as you point out, not criminal offences, the notion of a "parking ticket" ultimately becomes blurry and very far from clear for the majority of applicants (or people as a whole, not just applicants).

I somewhat found out about the subtle difference between "parking" FPN and parking PCN not long after having already sent out an extra letter disclosing my PCNs in very ambiguous use of wording - luckily I also included that both PCNs were issued by the local council, hopefully this will help the caseworker disambiguate what I had in mind.

Needless to say I was quite surprised at the time, even more so as of your post, since I thought that parking tickets are virtually always about civil offences (unless unpaid) for inconsiderate parking wrt local road restrictions, and issued by authorised third parties (e.g. council officials, parking attendants, etc). Criminal offences, such as your example of parking on a public road without paid vehicle tax, I used to think would fall into an FPN that is not at all a "parking ticket" by definition as the nature of the offence has little to do with the parking itself but more with the untaxed vehicle. This is pretty much why this confusion arises and were logic falls apart completely, as - in theory - you could get a "parking" ticket for a perfectly sound parking but, as you say, no vehicle tax.

Guide AN does, as you say, refer to criminal offences, thereby FPNs. But also, PCNs are, by virtue, lesser form of a fixed penalty fine too. The problem here is Guide AN does not explicitly differentiate between parking PCNs and "parking" FPNs making it difficult for applicants to differentiate - especially those that have never been issued with or even seen a "parking" FPN.

I understand the confusion due to the complicated nature of the laws around this and it is normal to be a bit paranoid. I know people who had many PCNs and did not declare them without any issues. PCNs of course can become problematic when you fail to pay or challenge them. Then they are viewed as a criminal issue to be dealt with. So getting a PCN is not an offence or admission of guilt however failure to pay it, is a criminal offence.

The good character requirements guidance for HO staff DO mention PCNs though.

"Fixed penalty notices, penalty charge notices and penalty notices for disorder are
imposed by the police or other authorised enforcement officers for traffic rule
violations, environmental and civil violations. It is a way of the criminal justice system
disposing of fairly minor offences without the need for a person to attend court. "

It proceeds to only mention the relevance of FPNS though:

"Receiving one does not form part of a person’s criminal record. A fixed penalty
notice will not normally result in refusal unless the person has failed to pay or has
unsuccessfully challenged the notice and there were subsequent criminal
proceedings resulting in a conviction. "

I'm going through the same dilemma myself right now.

@Zimba, by the way your post is very helpful.

My thought process is still - if a record check does turn up a PCN, would it be considered a negative if not declared? Many posts seems to emphasise the fact a PCN won't show up rather than it not being relevant.

heliosperson wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 27, 2019 5:52 pm

@Zimba, by the way your post is very helpful.

My thought process is still - if a record check does turn up a PCN, would it be considered a negative if not declared? Many posts seems to emphasise the fact a PCN won't show up rather than it not being relevant.

If it was recorded on the police database or related to a court case, it will be a negative. As I explained at length, PCNs in 99% of cases have no effect.

I can further confirm what @Zimba has said. My application was successful and yesterday I got my letter of approval along with the supporting documents.

Subsequent additional information that I had sent out as a couple of separate letters was also returned to me, but not the letter declaring the two parking PCNs. Given that my application was successful, my reasoning - as speculative as it is - is that upon receipt they likely saw they were just a couple of PCNs and not criminal FPNs and thus either discarded or ignored this information. Otherwise, I would assume any actually relevant information would have been returned to me in its original form, as was the case with the other letter which was related to employment (and hence confirming activity within the UK).

Bottom line, no harm done if declared but they don't seem to have made any effect on the application at all.