London Borough Of Wandsworth, R (on the application of) v Parking Adjudicator

For parking penalties, the registered keeper is presumed to be the owner. That presumption is rebutted only by establishing one of the statutory grounds in Schedule 6 to the Road Traffic Act 1991. A disposition or acquisition relied upon for that purpose must be the kind of transaction which requires notification of a change of ownership under regulation 12 of the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 1971. It must involve the right to keep the vehicle, a degree of permanence, and ordinarily the right to use it on the road. Entrusting a vehicle to a garage for repair normally satisfies none of those requirements. The Parking Adjudicator must therefore apply the statutory scheme by reference to the position that would appear on the public record following instantaneous registration of the relevant disposition or acquisition.

The local authority issued penalty charge notices after a vehicle was parked in contravention of parking regulations. The registered keeper had entrusted the vehicle to a garage for repair and did not receive the notices. She relied on the statutory ground that she was not the owner when the alleged contraventions occurred.

The Parking Adjudicator accepted that the statutory presumption of ownership was rebuttable and treated the question of who was the keeper as one of fact and degree. The Divisional Court upheld that decision, holding that it was not Wednesbury unreasonable. The local authority appealed. The central issue was the proper construction of ownership, keeper status, and disposition under section 82 and Schedule 6 to the Road Traffic Act 1991.

1. Appeal allowed. The Court of Appeal unanimously allowed the appeal, ordered certiorari to the local authority, awarded costs below and in the Court of Appeal, and refused leave to appeal to the House of Lords.
2. Section 82(3) of the Road Traffic Act 1991 creates a presumption that the owner was the person in whose name the vehicle was registered. The Parking Adjudicator’s jurisdiction under paragraph 5(2) of Schedule 6 is to consider the statutory representations in paragraph 2(4), not to conduct an unrestricted enquiry into ownership.
3. Where the registered keeper relies on paragraph 2(4)(a)(ii) or (iii), the disposition or acquisition referred to in paragraphs 2(5) and 2(6) must involve the right to keep the vehicle. The relevant transaction is one which would require notification under regulation 12 of the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 1971.
4. The concept of keeping involves a degree of permanence and the right to use the vehicle for its manufactured purpose, namely use on the road. A friend borrowing a vehicle for a comparatively long period will not ordinarily become its keeper. Nor will a garage proprietor who takes a vehicle for repair, because the garage has no right to use it for its own purposes and the possession is insufficiently permanent. A repairer might become the keeper in exceptional circumstances, such as where the repair is uneconomic and the owner asks the garage to dispose of the vehicle.
5. The statutory scheme is related to what is, or should be, recorded in the public register. The correct approach is first to apply the registration presumption and then to ask what the position would have been at the time of the contravention if the material disposition or acquisition had been registered immediately. On that approach, entrusting the vehicle for repair did not divest the registered keeper of ownership.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Appeal from the Divisional Court allowed. The court ordered certiorari to the local authority and awarded costs here and below.
• Divisional Court: The application for judicial review of the Parking Adjudicator’s decision was dismissed.