Parking ticket purgatory ensnares Tustin man - over car he no longer owns
So the lease was up on Bryan Olive’s sporty Nissan 350Z on March 15. He dropped it off at the dealership, Tustin Nissan, and meant to get on with his life.
The car, apparently, had other ideas.
It got new plates, a new owner - and some trouble. It was in Los Angeles on Aug. 19 - parked in a yellow zone on East 11th Street - when it was ticketed by the beloved Los Angeles Parking Violations Bureau.
Why the heck does Olive know this? Because in September, he got a “Notice of Delinquent Parking Violation” from LA. Even though he wasn’t the Z’s owner. Even though the Z’s plates had changed. The ticket was for $40, doubling to $80 after Sept. 25.
So Olive called the LA Parking Violations Bureau, explaining the situation. Its response? ”On the basis of your ’statement of facts’ there is insufficient evidence to dismiss your citation, and, therefore, the citation must be considered valid,” it wrote to Olive on Sept. 22.
Argh. So now Olive writes a letter to the PVB, including documents proving that his lease was over months before the car was ticketed, and that he no longer had any relationship to the Z. There’s the letter from Chase Auto Finance saying it took possession of the car on April 9, the letter dated April 11 showing itemized closing costs on the lease, etc.
Done, right?
Not even close.
Instead of interpreting that letter as an “affidavit of nonliability,” it interpreted it as a request for a hearing - which was denied, because you must pay the ticket before you can get a hearing.
So Olive gets back on the phone with the PVB twice in October. It’s not pretty. The PVB ends up asking for more documentation, including a copy of the “notice of transfer and release of liability form” filed with the Department of Motor Vehicles at the time of the transfer.
Olive sends the stuff to the PVB on Oct. 24. The PVB receives it on Oct. 27. Olive knows this, because he sends it via certified mail.
On Halloween, Olive gets another letter from the PVB. Happy ending?
“You must request an administrative hearing and submit payment of the amount due on the citation … within 21 calendar days following the mailing of the initial review decision,” the letter says. “Once the dates have passed, the right to request a hearing is forfeited. Since we received your request after the time limits have passed, you have forfeited your right to an administrative hearing and the citation must now be paid in full.”
Arrrrrgh!!!
The PVB does not know that it is messing with the customer service manager for the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine - a group of folk not known for love of government bureaucracies. Olive contacts The Watchdog. “I would at least like to make it difficult for them to violate my rights,” he tells us.
The Watchdog contacts the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, the PVB’s overlord. Spokesman Bruce Gillman promises to look into the situation and get back to us - and to Olive.
“I feel bad we put people through the ringer on this,” Gillman says. “When we access the DMV records, it’s not showing the change, and that’s what we go by.This happens sometimes.”
The fault often lies with the leasing company, which neglects to update records with the DMV, he said.
He can’t speak yet to the odd back-and-forth correspondence between Olive and the PVB yet - “It’s a contractor handling these cases, not us,” he said - but he’ll be looking into it. We’ll let you know how things turn out.
We’ll also be looking deeper into Olive’s hunch that the city tickets everyone who has owned a particular car in the hope that someone will pay.
And we just hope that the Z stays out of trouble in the meantime.
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