London RUC — Defective Notice of Rejection (missing mandatory reg 15 content)
After TfL denies a motorist's representations it must serve a 'Notice of Rejection', and reg 15 lists exactly what that notice MUST contain: (a) a statement that a Charge Certificate may be served unless, within 28 days, the penalty is paid or the person appeals to an adjudicator; (b) an indication of the nature of the adjudicator's power to award costs; and (c) a description in general terms of the form and manner in which an appeal must be made. A Notice of Rejection that omits any of these — commonly the costs-power statement — is defective and cannot validly start the 28-day appeal/payment clock or found a subsequent Charge Certificate. CAVEAT to flag before use: adjudicators sometimes apply a substantial-compliance / no-prejudice test to minor content omissions, so this wins on a genuinely missing mandatory item (especially the costs-power line) but is not an automatic winner for trivial wording gaps — the letter should show the omission and, ideally, prejudice.
Legal basis
Road User Charging (Enforcement and Adjudication) (London) Regulations 2001 (SI 2001/2313), reg 15(a)-(c) (mandatory contents of the notice of rejection), read with reg 17 (charge certificate cannot follow a defective NoR).
How to identify this in your case
Read the Notice of Rejection the motorist received. Check for all three reg-15 items: (1) the warning that a Charge Certificate follows unless paid or appealed within 28 days; (2) an express statement about the adjudicator's power to award costs; (3) a general description of how/where to appeal (usually the Notice of Appeal form). If any is missing — especially the costs-power line, which TfL notices frequently omit — the Notice of Rejection is defective.
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