RUC charge certificate / escalation served before the relevant period expired (SI 2013/1783 reg 17)
The authority can only escalate a Dart Charge or Merseyflow PCN (serve a 'charge certificate' and add the increase, then send to court/bailiffs) AFTER a fixed 'relevant period' has fully run: 28 days from the PCN if you never challenged, 28 days from the rejection of your challenge, or 28 days from service of notice of the adjudicator's decision, or 14 days from the date an appeal is withdrawn. What matters is when the certificate was SERVED on you, not the date printed on it or when it was run off internally. A certificate served before that period has run is premature, and that is a procedural impropriety you raise on appeal — the adjudicator can then direct that the penalty be cancelled and any sum refunded. Court recovery runs on its own separate clock afterwards. Distinct regime from the London 2001 Regs candidate: this is the England-wide SI 2013/1783 clock covering the free-flow crossings.
Legal basis
The Road User Charging Schemes (Penalty Charges, Adjudication and Enforcement) (England) Regulations 2013 (SI 2013/1783), regulation 17 (charge certificate may be served only after the 28-day 'relevant period' from PCN service / notice of rejection / adjudicator's decision, or 14 days on withdrawal), read with reg 8(3)(g) (procedural impropriety).
How to identify this in your case
Work out when the 28-day 'relevant period' began: it runs from the date the penalty charge notice was SERVED on you if you never challenged, or from the date the notice of rejection was served if you did, or from the date notice of the adjudicator's decision was served on you if you appealed and lost — and if you withdrew the appeal instead, the period is only 14 days from the withdrawal. Then ask when the charge certificate was SERVED on you, not what date is printed on it. A certificate served before that 28-day period had run out is premature. Keep the envelope, because when it actually arrived is the evidence — a certificate printed early but served in time is not defective, and one printed late but served early is.
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