“Honestly, I thought it was a scam, a fraudulent email.” Justine still finds it hard to believe. This spring, the Breton expatriate in Brussels received a complaint from a bailiff’s office for a parking fine… dating from August 2021.We went to the butcher’s with my father. With his car, and therefore a French plate. We had parked on avenue des Saisons in Ixelles and had therefore obviously been stopped.“
It is not the verbalization that is surprising, she does not contest it, but rather the delay as well as… the late payment surcharge.They said they sent me a letter on April 6, 2023, which I did not receive. I received another one on April 24, which this time I received, asking me to pay the €25 fine and €15 in costs. I paid the fine, which I do not dispute, but I disputed the costs..” And no response… until the end of May of this year 2024. A new email is received, demanding the famous €15 fee. “I couldn’t believe it. I had completely forgotten about this story.”
The scan-car, merciless in Brussels: distraction costs a lot, even for people with good intentions…
“A connection problem”
Contacted, parking.brussels mentions a case “exceptional“. “The processing time for this case by the bailiff’s office is surprisingly long, even if the procedures for identifying a vehicle registered in France explain this in part”comments the Brussels parking agency.
Let us recall that it is extremely difficult for parking.brussels to recover the amounts of fines incurred by foreign vehicles… except for France and the Netherlands. With these two border countries, bilateral agreements make it possible to speed up procedures and recover fines more easily.
Foreign vehicles will no longer be checked by parking agents.brussels
But in Justine’s case, the office in charge of debt collection was, apparently, faced with a hitch.A connection problem relating to certain French registrations prevented him from processing this file, which was placed in a separate diary for verification and follow-up. the parking agency tells us.
Finally, the €15 will no longer be claimed. We learned that the office ultimately closed the file and sent a letter of apology. Missive that Justine never received…
