Out of Court Settlement Offer

[oliviah1111]

I received a letter today about an out of court settlement offer from cross country from the 1st of May when I travelled with an expired railcard (had correct ticket but my railcard had expired) I genuinely did not realise it had expired and bought a new one soon after. Does anyone know if it is possible to get a payment plan or the fine reduced? As I most definitely can’t afford it at this time of year. I completely forgot about it as it was over 7 months ago. attached the letter I received.

 

[jfollows]

You can only ask about a payment plan, they aren’t generally offered but if you ask they might agree one.
It’s not a “fine”, it’s an amount of money Cross Country are willing to accept rather than taking you to court for not having a valid ticket, which would result in a criminal record as well as a fine if proven. Generally, they’re unlikely to reduce the amount.
However if it was more than 6 months ago they can’t prosecute you either. So the threat of “legal proceedings” is just words, meaning nothing. So wait for other advice, but the avenue of a civil prosecution without a criminal record still remains open to them.

 

[oliviah1111]

You can only ask about a payment plan, they aren’t generally offered but if you ask they might agree one.
It’s not a “fine”, it’s an amount of money Cross Country are willing to accept rather than taking you to court for not having a valid ticket, which would result in a criminal record as well as a fine if proven. Generally, they’re unlikely to reduce the amount.
However if it was more than 6 months ago they can’t prosecute you either. So the threat of “legal proceedings” is just words, meaning nothing. So wait for other advice, but the avenue of a civil prosecution without a criminal record still remains open to them.

So is it not possible for me to receive a criminal record as it has been over 6 months? Thanks.

 

[jfollows]

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/43

(1)Except as otherwise expressly provided by any enactment and subject to subsection (2) below, a magistrates’ court shall not try an information or hear a complaint unless the information was laid, or the complaint made, within 6 months from the time when the offence was committed, or the matter of complaint arose.

Applies to summary-only offences which have to be tried in a magistrates’ court.
Which includes any likely attempted prosecution by Cross Country.

Wait for other input, don’t take my words alone, but I’d be inclined to ignore this and not respond. They’re hoping you don’t realise and are frightened into paying up. You’ll be on their radar, and they might pursue you through the civil court route to recover their money, but there will be no criminal record if so.

 

[Titfield]

Payment Plans, if offered, tend to be for relatively large sums of money (typically many hundreds of pounds).

The sum they have sought from you doesn't meet that sort of threshold.

You could ask if they would accept say two payments: £100 by 31 Dec 2025 and £97.50 by 31 Jan 2026.

 

[Watershed]

Given that they can't prosecute you anymore, this is now a purely civil matter - the risk is that they decide to take you to the County Court and sue you for what they claim you owe.

That being the case, I would consider pushing back on their claim for £175 costs. These are likely to be far in excess of any costs they can actually prove having incurred for your case. They cannot claim costs they would incur anyway/regardless of your incident.

Moreover, they have no legal grounds to recover "admin" costs for incidents before 23 November 2025. That was the date on which the National Rail Conditions of Travel changed to allow these costs to be recovered, at least on paper.

Obviously you may prefer to pay their settlement anyway for a quiet life, but I would give consideration to challenging their admin fee.

 

[Titfield]

Given that they can't prosecute you anymore, this is now a purely civil matter - the risk is that they decide to take you to the County Court and sue you for what they claim you owe.

That being the case, I would consider pushing back on their claim for £175 costs. These are likely to be far in excess of any costs they can actually prove having incurred for your case. They cannot claim costs they would incur anyway/regardless of your incident.

Moreover, they have no legal grounds to recover "admin" costs for incidents before 23 November 2025. That was the date on which the National Rail Conditions of Travel changed to allow these costs to be recovered, at least on paper.

Obviously you may prefer to pay their settlement anyway for a quiet life, but I would give consideration to challenging their admin fee.

That is good advice but the Original Poster probably needs some assistance in drafting such a letter.

They could write to the Prosecutions Unit and say something like

Dear xxxxx

Thank you for your letter dated ..th November 2025.

Please find enclosed a cheque for £22.50 for the outstanding fare.

It is my understanding that for incidents prior to 23rd November 2025 there is no legal basis for you to charge an administration fee and therefore I have not included that amount.

I trust my payment of £22.50 bring this matter to a conclusion.

Yours faithfully

Cross Country could either accept the payment or return it and demand the full sum of £197.50

The original poster could either then pay the full amount or they could decline and write back reiterating their position.

Would Cross Country wish to issue civil proceedings to try and recover an administration fee? I think not given that the changes to the NRCoT effectively confirm that prior to the change there was no legal basis to charge the admin fee.

 

[AlterEgo]

Would Cross Country wish to issue civil proceedings to try and recover an administration fee? I think not given that the changes to the NRCoT effectively confirm that prior to the change there was no legal basis to charge the admin fee.

XC can still claim some costs in the County Court, but unlikely as large as the amount of the admin fee being charged here.

OP, how long was your railcard expired for, and how many journeys did you take? Just seeing if there is a risk of XC trying to audit your account and finding more instances if you play hardball.

 

[WesternLancer]

I assume this is a different problem to the one the OP raised in May in this thread (which involved Avanti and seemed to have been concluded)

Avanti West Coast Prosecution

Hi I recently received an email from Avanti west coast about short fare travel. Twice I didn’t have enough money for the trip from Birmingham new street to Manchester as a full price ticket was around £30. So I booked the ticket from Birmingham to Stoke which is half the journey which was around...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[oliviah1111]

XC can still claim some costs in the County Court, but unlikely as large as the amount of the admin fee being charged here.

OP, how long was your railcard expired for, and how many journeys did you take? Just seeing if there is a risk of XC trying to audit your account and finding more instances if you play hardball.

Was only expired for a couple weeks and this was the only journey made with the expired railcard.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Dec 2025 ==

I assume this is a different problem to the one the OP raised in May in this thread (which involved Avanti and seemed to have been concluded)

Avanti West Coast Prosecution

Hi I recently received an email from Avanti west coast about short fare travel. Twice I didn’t have enough money for the trip from Birmingham new street to Manchester as a full price ticket was around £30. So I booked the ticket from Birmingham to Stoke which is half the journey which was around...

www.railforums.co.uk

Yeah different problem. That was short faring so unrelated to the expired railcard.