Traffic fines on rental vehicles: who had it, what to send

The notice usually turns up weeks or months after the vehicle came back, addressed to your company as the registered owner. From there the work is always the same: find who had the vehicle at that minute, tell the authority, do it before the deadline, and decide what, if anything, to recharge to the customer. This guide walks through that workflow for cars, motorbikes and scooters, with what Renviq does at each step and what stays with you.

How long do you have to answer?

The rules belong to the country of the authority that issued the notice, not to yours. A car rented in Milan and fined in Nice follows French rules. Renviq picks a default from the authority’s country and you can always change it:

In Italy and Spain the duty is to name the renter. In Italy the renter is then liable in place of the owner and the authority re-serves the notice on them; in Spain, failing to identify is itself an offence at two or three times the original fine. In Italy, unpaid motorway tolls and private car-park charges are not re-served: they are civil debts you pay and recharge. Renviq sets every toll to Pay and recharge by default, in any country; change it where the local rule differs.

Register the notice

Fines live under Documents → Fines. New fine opens the form. You can start with Scan the notice: upload a photo or the PDF (JPEG, PNG, WebP or PDF up to 15 MB) and the plate, notice number, authority, country, time of the violation, amount and, when the notice prints it, the notification date are filled in from it. Check every field against the notice. The amount is typed in euros as printed (120.50, or 120,50). The file stays attached to the fine.

You can also start from the rental. On a confirmed, ongoing or finished booking, the Documents card has a Traffic fines row with Add fine…: the form opens with that booking’s vehicle and a calendar limited to the rental’s days, so you only type the time printed on the notice. If the scanned plate differs from the selected vehicle, the form warns you and offers to switch to the vehicle carrying that plate.

Two dates drive the deadline:

• Notice received on, because the term runs from notification, not from the violation. It starts empty and is required: enter the day the notice reached you (PEC delivery or registered-mail collection in Italy; access in the DEH or sede electrónica, or certified-mail delivery, in Spain), not the day you register it.
• Answer by, suggested from the table above once the notification date is set, and editable. The date on the notice wins.

Find who had the vehicle

Once you pick the vehicle, the Who had the vehicle panel lists its rentals straight away and the calendar marks the days it was out. If you already know the rental, pick it from the list; otherwise enter the date and time of the violation (the time has no default) and the panel proposes a rental with a label:

Renviq uses the real handover times when you recorded them with an inspection, and it replays vehicle swaps: if a customer changed cars halfway through, the fine goes to whoever had that plate at that time. The person named is always the booking’s renter, not an additional driver. If the vehicle was in company use, choose No rental — company use. If the time matches no rental and you save without choosing one, Renviq asks before saving the fine as company use, because the time is often what is wrong.

You confirm every match. Renviq never applies one on its own, because the result names a person to a public authority.

The letter to the authority

On the fine, Letter to the authority → Generate letter produces a one-page PDF in the authority’s language (Italian for an Italian authority, Spanish for a Spanish one; you can override it under Letter language). It carries:

• your company and the notice details;
• the vehicle and plate;
• the renter: name, date and place of birth, address, identity document, tax number when there is one, driving licence. For a company renter, the company with its address and tax number, and the contact person or driver under it;
• the number of the signed rental agreement, the same one its attached copy prints (while none is signed, the booking number under its own label), and the actual pickup and return times;
• the legal basis for that country and a list of attachments, naming only what exists: the rental agreement once it is signed, the renter’s licence and identity document once their scans are on the customer card.

If the customer card lacks something the letter prints, Renviq warns you first and the letter leaves a ruled line to fill in by hand. Place, date and signature are yours to add. Under Files and attachments you find the booking, the signed rental agreement as a PDF and the renter’s documents. If you change the fine or the match later, the letter is flagged for regeneration.

Send it and record the proof

Renviq does not send anything to the authority. Send the letter through the channel on the notice (PEC, registered mail, the authority’s portal), then under Proof of sending enter the date, channel and reference, upload the receipt and press Mark as communicated. If there is no letter, the letter is out of date, or the customer card lacks data the letter prints, Renviq asks you to confirm first. The fine moves from To communicate to Communicated.

While a fine is To communicate, the team gets an email 14, 7, 3 and 1 day before the deadline, on the day, and once the day after. The fines list opens on the To communicate tab, ordered by status and then by deadline; the Deadline column shows the days left. Search by notice number, plate or renter name, in the list or with ⌘K. The emails need a plan with email notifications; the Free plan sends none.

Tell the customer and recover the cost

Notify customer… emails the renter the notice number, the authority, the date, time and place, what happens next, and a link to the booking’s customer portal. It goes out in your company’s default language.

Issue invoice… creates one invoice for the fine, with either or both of:

• the handling fee, if you set one under Settings → Documents → Fine handling fee. It is 0 by default, which means off. It is always taxed;
• the fine amount, only once you have paid it and recorded Paid to the authority on. Choose Taxable for a cost you paid in your own name (a toll, a private car park) or Outside the scope of VAT for an administrative sanction recovered at cost. Renviq suggests taxable for tolls and parking and outside the scope for everything else.

An out-of-scope line is reported as N1 in Spain’s Veri*Factu record and as Natura N2.2 on an Italian e-invoice; above €77.47 of such amounts the Italian file also declares the €2 virtual stamp duty, which is the issuer’s cost. Your accountant’s decision beats the suggestion. A wrong invoice is corrected with a credit note; once it is voided or credited in full, the fine can be invoiced again.

For fuel, damage and late-return charges after the rental, see charging the customer’s card after the rental.

What Renviq does not do

• No transmission: no PEC, no DGT, ANTAI or municipal portal integration. You send the letter.
• No bulk import: notices are registered one at a time, by hand or by scan.
• No tax decision on your behalf: it suggests a treatment, your accountant confirms it.

Mistakes that cost money

• Counting from the violation date instead of the notification date.
• Naming the wrong customer on a changeover day. Look at the return time, not just the date.
• Incomplete customer cards. Without place of birth, address and licence number the letter is not usable; collect them at pickup with a licence check.
• Paying the fine to save time. You pay a sanction that belonged to the renter, and recovering it without a written clause is hard.