Parking Charge Notices - advice

[NigelDay]

A recent post regarding a private parking invoice prompts me to share the following guidance.
1. Parking Charge Notices (these are the private ones) are different to Penalty Charge Notices (these are the Council ones). Confusingly the abbreviations and colour of the windscreen ticket are the same.
2. Private ones are invoices, NOT fines. Most newspapers talk about them as fines. Wrong.
3. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 basically outlawed wheel clamping, but (provided certain conditions were met) allowed private parking companies to pursue the Keeper for money by means of an invoice for breach of contract.
4. Some private parking companies fail to comply with the 2012 Act, but trick the driver into revealing themselves – and then the driver is fair game to pursue for the contract breach invoice. One example of this is a windscreen ticket which requests you to log on to a website and enter your details in order for the parking event to be communicated to you. If you do this, you are more than likely admitting yourself as the driver.
5. Why do some companies not bother to comply with the 2012 Act ? Simply because the Act limits what they can claim from you. Go outside the Act and they can add all sorts of additional costs and interest.
6. The 2012 Act provides these requirements (amongst many others). If you are caught by ANPR, the Keeper must be notified (‘Notice to Keeper’) within 14 days. If you are ticketed on the windscreen, the NTK must be received not earlier than 28 days and not later than 56 days from the parking event.
7. There are other conditions which the 2012 Act specifies, but many parking companies fail to comply, hence offering the opportunity to escape the parking invoice, provided you, as the driver, don’t fall into the trap of revealing who you are.
8. There is a Facebook group with nearly 25,000 members, which has a group of very-well clued-up admins who offer more specific advice. It is a closed group, so you need at apply to join. There’s a guy on the group who does appeals to many of the parking companies, and has a 90% success rate. https://www.facebook.com/groups/figh...arkinginvoice/
9. Finally, the parking companies have SIX YEARS to pursue their claim. Do not ignore any parking ticket. There are cases where tickets have remained dormant for a few years, then chased and (if the driver has changed address) the first you get to know about it is a CCJ on your credit file.
10. My interest in this topic stems from being ‘done’ by Parking Eye a few years ago. I tried to argue my way out of it, to no avail. Incidentally, this company are the most litigious in the business. County Court claims are now being issued as quickly as two months after the parking event.

[tt82]

The last one I got I used the money saving expert forum and found them useless. I thought I had a real open and shut case. The PCN was for failure to park wholly within a marked bay. I was actually parked on a bit road and there were no markings whatsoever. Their employee approved the legitimacy of the bay I was parked in, but as there was no markings, they could not prove I had failed to park within them. All I got told on MSE was use the normal responses at the start of the forum section, instead of anybody actually looking at the specifics of my case.

[NigelDay]

Agreed. MSE are regarded (for parking) as fairly useless. Also Citizens' Advice are equally useless.
One point I forgot to add.
The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 does not apply in Scotland or Northern Ireland. This has several consequences. In these territories, only the Driver can be chased, NOT the Keeper. Therefore, as always, NEVER name the driver. So, a Scottish or Northern Irish Keeper is immune from POFA 2012 wherever s/he parks (including England and Wales). In addition, English and Welsh drivers are equally immune from POFA when parking in Scotland or Northern Ireland.

[Ryan69]

Originally Posted by NigelDay

Agreed. MSE are regarded (for parking) as fairly useless. Also Citizens' Advice are equally useless.
One point I forgot to add.
The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 does not apply in Scotland or Northern Ireland. This has several consequences. In these territories, only the Driver can be chased, NOT the Keeper. Therefore, as always, NEVER name the driver. So, a Scottish or Northern Irish Keeper is immune from POFA 2012 wherever s/he parks (including England and Wales). In addition, English and Welsh drivers are equally immune from POFA when parking in Scotland or Northern Ireland.

And like all debt becomes time barred at 5 years in Scotland.

Unlike the rest of the UK, statute barred debts in Scotland come into effect if the debt is 5 years old, rather than 6 years.

There is a set of conditions involved in statute barred debts as follows:

1) There must be no outstanding decree against you.

2) There must be no record of payment made towards the debt in the last 5 years.

3) There must be no written communication between the creditor and you to say that the debt has been acknowledged.

All three conditions must be met in order for the debt in question to be classed as statute barred. If a debt is a statute barred, this basically means that it no longer exists and creditors or debt collection agencies have no right to hassle you.

And of course doesn't apply to council tax/poll tax, student loans, HMRC, fines from courts also if you get a judgement against you, they have 20 years to hassle you.

[Bill_56]

Be very wary of advice to ignore tickets from PPCs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-s...wales-40628560

Comptemptful as I am for the PPCs, my advice would be either to pay if you are guilty, or to identify yourself and defend your corner if no guilty. Lying low is not the way to prove your innocence.

Re MSE, they are simply a commercial enterprise, earning £millions every year. That's not a bad thing, as long as it is known. Accounts can be viewed at Companies House website.

[NigelDay]

Originally Posted by Bill_56

Be very wary of advice to ignore tickets from PPCs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-s...wales-40628560

Comptemptful as I am for the PPCs, my advice would be either to pay if you are guilty, or to identify yourself and defend your corner if no guilty. Lying low is not the way to prove your innocence.

Re MSE, they are simply a commercial enterprise, earning £millions every year. That's not a bad thing, as long as it is known. Accounts can be viewed at Companies House website.

The best advice is still to NEVER identify the driver when they contact you as the keeper. If they cannot prove you were the driver and they fail the requirements of POFA 2012, they cannot chase you. Identifying yourself as the driver basically shoots yourself in the foot.

[Bill_56]

Originally Posted by NigelDay

The best advice is still to NEVER identify the driver when they contact you as the keeper. If they cannot prove you were the driver and they fail the requirements of POFA 2012, they cannot chase you. Identifying yourself as the driver basically shoots yourself in the foot.

But if you know that you are guilty of the offence in civil law, how can your conscience justify the above? Any Civilised society assumes a certain level of honesty in dealings between citizens, even if it involves honesty with an evil PPC.

Regardless of conscience though, advice to ignore tickets is very dangerous, they have more legal clout than their critics ever expected. A lot of people are finding that out, losing vast amounts of money, enough to bankrupt them, as a result of misguided advice that PPC invoices "can't be enforced".

[NigelDay]

Originally Posted by Bill_56

But if you know that you are guilty of the offence in civil law, how can your conscience justify the above? Any Civilised society assumes a certain level of honesty in dealings between citizens, even if it involves honesty with an evil PPC.

Regardless of conscience though, advice to ignore tickets is very dangerous, they have more legal clout than their critics ever expected. A lot of people are finding that out, losing vast amounts of money, enough to bankrupt them, as a result of misguided advice that PPC invoices "can't be enforced".

When you read some of the 'offences' ordinary folk are being taken to the cleaners for, any legitimate means to avoid paying seems valid. I give a few examples.
1. Incorrect number plate being entered into the machine. AB 13 P0R not AB 13 POR. Penalty.
2. Parked on the white bay marking line (i.e., not 'within the bay'). Penalty.
3. Pay for 2 hours then it takes you 10 minutes more to actually exit past the ANPR cameras due to traffic congestion. Penalty.
4. Visit the same car park twice in one day. ANPR records first entry but only the second exit. You apparently stayed for 8 hours. Penalty.
I could go on.
In general Council pay and display car parks are an order of magnitude easier to use as genuine mistakes are given the 'let off'. Private car parks rarely acknowledge a genuine mistake or the examples noted above.

[Bill_56]

Originally Posted by NigelDay

I give a few examples.
1. Incorrect number plate being entered into the machine. AB 13 P0R not AB 13 POR. Penalty.
2. Parked on the white bay marking line (i.e., not 'within the bay'). Penalty.
3. Pay for 2 hours then it takes you 10 minutes more to actually exit past the ANPR cameras due to traffic congestion. Penalty.
4. Visit the same car park twice in one day. ANPR records first entry but only the second exit. You apparently stayed for 8 hours. Penalty.

I'd expect them to cancel (1) and (3) on appeal, can't imagine them getting away with it. But if I were to just ignore it, rather than explain and appeal, I reason it would weaken my position.

I'd emphatically encourage them in (2). My S60 is too big for a lot of marked spaces, so I don't park in these spaces. If I wanted to use smaller spaces, I'd have bought a smaller car.

Per (4), I have heard of people complaining about that one. But most car parks have a rule about 'no return within (say) 4 hours'. Before ANPR that was hard to enforce, and I wonder if it might be the real explanation for some of these complaints? Otherwise, an appeal should succeed.

I'm not supporting PPCs, as I regard them as sharks, but I'm also not convinced of the advice to ignore tickets, or that genuine appeals won't succeed.

[Ryan69]

Originally Posted by Bill_56

But if you know that you are guilty of the offence in civil law, how can your conscience justify the above? Any Civilised society assumes a certain level of honesty in dealings between citizens, even if it involves honesty with an evil PPC.

Regardless of conscience though, advice to ignore tickets is very dangerous, they have more legal clout than their critics ever expected. A lot of people are finding that out, losing vast amounts of money, enough to bankrupt them, as a result of misguided advice that PPC invoices "can't be enforced".

But you are not guilty of any offence it is a private company attempting to crowbar ex-amount of money from your wallet or purse call it legalised theft, If I go into a supermarket or shopping centre and god forbid I am dragged in and happen to over stay my welcome of say three hour's after spending a £1 or £1000 why the hell should I then be charged a further £120 for parking dick Turpan was more legal.