Help With Parking Tickets

Never, ever pay these people. Never engage, dont' phone, write, text or communicate in any way whatsoever. After a while they will go away when they realise that all their threats are pointless. I've had about 4 of them, not paid a single one. Never heard anything from them, just binned their letters without opening them.

We could deep dive into the legal position of these fly-by-night but it is pretty long and dry stuff and has been covered ad infinitum elsewhere to a better level; suffice to say it is based on English Civil Contract Law, not criminal and is founded on some fairly shaky premise.

Just treat them with the contempt they deserve.

 

I haven't had to pay a penalty charge for years, nearly did last time tho, Had a hospital appointment, didn't have any cash or cards as left my wallet at home, I park on the roadside outside the carpark with rear wheels on double yellow, come out to find a parking enforcement officer and his little scooter parked on the same double yellows giving me a ticket.
Normally I would have argued the toss, but I had been poked and prodded and all I wanted to do was to go home.
Over the next couple of days I started to think about the situation and almost paid the early discounted 35 nicker.
Instead I decided to challenge the enforcement with two pieces of evidence, thankfully provided by the enforcement officer. The footage from his bodycam where he told me that he was entitled to park on double yellows for any amount of time whilst doing his duties. The best tho was, I asked them if the enforcement officer's scooter was provided by his employer? No. Does his employer provide insurance cover for using this vehicle whilst being at work. No. Does the he have the correct insurance to use his scooter while he is issuing penalty notices? Errr dont know was the reply, Oh I retort you dont know if your enforcement officer may be riding around the city illegally issuing penalty notices. After a bit of a debate the penalty was cancelled.
They rely on apathy and the perception of threat, just like the elite who control our pitiful excuse of a government.

 

Not sure I agree with that. I have a friend who is a part-qualified barrister who works for a company which employs/exploits part-qualified lawyers who have been unable to get past the bottleneck which exists at the pupillage/training contract stage by farming them out as cut price county court advocates to, amongst others firms of parking pirates. These parking companies are usually owned and operated by the same fly by night characters who used to run clamping firms, but that's by the by, because it is very reckless to assume that if you ignore them they will go away because they often don't.

It only costs a few quid to issue a Claim Form for a low value claim and if it is not defended the parking company can opt for obtaining judgement in default. Alternatively, my friend often has an armful of briefs, many involving defendants who have failed to engage and who don't attend court, and after a quick perusal of the form by the judge and a check to ensure the defendant has been sent a Notice of Hearing, they enter judgement against them. If that judgement (aka CCJ) is not paid within 28 days it is listed on Registry Trust and there goes your credit score. If you don't pay it after that, then expect to come outside one day and find your car has been clamped by a bailiff.

It sounds to me like you just have been lucky and the firms who have ticketed you operate a policy of only chasing the people who they think will pay, but they are not all like that. Some are absolutely relentless and will issue proceedings and then enforce the judgements.

Edit: I forgot to add that IIRC, they send out a notice to the registered keeper similar to a s.172 notice in speeding cases requiring you to tell them the identity of the driver. If you fail to respond to that notice then by one of the provisions in the laughably ironic and Orwellian entitled Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, they are entitled to come after the registered keeper for the parking charge.

https://assets.publishing.service.g...file/9155/guidance-unpaid-parking-charges.pdf

FYI - England and Wales only. The position in Scotland and NI might be different.

 

I think living in Scotland helps as Bonkers says its based on english civil law, I had the misfortune of getting a ticket whilst on holiday in Englandshire last year so I checked some useful online tips and challenged it, as expectrd the company refused my challenge and, smugly, invited me to engage POPLA. I did so and they found in my favour, probably because a) I live in Scotland, and b) my violation was for a period of approx 3 seconds - arseholes

 

A moot point. The contract is assumed between the driver, not the registered keeper who has nothing to do with the process. They can chase the RC till hell freezes over but the contract wasn't undertaken with them so it's going nowhere. If you can't identify the driver during the infringement it won't proceed. "I can't remember" is always a goody, the onus is on the company, not the defendant. Not only that the contract depends on adequate signage, if you didn't see it or can't read it the contract is void. If it's ten feet up a pole a 100 feet from where you park that is inadequate under the law as it reasonable for you to say that you didn't see it. There are so many loopholes in this nonsense that paying any demand from these chancers is money down the drain. think of it not as a "ticket" but a fee, that helps change the perspective.

I'd still not respond. It's a numbers game for them, they rely on a proportion of those pinged to pay, it makes no sense from an economic perspective to pursue those that don't pay as it would cost more to chase than they would earn. It's a con, pure and simple; they should be banned.

 

Also, I meant to say it doesn't cost a few quid up here, it's quite a bit more IIRC £100, as I did it myself a couple of years ago.

 

I’m the same

but with European speeding fines

 

Sorry but you’re wrong. Did you even read the post all the way to the end which references the Protection of Freedoms Act and the link to the govt guidance?

Thanks for the lecture on the workings of contract law btw but I'll pass. I kind of do this stuff for a living and have done for the past 11 years as a practising barrister with around half of my work being commercial law (ie: mostly contract). Obviously you know better though.

Some of these firms operate it as a "numbers game" where they don't chase the non-payers, but others don't and they chase everyone. I got talking to the owner of one such firm about 14 months ago in Bromley County Court, an ex-police officer who bought some land when he retired and turned it into a car park. Seeing all of his claims through to the bitter end worked for him because he would file them in bulk, they'd be listed in bulk and a morning in court could net him several thousand quid in judgements plus court fees and costs. Once someone who was previously keeping their head down realises they've just had a CCJ entered against them, they usually suddenly make a miraculous appearance, claiming that they didn't get the Claim Form (see below re: how that process of overturning the judgement usually works out for them). Some defendants file a defence but few succeed, and from speaking to my other friend who does these cases day in and day out, they often rely on reasoning gleaned from barrack room forum lawyers on the internet which is either plain wrong or doesn't apply to the facts of their case.

You clearly don 't understand how the litigation process works either. To repeat - if the registered keeper does not respond to the notice then they are deemed liable and the car park owner can issue a claim against them. If a claim is issued and the defendant doesn't respond to it then the claimant is entitled to judgement in default and there will be no assessment of the merits of the claim and so no question of the claimant having to prove anything. The defendant may apply under CPR r.13.2 or r.13.3 to set the default judgement aside and skipping over the expense of the £155(IIRC) application fee and the ball ache of having to draft a defence to append to the application and taking a day off to attend court, the burden of proof is reversed in such applications and it falls to the defendant to show that their defence has a reasonable prospect of success. And how do you think the tired old smartarse "I don't remember/the dog ate the Claim Form" type of excuses are received by a hard bitten District Judge with a long list and a short temper? Good luck with that.

Anyone reading this thread can follow this guy's "advice" if you like, but unless you fancy risking a world of grief for the sake of £60 or whatever, either pay the ticket or if you have a defence, appeal it, but don't ignore it.

FYI - England and Wales only. The position in Scotland and NI might be different.

 

Call me mr picky but if you park somewhere you shouldn’t and or extend your stay beyond what you should.... you reap what you sow!

 

I have no love for parking pirates, but demz da roolz.....

 

What are the odds? Just after I posted that, I saw I had received this WhatsApp from a mate.....

View attachment 221189

 

Fair enough, I defer to your professional knowledge, but there's' no need to be snotty about it pal. I am passing along personal experience, take it or leave it. It is at best anecdotal, I have come across many of these demands with menaces and I've never come across an individual that has been pursued for them, myself included; make of that what you will. As we rightly agree, the law is different up here, these companies are bandits and should be banned, I don't see the benefit of arguing over it as we agree in broad strokes on those points.

 

I wasn't being snotty. My initial post politely disagreed with your advice and referenced not only some of the legal issues but also gave an example of the experience of a fellow professional who does these sort of cases day and day out. Frankly, your advice was dangerous because in a certain proportion of cases, if followed, it will lead to an extremely serious adverse outcome, namely a CCJ, potential involvement in expensive satellite litigation, a trashed credit rating and bailiffs at the door.

Rather than accept that, and despite it being obvious you hadn't even read the bit about notice under the PFA 2012, you then doubled down with an (incorrect) analysis of the contractual position.

My further reply was a bit snippy, but it is kind of annoying when you take the time to give advice which has the benefit of 6 years studying and training plus 11 years of practice behind it, only to have have someone who clearly does not have anything to base their opinion on other than an anecdote about their good fortune not being chased for fines and something about contract law they copied and pasted off the internet come along and make you do it all over again so that some poor sod reading the thread doesn't make a daft and potentially very expensive decision. As I have mentioned before in these sort of situations - when people ask for tech advice in the bike areas of the forum and one of the resident Ducati mechanics gives their opinion, I doubt very much that they have to then spend ages justifying it and arguing the toss with some bloke who once tightened his own chain.

But thanks for reminding me why I tend to keep out of most of the threads where someone is looking for a steer on a legal issue.

 

I have had parking tickets in the UK but ignore them as I have a French plate. They don't even bother trying to issue me with speeding tickets.

 

likewise the other way round

 

When the Parking Enforcement Company (PEC) use the Protection of Freedoms Act to transfer the liability from the Driver to the Registered Keeper they have to comply with a timetable specified therein. That is quite onerous for the PEC, especially when there are bank holidays. POPLA need this explaining in some detail though as they appear to think a fourteen day period after issue starts the day after the day of issue?

 

I will have to take your word for that but it sounds like useful info for anyone who is looking to defend one of these. From what I have heard and read, the parking companies reject nearly all internal appeals seemingly on the entirely cynical basis that a lot of people haven't got the time or energy to appeal to POPLA.

I agree with whoever said that these cowboys need to be reined in. Perhaps one way to do that would be to monitor how many of the appeals to POPLA are successful and if it crosses a certain threshold for a period of time, hit them in the pocket by suspending their licence (if indeed there is a licensing scheme?).