Parking Eye Appeal Rejected - Charged £100 for 16 minutes.

AndreasA wrote: »

Hi there,

I've read quite a bit of topics on this, and followed the MSE guide to appealing directly to the private parking company, which I did.
Today I have just received an email with my appeal rejected, the summary of which is:
"Our records confirm that no parking was purchased on the date of the parking event, despite there being payment methods available on the day in question."

I don't currently have a copy of the letter I sent (at work and quite distressed), but this is the situation:

I had family in town, and they were staying at a hotel in Leeds and I've agreed to meet up with them, so I'm on Parkopedia to find areas near the hotel where I can park. After finding one, I go there, and drive in. There are tons of available parking spaces. Unfortunately, this particular site takes cash only, and I haven't got any. I call the family just to see how they are getting along, and they are just finishing breakfast at the hotel, so I loiter around in the car for a little bit searching for another place to park on Parkopedia. After this, I drive out again and park and pay at this other location and meet up with the family, job done.

Except I then get charged £100 for having parked and not payed for 16 MINUTES.
I was completely taken aback that they would even charge for such a small amount of time. Note that I was sat in the car in the entire time, with the engine switched on but not running.
If there had been an actual parking attendant walking around, in hindsight maybe he would just have asked me to leave, and I could have done just that. This just seems outrageous.

Have I got any rights here? Like I said I appealed directly to ParkingEye first, but this was rejected. They have provided me with a POPLA reference number, so I'm wondering if this is worth escalating? If so, how do I go about this next step?

Alternatively, should I just suck it up and pay the charge?

I am absolutely furious, but I don't know if I should be furious with myself, ParkingEye or both..

Hope there are someone who can help me as soon as possible so I can get this sorted and stop worrying.

Kind regards,
Andreas A.

That's called parking. I'm not sure why you wouldn't leave immediately if you couldn't pay for parking.

Did you reveal the driver's identity when you appealed, because you have done so in your post here? If you didn't reveal the driver's identity then you need to amend your post immediately and only refer to The Driver and The Keeper who are two different people as far as anyone is concerned.
Basically, what did you put in your appeal. Did you use the one from the NEWBIES thread that doesn't give away the driver's identity, or did you use something else?

You should then construct your PoPLA appeal based on all the template appeal points available in post 3 of the NEWBIES thread. What points you can use will depend on what you put in you initial appeal.

There are cases where it has been held, and it's also in the Code of Practice of BPA/IPC (whichever one your parking co is a member of), that the whole point of the signs is that the driver is being offered a contract, and he must be given the opportunity to read the offer (ie the signage) and decide if he wants to accept the terms. This is referred to as a "grace period" (grace periods also apply in giving drivers enough time to leave after the end of the parking period). I don't know about the IPC CoP but the BPA one says there should be a grace period but doesn't define what that is (para 13.1/2). The grace period for leaving after parking is 10 minutes, but the grace period for having a think about whether or not you want to accept the terms offered is undefined. The CoP leaves this to the PPC's discretion.


16 minutes is a bit long. However, it is arguable that in a busy city centre, it is reasonable for the grace period to be a little longer.


Your case would be that no contract was formed. You stopped temporarily to consider the terms and once you realised what they were (cash only) you decided not to accept them and that you would park elsewhere. You then looked online to find somewhere else to park and left. All in all this took 16 minutes.


So you would say that you had rejected the terms and there cannot have been any contract - you had seen and thought about the terms and decided not to accept them.


On the other hand, you stopped and availed yourself of the parking facility, even if only for a few minutes, so the PPC will say that you were aware of the terms and had accepted them for those 16 minutes.


This could go either way. I think that you could win. But in every court and every case there is a "litigation risk" that you will lose. Many people fight anyway, because your worst case is you end up having to pay just the charge, with a very small amount of interest, and the court fees (£50). So you haven't got much to lose by trying. But you must go into this with your eyes open and understand that ParkingEye are quite litigious and are not likely to settle.


There is a case which defines "parking" and may also help you - it might be the Jopson case, but I'm not sure. You might be able to argue that you didn't "park".


I'm not trying to put you off, just pointing out the risks.


I personally don't think it's the end of the world that you've identified yourself as the driver. I think that in many cases it is obvious that the keeper was also the driver, and denying it just annoys the judge and puts him in favour of the PPC, and then you start off on the back foot. Where you have a genuine defence as driver I think in some cases you are better just admitting that you were.