Parking eye charge notice

Thank you for the fast response.

No i didn't admit to being the driver of the vehicle I stated myself as the registered keeper. My appeal is as follows..

Dear Sir/Madam,

Re: Parking Charge Reference number

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Vehicle registration:

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I am the registered keeper of the above vehicle and have received the above demand from you.

I dispute owing you any amount and deny all liability in this matter. Please accept this letter as a formal appeal under your appeals process.

The basis of my appeal is:

1. The amount you have claimed is not a genuine pre-estimate of any loss to either Parking Eye or the car park landowner.

2. The signs in your car park fail to comply with your Accredited Trade Association’s Code of Practice

3. No contract was formed with the driver due to the fact that your signs were not sufficiently brought to the attention of the driver.

4. ParkingEye is not the landowner and therefore Parking Eye does not have the right to enter into a contract with a driver nor does Parking Eye have the right to bring a claim for trespass.

Please confirm in writing whether you accept my appeal and withdraw your demand. If you reject my appeal, please provide the following particulars:

1) The basis of your charge (i.e. contract breach, trespass or contractual fee).

If you are alleging breach of contract, I require a breakdown of the liquidated damages you claim were suffered, and by whom, and how each particular loss arose.
If you are alleging trespass please enclose evidence of the alleged perpetrator and proof of the liquidated damages alleged and the calculation of this sum.
If you alleging a “contractual fee” I request a VAT invoice from you and ask you to explain the daily rate for parking and service provided for that fee.
2) Please also advise the amount of money you would have recieved from the driver of my vehicle should the alleged contract have been met to your satisfaction.

3) Please advise the name and address of the landowner.

4) Please provide a POPLA code that allows me to appeal to POPLA.

If ParkingEye rejects my appeal: please do not contact me again with more demands as I deny owing Parking Eye any money and deny that any driver of my vehicle has entered into a contract with you. Any legal action you initiate against me will be defended.

5) Additional circumstances - as you will be able to see from the CCTV cameras focused upon the payment machines, the driver attempted to key in the registration to pay for the parking charge several times on the meters located by the entrance to The Cockhedge Centre. The driver of the vehicle also drove to a third payment meter located near the exit of the car park on finding it was out of service when they tried to pay, the driver then returned to the 2 payment meters again located by the entrance to The Cockhedge Centre. The driver attempted to key in the registration of the vehicle on both machines as can clearly be seen by the CCTV cameras located above the machines. As can be seen on the CCTV footage, the driver and another driver of a different vehicle both attempted to make payments to which the machines would not accept and simply returned to its original screen. It is not being disputed that the vehicle exceeded the 2 hour free stay however it is being disputed that a payment could not be made due to a fault with your machinery.

Yours sincerely

I thought they would have had access to the CCTV cameras? Its a massive inconvenience that their pay machines are so terribly designed (probably so you cant figure out how to pay then they send you a £100 ticket through the post!). While I was there I seen at least another 5 people try to pay and walk off who will have received these through the post too.

Ill string a POPLA appeal together over the weekend and post it on to see what you think.

Thanks mate.

right..

I am about 2 thirds the way through my appeal and i am going to leave it for now before my eyes go square

Some of it is proving to be quite difficult as a lot of other appeals i have read on the forums have been able to include the contract of when you park on the car park being void due to inadequate signage or not providing enough evidence of their interest in the land as they have no legal possession to which would give ParkingEye any right to offer parking spaces or allege a contract with third party customers of the lawful owner/occupiers because ParkingEye hasn't supplied them with that information which they had previously requested whereas they have provided me with how I am entered into contract with them and that parking charges issued for and on behalf of the landowner are levied on the basis of a contract with the motorist set out via signage at the site.

To get a better understanding of my situation should i type up the letter ParkingEye have sent to me declining my appeal?

Thanks for taking to time to reply mate I'll make them changes today and edit what I have put.

I didn't realise it was the same letter for all.. I thought each letter was different to who it was going to and this has made it a lot easier now.

I'll post my appeal as soon as I've written it up today. Thanks again.

My apologies Coupon-mad you must get that a lot too it must get quite annoying.

I've drafted my appeal however I'm unsure if some of the information i have provided isn't needed or whether I haven't included important points. I think I may have drifted back to the signage again in proprietary interest but I will edit it if its irrelevant. Thanks in advance..

I should start this appeal by explaining the situation of how I was, as the registered keeper of the vehicle xxxxxx, issued with a £100 parking charge notice (PCN) from ParkingEye. I am the registered keeper and this appeal will prove that I am not liable for the parking charge.
The driver entered and parked in the

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car park in

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on

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at

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. After shopping in

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the driver attempted to pay for their parking at the pay station. After attempting to type in the registration for the car several times the driver could clearly see that there was a fault with the machine so they tried the next pay station next to it. After attempting to type in the registration of the vehicle again several times in the second machine and it not working , the driver returned to the vehicle and located next to where the vehicle was parked there was a third pay station which when approached to try again to pay, was out of order. The driver then drove back over to the original pay station where they tried to pay originally and waited while another 2 people were using the machines and were also unsuccessful in making a payment for their parking. After attempting to pay for their parking again several times on both of the pay stations, the driver had no choice but to drive away as the car park was un-manned to ask for any help.

Two weeks later I received a PCN of £100 for the exceeded time spent on the car park.

Since receiving the parking charge I have done a lot of research into the charges from ParkingEye and have found countless sites stating it is a very common, misleading trap being set by this specific private parking company. As widely and very consistently reported online by the victims of such a parking charge, I now feel strong enough to exercise my right to appeal this to POPLA.

My ground for this appeal are as follows:
• Insufficient information provided by signage
• No genuine pre-estimate of loss
• The notice to keeper is not compliant with the POFA 2012 – no keeper liability
• Proprietary Interest

A) Insufficient information provided by signage.

The ParkingEye sign clearly states 2 hour free stay which I was fully aware of and didn’t intend to leave the car park without paying for my time spent there if I were to exceed to 2 hours. It says for 1 additional hour its £3.00 which I understood when I attempted to pay. It says Blue badge bays for blue badge holders only which I abided to. It says park within marked bays which I abided to. It says no parking on yellow lines/hatched areas which I abided to. However the sign also says, ‘‘motorists must enter their full, correct vehicle registration when using the payment machine’’ but when I did this the payment machine did not respond to my registration number resulting in me not being able to make the £3.00 payment and thus receiving the parking charge for this. There is no clear information on what to do in the event of failure of ParkingEye’s machines to take the VRN so when a problem arises information regarding this doesn’t exist and therefore you receive a parking charge.

I require that the operator provides documentary evidence of the number of times the driver inputted the registration into the machine, this will obviously be documented on ParkingEye’s system.

No genuine pre-estimate of loss

The charge is a penalty and not a genuine pre-estimate of loss. In its parking charge notice, ParkingEye has failed to provide sufficient evidence to justify the £100 loss the landowner might have incurred for the exceeded time the car was parked in its property. For this charge to be justified, a full breakdown of the costs ParkingEye has suffered as a result of the car being parked at the car park, is required and should add up to £100. Normal expenditure the company incurs to carry on their business should not be included in the breakdown of the costs, as these are part of the usual operational costs irrespective of any car being parked at that car park.

This charge from ParkingEye is a third party business agent is an unenforceable penalty. The charge is unconscionable and extravagant and unrelated to local Penalty Charge levels in this area. It is believed that the Supreme Court’s decision in ParkingEye v Beavis will have an impact on the outcome of this POPLA appeal. If the operator does not cancel this charge and/or if there is no other ground upon which the appeal can be determined, I ask that my appeal is adjourned pending the Beavis case.

POPLA and ParkinEye will be also familiar with the well-known case on whether a sum is a genuine pre-estimate of loss or a penalty: Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company Limited v New Garage and Motor Company [1915] AC 79. Indeed I expect ParkingEye might cite it. However, therein is the classic statement, in the speech of Lord Dunedin, that a stipulation: “… will be held to be a penalty if the sum stipulated for is extravagant and unconscionable in amount in comparison with the greatest loss which could conceivably be proved to have followed from the breach.'' There is a presumption... that it is penalty when "a single lump sum is made payable by way of compensation, on the occurrence of one or more or all of several events, some of which may occasion serious and others but trifling damage". My case is the same and POPLA must be seen to be consistent if similar arguments are raised by an appellant.

C) Propriety interest

ParkingEye has stated in the letter declining the appeal, that a contract is formed with the driver via signage detailing the conditions under which a motorist is authorised to park. I find it hard to accept that a contract can be formed with lack of information on the signage around the carpark of how to pay for the parking. The Signage provided doesn’t provide enough information on the payment machines and this is clearly why so many people are failing to pay for the parking and being hit with such a charge. It also seems as this has been purposely done so that people will ‘fail to comply with the terms & conditions’ I for this reason do not believe that the driver could have been entered into a contract with ParkingEye for the property of where the driver parked because they didn’t fail to comply with any of the terms & conditions they were simply mislead by the inadequate information supplied by the signage.

I therefore put ParkingEye to strict proof to provide POPLA and myself with an unredacted, contemporaneous copy of the contract between ParkingEye and the landowner, not just another agent or retailer or other non-landholder, because it will still not be clear that the landowner has authorised the necessary rights to ParkingEye.

D) The Notice to Keeper is not compliant with the POFA 2012 - no keeper liability.

At this ANPR car park, the Notice to Keeper (NTK) has to set out the position clearly in terms of 'describing the parking charges due' which remained unpaid as at the day before the date of issue of the PCN. These 'parking charges due' can only be a tariff the driver should have paid, because no higher sum was 'due' before the PCN was even printed!

In the NTK before me I can see that the car either not purchased the appropriate parking time or remained at the car park for longer than permitted. This does not create any certainty of terms, it leaves a keeper to wonder what the hourly rate tariff even was and whether the driver paid nothing, or paid too little, or paid only for half an hour or an hour, or paid in full but put in the wrong car registration, or some other event. This Operator has the technology to record car registrations, to collect/record payments and to take photos of cars arriving and leaving, so it would be reasonable to assume that they are able - and indeed are required under the POFA - to state on the NTK the basic requirements to show a keeper how the 'parking charges' arose and the amount of outstanding parking charges (tariff).

These are the omission from POFA 2012 in the NTK issued:
''9(2)The notice must—
(b)inform the keeper that the driver is required to pay parking charges in respect of the specified period of parking and that the parking charges have not been paid in full;
(c)describe the parking charges due from the driver as at the end of that period, the circumstances in which the requirement to pay them arose (including the means by which the requirement was brought to the attention of drivers) and the other facts that made them payable;
(d)specify the total amount of those parking charges that are unpaid, as at a time which is—

(i)specified in the notice; and

(ii)no later than the end of the day before the day on which the notice is either sent by post or, as the case may be, handed to or left at a current address for service for the keeper (see sub-paragraph (4))”

The NTK specifically fails on all counts. It even fails to describe the specific circumstances for such a parking charge amount due.

The validity of a NTK is fundamental to establishing liability for a parking charge. As POPLA Assessor Matthew Shaw stated: ''Where a Notice is to be relied upon to establish liability...it must, as with any statutory provision, comply with the Act.'' This NTK was not compliant due to the omissions of statutory wording, so it was not properly given and there is no keeper liability.


This concludes my POPLA appeal.
Yours faithfully,