MET PCN Advice required

As the Registered Keeper of this vehicle I am appealing this parking charge notice on the grounds that ANPR letters should be received by the Registered Keeper within 14 days.

As the alleged contravention took place on the 13th January 2018 and the notice not issued until the 12th February 2018 the Keeper cannot be held liable for the actions of a driver.

As MET Parking has not met the strict requirements of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, the Keeper is not liable in this instance. MET Parking will need to pursue the driver of the vehicle on this occasion. As the registered keeper I am not obliged to name the driver.

POPLA Ref xxx
MET Parking Services PCN no xxx

A notice to keeper was issued on 12th February 2018 and received by me, the registered keeper of XXXXXX for the alleged contravention of 'Breach of terms and conditions' at Southgate Park, Stansted. I am writing to you as the registered keeper and would be grateful if you would please consider my appeal for the following reasons.

1) As the Registered Keeper of this vehicle I am appealing this parking charge notice on the grounds that ANPR letters should be received by the Registered Keeper within 14 days.
2) MET has deliberately chosen not to use POFA has not shown that the individual who it is pursuing is in fact the driver who was liable for the charge. (ref POPLA case Carly Law 6061796103)
3) Non-compliance with requirements set out in Schedule 4 of POFA 2012
4) No evidence of Landowner Authority - the operator is put to strict proof of full compliance with the BPA Code of Practice
5) The signs in this car park are not prominent, clear or legible from all parking spaces and there is insufficient notice of the sum of the parking charge itself.


1). As the Registered Keeper of this vehicle I am appealing this parking charge notice on the grounds that ANPR letters should be received by the Registered Keeper within 14 days.

As the alleged contravention took place on the 13th January 2018 and the notice not issued until the 12th February 2018 the Keeper cannot be held liable for the actions of a driver.

As MET Parking has not met the strict requirements of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, the Keeper is not liable in this instance. MET Parking will need to pursue the driver of the vehicle on this occasion. As the registered keeper I am not obliged to name the driver.

2) MET has deliberately chosen not to use POFA has not shown that the individual who it is pursuing is in fact the driver who was liable for the charge. (ref POPLA case Carly Law 6061796103)

MET has deliberately chosen not to use POFA and make no mention of such or the transfer of liability to the keeper under POFA 2012 in the Notice to Keeper I have received.

In cases with a keeper Registered Keeper, yet no POFA 'keeper liability' to rely upon, POPLA must first consider whether they are confident that the Assessor knows who the driver is, based on the evidence received. No presumption can be made about liability whatsoever. A vehicle can be driven by any person (with the consent of the owner) as long as the driver is insured. There is no dispute that the driver was entitled to drive the car and I can confirm that they were, but I am exercising my right not to name that person.

Where a charge is aimed only at a driver then, of course, no other party can be told to pay. I am the Registered Keeper throughout (as I am entitled to be), and as there has been no admission regarding who was driving, and no evidence has been produced, it has been held by POPLA on numerous occasions, that a parking charge cannot be enforced against a keeper without a valid NTK.

As the keeper of the vehicle, it is my right to choose not to name the driver, yet still not be lawfully held liable if an operator is not using or complying with Schedule 4 which they have not in this case. This applies regardless of when the first appeal was made because the fact remains I am only the keeper and ONLY Schedule 4 of the POFA (or evidence of who was driving) can cause a keeper Registered Keeper to be deemed to be the liable party.

The burden of proof rests with the Operator, because they cannot use the POFA in this case, to show that (as an individual) I have personally not complied with terms in place on the land and show that I am personally liable for their parking charge. They cannot.

Furthermore, the vital matter of full compliance with the POFA 2012 was confirmed by parking law expert barrister, Henry Greenslade, the previous POPLA Lead Adjudicator, in 2015:

Understanding keeper liability

";There appears to be continuing misunderstanding about Schedule 4. Provided certain conditions are strictly complied with, it provides for recovery of unpaid parking charges from the keeper of the vehicle.

There is no ';reasonable presumption'; in law that the registered keeper of a vehicle is the driver. Operators should never suggest anything of the sort. Further, a failure by the recipient of a notice issued under Schedule 4 to name the driver, does not of itself mean that the recipient has accepted that they were the driver at the material time. Unlike, for example, a Notice of Intended Prosecution where details of the driver of a vehicle must be supplied when requested by the police, pursuant to Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, a keeper sent a Schedule 4 notice has no legal obligation to name the driver. [...] If {POFA 2012 Schedule 4 is} not complied with then keeper liability does not generally pass."

Therefore, no lawful right exists to pursue unpaid parking charges from myself as keeper of the vehicle, where an operator is NOT attempting to transfer the liability for the charge using the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 which in this case the operator is not.

This exact finding was made in 6061796103 against ParkingEye in September 2016, where POPLA Assessor Carly Law found:
"I note the operator advises that it is not attempting to transfer the liability for the charge using the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 and so in mind, the operator continues to hold the driver responsible. As such, I must first consider whether I am confident that I know who the driver is, based on the evidence received. After considering the evidence, I am unable to confirm that the Registered Keeper is in fact the driver. As such, I must allow the appeal on the basis that the operator has failed to demonstrate that the Registered Keeper is the driver and therefore liable for the charge. As I am allowing the appeal on this basis, I do not need to consider the other grounds of appeal raised by the Registered Keeper. Accordingly, I must allow this appeal."

The same conclusion was reached by POPLA Assessor Steve Macallan, quoted in appeal point 5 above.

3) Non-compliance with requirements set out in Schedule 4 of POFA 2012
If MET Parking Services did wish to make use of the Keeper Liability provisions in Schedule 4 of POFA 2012, which they have not, the Notice to Keeper must meet the strict requirements set out in Schedule 4 of POFA 2012; paragraph 8 states specifically ";The notice must!!!8211;;specify the vehicle, the relevant land on which it was parked and the period of parking to which the notice relates;"; The notice to keeper that I have received does not state the period of parking to which the notice relates, only the time the PCN was issued.

Due to the omission of this detail the notice to keeper does not comply with Schedule 4 paragraph 6 of POFA 2012 and means that myself, the registered keeper of the vehicle cannot be held to account for the alleged debt of the driver

4) No evidence of Landowner Authority - the operator is put to strict proof of full compliance with the BPA Code of Practice

As this operator does not have proprietary interest in the land then I require that they produce an unredacted copy of the contract with the landowner. The contract and any 'site agreement' or 'User Manual' setting out details including exemptions - such as any 'genuine customer' or 'genuine resident' exemptions or any site occupier's 'right of veto' charge cancellation rights - is key evidence to define what this operator is authorised to do and any circumstances where the landowner/firms on site in fact have a right to cancellation of a charge. It cannot be assumed, just because an agent is contracted to merely put some signs up and issue Parking Charge Notices, that the agent is also authorised to make contracts with all or any category of visiting drivers and/or to enforce the charge in court in their own name (legal action regarding land use disputes generally being a matter for a landowner only).

Paragraph 7 of the BPA CoP defines the mandatory requirements and I put this operator to strict proof of full compliance:

7.2 If the operator wishes to take legal action on any outstanding parking charges, they must ensure that they have the written authority of the landowner (or their appointed agent) prior to legal action being taken.

7.3 The written authorisation must also set out:

a the definition of the land on which you may operate, so that the boundaries of the land can be clearly defined

b any conditions or restrictions on parking control and enforcement operations, including any restrictions on hours of operation

c any conditions or restrictions on the types of vehicles that may, or may not, be subject to parking control and enforcement

d who has the responsibility for putting up and maintaining signs

e the definition of the services provided by each party to the agreement


5) Further, Under Lord Denning's Red Hand Rule, the charge (being 'out of all proportion' with expectations of drivers in this car park and which is the most onerous of terms) should have been effectively: 'in red letters with a red hand pointing to it' - i.e. VERY clear and prominent with the terms in large lettering, as was found to be the case in the car park in 'Beavis'. A reasonable interpretation of the 'red hand rule' and the 'signage visibility distance' tables above and the BPA Code of Practice, taking all information into account, would require a parking charge and the terms to be displayed far more transparently, on a lower sign and in far larger lettering, with fewer words and more 'white space' as background contrast. Indeed in the Consumer Rights Act 2015 there is a 'Requirement for transparency':

(1) A trader must ensure that a written term of a consumer contract, or a consumer notice in writing, is transparent.
(2) A consumer notice is transparent for the purposes of subsection (1) if it is expressed in plain and intelligible language and it is legible.

The Beavis case signs not being similar to the signs in this appeal at all, I submit that the persuasive case law is in fact 'Vine v London Borough of Waltham Forest [2000] EWCA Civ 106' about a driver not seeing the terms and consequently, she was NOT deemed bound by them.

This judgment is binding case law from the Court of Appeal and supports my argument, not the operator's case:

xxx://xxx.appealnow.com/parking-ticket/clamping-case-Vine-v-Waltham-Forest/

This was a victory for the motorist and found that, where terms on a sign are not seen and the area is not clearly marked/signed with prominent terms, the driver has not consented to - and cannot have 'breached' - an unknown contract because there is no contract capable of being established. The driver in that case (who had not seen any signs/lines) had NOT entered into a contract. The recorder made a clear finding of fact that the plaintiff, Miss Vine, did not see a sign because the area was not clearly marked as 'private land' and the signs were obscured/not adjacent to the car and could not have been seen and read from a driver's seat before parking.

So, for this appeal, I put this operator to strict proof of where the car was parked and (from photos taken in the same lighting conditions) how their signs appeared on that date, at that time, from the angle of the driver's perspective. Equally, I require this operator to show how the entrance signs appear from a driver's seat, not stock examples of 'the sign' in isolation/close-up. I submit that full terms simply cannot be read from a car before parking and mere 'stock examples' of close-ups of the (alleged) signage terms will not be sufficient to disprove this.

I therefore request that POPLA uphold my appeal and cancel this PCN.