Parking Charge Issues

iritchie

A few months ago now, I parked 2 streets from my home (as I was stopping in at a hairdressers to pick something up for my girlfriend on the way to the supermarket).
I spent no more than 5-10mins in there, yet lo and behold when I returned I had received a parking charge.
I parked in a clearly marked bay, and there were no parking meters, so of course I assumed it to be fine to park there.
However upon further inspection, the space I parked in was a designated Residents bay, and the only thing to indicate this was a sign a distance up the road (and the space was actually not on any actual residents street - it was outside 2 commercial properties at the end of 2 roads). There were also at least 20 available spaces for the duration of the time I spent there so I was not causing any sort of obstruction.
I came on here and took the advice to appeal to the council as I felt I had sufficient grounds to appeal, and didn't want to admit any liability as I felt it was an unjustified fine.
A number of weeks went by and I eventually received a second letter stating that the charge had been increased.
Obviously, given I had heard nothing back regarding my appeal, I was greatly annoyed, thinking that the fine should have been frozen until the appeal was heard (although on further reading I noticed this not to be necessarily the case).
I contacted the council again and made a further complaint.
Again, a number of weeks went by and I heard nothing.
Eventually, recently, I received a bailiff/debt collector letter with details of a number of additional charges taking the charge to a ridiculous amount and I STILL had not received a response regarding my appeal.

I obviously immediately contacted the council again and they said they had no record of my correspondence and that they would no longer deal with the parking charge.
They passed me onto the county court, who I contacted and was told that they also did not have a record of it at the time...after days and days of trying to track down who was responsible and being passed about around a number of different authorities, I eventually ended up back at the council and they sent me a letter refusing to deal with the matter and stipulating that they had received no grounds for appeal from me.
It is frankly quite ridiculous the amount of things I have had to do so far to try and resolve the issue, and I am so far, a LOT worse off.

Bailiffs turned up at my door this morning and left a letter saying they would be returning, and this obviously caused my girlfriend a lot of distress. This to me is unacceptable, given the amount of effort I have made in trying to resolve the issue, but no authority will take any responsibility for the appeal.

I am almost resigned to having to make the payment, but I am very angry that they have now increased the charge to almost £500, when the original parking fine was £40 (rising to £80 - which I noticed was also above the "reasonable charges" indicated here (I'm in Manchester)).
And given that I feel I have fair grounds for appeal I do not feel I should have to pay anything.


Can anyone offer me any advice or steps to take next?
I will have to make some sort of payment tonight to save bailiffs turning up at my home again by the looks of it....


Thanks in advance for any responses.

iritchie

I just spoke to the bailiff to try and save them from coming to my home again, and was told that I'd have to pay £500 up front, to pay off the amount in full, or they will clamp and tow my vehicle!!
I am so angry right now.
I have done everything right, and who has a spare £500 to pay out in any case?
They are being totally unreasonable, and basically over a £40 charge, they are going to take my car worth about £3500.
Once it's towed, they're going to add daily charges, so I'll never be able to afford to take it back.
Surely this has to be regulated?
Surely there is something that can be done to stop this?

iritchie

Yeah many thanks
I filled in the out of time form and a witness statement, and then contacted the bailiff, who said they would put any action on hold for 48 hours until they had received through notification of the request to appeal.
I also contacted my local councillor to complain about the information their staff were providing me and the hassles and stresses I've had to go through trying to sort this out.
It definitely doesn't seem like it's a one-off to me, with the incorrect info is was being given from various staff/authorities.

Very very poor, and about time they sorted it out imo.

Going to go here if they don;t dosomething about it;
www dot lgo dot gov dot uk (sorry can't post links because I've not posted enough yet)


Many thanks for your advice.
Thought I was done for yesterday!