PPC Letter Chains & Court Papers (discussion & comments)

bazster

island2 wrote: »

Particularly your assertion that "the elements of a contract must be individually negotiable", which if it were the case would mean people would be clamouring to have their loan, mobile phone, gas, electricity, Sky, etc. contracts voided on this ground.

What he's getting at, as you know perfectly well, is that where terms of a contract have not been individually negotiated then they are unfair terms if they are disproportionately in favour of the party wot wrote them. At least, that's a rough paraphrase.

Coupon-mad

island2 wrote: »

Per OFT vs Abbey, a clause of a contract relating to price cannot be assessed for fairness.

Would you be kind enough to cite a couple of cases as I am not as conversant with them as I like? Particularly your assertion that "the elements of a contract must be individually negotiable", which if it were the case would mean people would be clamouring to have their loan, mobile phone, gas, electricity, Sky, etc. contracts voided on this ground. Some of your post appears well-founded but a lot more seems to be generalised throwaway comments similar to those of which you accuse me.

The thing is, I see that you keep talking about shops and Banks who provide a service to the public. That's simply not relevant with PPCs because they certainly don't. There is no 'pricing'. And their alleged 'contracts' have certainly been kicked out of court on more than one occasion re 'fairness'!

Thurlow Appeal -v- OPC Small Claim initial daft decision (appeal won):

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=59380&mode=threaded&pid=564302

Here's the original Thurlow pepipoo thread, shows his appeal statement with plenty of case law cited:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=62757

Lots of cases here including Excel v Hetherington-Jakeman which addressed the 'fairness' issue:

http://www.penaltychargenotice.co.uk/private-land-enforcement/court-cases/court-cases-for-private-parking-tickets/

Minster Baywatch have lost a few, here's a relevant one:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=52571&mode=linearplus

And then two cases I know of where a PPC was taken to Court AFTER a victim had mistakenly paid the scammers:

this case against Parking Eye (Tazneem Patel and her brother). And:

Susan Pratt case (she paid a fake PCN then claimed it back in Court)

Several cases from UKCPS lost, here are just two I found from a quick search:

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?285707-mpdollar-gets-UKCPS-court-claim!!-update-UKCPS-LOST-IN-COURT!!&p=3343967&viewfull=1#post3343967

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=58542&st=140

and Excel have lost a few! (they never tried many of course), here's the Martin Cutts case:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=64838&mode=threaded&pid=627182

And then recently the Ibbotson case, and VCS v HMRC appeal, both summarised here:

http://www.democracyforum.co.uk/talk-about-anything/110206-entire-private-parking-ticket-business-model-has-just-fallen-apart.html


HTH

bazster

alison_g wrote: »

Statue, which the POFA is, will over rule any case law and POFA states that a parking company can hold a relevant contract so therefore the VCS vs. HMRC (Appeal) UTT judgement is worthless.

Presumably you are referring to this:

“relevant contract” means a contract (including a contract arising only when the vehicle was parked on the relevant land) between the driver and a person who is—

(a)the owner or occupier of the land; or

(b)authorised, under or by virtue of arrangements made by the owner or occupier of the land, to enter into a contract with the driver requiring the payment of parking charges in respect of the parking of the vehicle on the land;

Do please explain how a landowner could authorise Scumbag Parking Ltd. to enter into a contract, as principal, with me, Mr Third-Party Motorist?

It would be like you authorising your Estate Agent to sell your house without you having to sign the transfer documents. It can't be done.

Similarly, I can't see any way that a landowner could authorise Scumbag Parking to make an offer of parking on the landowner's land where Scumbag Parking would be anything other than the landowner's agent. That Scumbag Parking is incapable of making an offer of parking is a matter of law, not contract. There is nothing the landowner can do, or write into a contract, to alter this. Short of granting Scumbag a licence to occupy, of course, and I can't see any landowner being that stupid.

Which is all exactly as things stand now.

I can't believe that the government lawyers who drafted the legislation didn't realise this. The PPC's have been shafted, and they don't seem to have noticed yet.

Stephen_Leak

bazster wrote: »

<snip> I can't believe that the government lawyers who drafted the legislation didn't realise this. The PPC's have been shafted, and they don't seem to have noticed yet.

The only person more incompetent than a lawyer, who can only get a job working for the government is a lawyer, who can only get a job working for a PPC.

bazster

Stephen_Leak wrote: »

The only person more incompetent than a lawyer, who can only get a job working for the government is a lawyer, who can only get a job working for a PPC.

LOL! Either way, whether it's by design or incompetence, the Act most certainly does not say what the PPC stooges like to think it says!

bargepole

bazster wrote: »

LOL! Either way, whether it's by design or incompetence, the Act most certainly does not say what the PPC stooges like to think it says!

The Act also falls a long way short of what the BPA wanted, according to some internal correspondence I've seen.

The BPA wanted the Government to put PPC charges on the same footing as Council parking tickets, which they could have done with more far-reaching legislation, but instead they've come up with this mish-mash containing more holes than a colander full of gruyere cheese that's been strafed by a Kalashnikov AK-47.

It's also interesting that the IAS, operated by the London Councils, will be charging £27+VAT per appeal received, as opposed to Councils who pay 60p per ticket issued.

If I was a PPC boss, I'd be starting to think this is not such a good deal after all.

bazster

I can envisage a campaign, targetted against each PPC in turn, whereby like-minded people are encouraged to visit its car parks in a single day, deliberately get themselves ticketed, and then appeal.

Even if only 100 people participated, that's a £2,700 hit for the PPC, plus £2.50 for each DVLA lookup, plus their usual costs in sending out the stream of threatograms necessary before even getting to the "independent" appeal stage. Let's call it £3,000 all up.

And then, if any of the rejected appeals ever reached a courtroom: "I submit, your honour, that since Scumbag Parking Ltd is not the landowner or occupier, it is not capable of making an offer to park. Therefore no contract exists between me and Scumbag Parking Ltd." Case dismissed.

So, £3,000 outlay, plus costs arising from the court cases, for zero revenue. Nice work I call that!

peter_the_piper

It just needs someone connected to suggest that £2.50 is too cheap to get info from DVLA and their costs go up some more, shame.

island2

I think the most colourable defence here is that the driver declined the offer of a licence to park for £80 and instead is trespassing. If that holds, the landowner could perhaps only recover the damages, but If the car park were completely full at any point, those damages could be the same as the parking fee he could have received from another driver.

Thanks for the citations, Coupon-mad; I'll go look them up.

island2

bazster wrote: »

Presumably you are referring to this:

“relevant contract” means a contract (including a contract arising only when the vehicle was parked on the relevant land) between the driver and a person who is—

(a)the owner or occupier of the land; or

(b)authorised, under or by virtue of arrangements made by the owner or occupier of the land, to enter into a contract with the driver requiring the payment of parking charges in respect of the parking of the vehicle on the land;

Do please explain how a landowner could authorise Scumbag Parking Ltd. to enter into a contract, as principal, with me, Mr Third-Party Motorist?

It would be like you authorising your Estate Agent to sell your house without you having to sign the transfer documents. It can't be done.

It absolutely can be done under the law of agency. In the estate agent case you might need to give a power of attorney because of extra legal requirements on the transfer of real estate. But a landowner can certainly empower an agent to offer drivers a licence to park their vehicles on his land, and will be bound by any contract the agent concludes. See any basic text on contract law or agency law.