Warning - new legislation on parking charge notices

edinthesouth

The "Protection to Freedom Bill (this title is the biggest irony when you read the rest of this post) is currently going through Parliament (at the report stage) and if made law would in effect prevent the "ignore" action as it would make the keeper of the vehicle liable for any parking charge notice (you have to ask why the Home Office is sponsoring this amendment?)

There is a specific need to challenge the inclusion of Section 56, Chapter 2, Part 3 of the Protection of Freedoms Bill as this gives effect to Schedule 4 of the Bill and states:

"Schedule 4 (which makes provision for the recovery of unpaid parking charges from the keeper of a vehicle in cases where it is not known who was driving the vehicle when the charges were incurred)"

Schedule 4 states:
"The first condition is that the creditor
(a) has the right to enforce against the driver of the vehicle the terms of the relevant contract which require the unpaid parking charges to be paid; but
(b) is unable to enforce those terms against the driver because the creditor does not know both the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver."

Write to your MP ( I have) to complain about this legislation. Unless people do then there is no reason for it to be challenged.

You have all been warned!

peter_the_piper

We have been doing so but thanks for reiterating the warning. This goes against the accepted belief that one person cannot be held responsible for anothers error. Could be interesting times ahead.

HO87

Wot p_t_p says ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

There are already several threads discussing the potential impact of Schedule 4 but another does no damage at all. Just make sure that you tell everyone you can of the fundamental change this will effect on long established English law if the Bill is passed. PPC's want the freedom to pursue people on the basis of purported breaches of contract law however this means that they can only chase the person who could have entered into any contract - the driver. This is what the established law has held to be correct and has been built up over several hundred years. There is even a legal term for what we are discussing; it is called "privity" and this essentially means that only the parties to a contract can be held to its terms. In the case of parking only the driver could conceivably enter into a contract.

Despite many failed attempts PPC's have not found a legal means of obliging the registered keeper to disclose who was driving at a particular point. Without this their cases are ham-strung and so - not to be outdone - they have lobbied parliament for a change to the law in what is now Schedule 4. So, having found an area of law they have been able to richly exploit for some years, now that people have twigged that the threats are so much hot air they want to move the goalposts so they can continue to fleece the motorist.

Point your MP's in the direction of this and other forums. PPC's are not all upstanding companies supplying a genuine and valuable service there are many out there who have added nothing whatsoever to the number of parking spaces out there and simply farm those that already exist for arbitrary and disproportionate charges. These companies exists solely to obtain these charges and nothing else. If people don't believe this then read Judge King's assessment of the business model of the company involved in the case of Vehicle Control Services Ltd v Revenue & Customs [2011] UKFTT 125 (TC) a VAT Tribunal case from earlier this year. VCS are a member of the Excel stable of companies and is a well-known PPC (as indeed are Excel). She said (at para 4):

Most of the income of VCS comes from motorists who pay VCS money following a parking ticket being applied to their vehicle.

And VCS are far from unique. There are a whole raft of companies out there doing exactly the same. Yes, they may sell residents permits or the occasional Pay and Display machine (though there are many who don't even offer these services) but, as Judge King observed, their real inciome comes from parking charge notices. A private company making money in this way? Strange, but true.

To cap it all these companies invest huge efforts in signing up owners of car parks, particularly supermarkets, retail and business parks, so they can "farm" them for their own benefit. The PPC's are not being approached by landowners for their services (as they would wish us to believe) they have to be extremely proactive if they are not then the next PPC will get in. Its definitely dog-eat-dog in World PPC. PPC's are aggressively signing up car parks selling their services on the basis that they will "manage" parking issues not only at nil cost to the owner but occasionally with the sweetener of a percentage of the take.

The rich private parking market is not being driven by the end-user eager to have their parking problems resolved but by the purported service provider themselves - PPC's. It is thus an entirely contrived market the substantial value of which is built almost exclusively on the ability of the PPC to exploit the motorist. There is even an argument that by obtaining licences from landowners to operate, PPC's interpose themselves into the equation and effectively turn themselves into the end-users thereby usurping the interests of the landowners.

This is the unspoken truth of World PPC.

Fergie76

A couple of questions regarding this bill -

1. Does it only apply to England and Wales, or Scotland too?

2. It states Clampers can still operate where a car park has a barrier, whether the barrier is used or not. Can Clampers, therefore still clamp by the backdoor by erecting something resembling a barrier, though it's never used? It wouldn't cost a Clamper very much to erect this, given the potential rewards.

peter_the_piper

Fergie76 wrote: »

A couple of questions regarding this bill -

1. Does it only apply to England and Wales, or Scotland too?

2. It states Clampers can still operate where a car park has a barrier, whether the barrier is used or not. Can Clampers, therefore still clamp by the backdoor by erecting something resembling a barrier, though it's never used? It wouldn't cost a Clamper very much to erect this, given the potential rewards.

I don't think the proposed legislation should read like that but it is confusing. Somewhere it was explained to me that it does not quite mean that but I can't for the life of me remember where the explanation is.

Fergie76

peter_the_piper wrote: »

I don't think the proposed legislation should read like that but it is confusing. Somewhere it was explained to me that it does not quite mean that but I can't for the life of me remember where the explanation is.

If it doesn't mean that, then it needs reworded:

Offence of immobilising etc. vehicles

(1)

A person commits an offence who, without lawful authority—

(a)

immobilises a motor vehicle by the attachment to the vehicle, or a part
15
of it, of an immobilising device, or

(b)

moves, or restricts the movement of, such a vehicle by any means,

intending to prevent or inhibit the removal of the vehicle by a person otherwise

entitled to remove it.

(2)

The express or implied consent (whether or not legally binding) of a person
20
otherwise entitled to remove the vehicle to the immobilisation, movement or

restriction concerned is not lawful authority for the purposes of subsection (1).

(3)

Subsection (2) does not apply where—

(a)

there is express or implied consent by the driver of the vehicle to

restricting its movement by a fixed barrier, and
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(b)

the barrier was present (whether or not lowered into place or otherwise

restricting movement) when the vehicle was parked.

peter_the_piper

This is the full text, the barriers are there to restrict movement, it still does not allow clamping/towing.
""
198. Subsection (2) provides that any consent, whether express or implied, given by a person entitled to remove the vehicle to the immobilisation, movement, or restriction of movement, does not constitute lawful authority for the purposes of subsection (1). A driver of a vehicle, by parking in a commercially run car park, may have impliedly accepted the landowner’s offer to park (or that of the parking company acting as the landowner’s agent). He or she may also, depending on what is advertised at the car park, have impliedly agreed to comply with the terms and conditions advertised, including the parking charges and the associated enforcement mechanism for those charges. However, by virtue of this subsection, the operation of the law of contract as it applies to commercially run private car parks does not confer lawful authority on the landowner or operator of a car park to clamp or tow away a vehicle parked there.
199. Subsection (2) is subject to the exception in subsection (3 ) the effect ofwhich is to exclude from the ambit of the offence the case of a driver who has given express or implied consent (for example, when entering a privately operated car park) to the movement of his or her vehicle being restricted by a fixed barrier. Accordingly, no offence would be committed where a driver was prevented from leaving a car park because the vehicle’s exit was blocked by a fixed barrier which remained in place because the driver had not paid the requisite parking charges (provided the barrier was present when the vehicle was parked, whether or not it only subsequently restricted movement, for example by being lowered into place).""


As I said it was full of legalese so I may well be wrong but I don't think so.

Coupon-mad

I think the misunderstanding due to the badly-worded bit about barriers has already been cleared up and the wording will be changed. I saw a thread about it mentioning a Govt discussion where this was raised and clarified I think.

Clamping will be banned even with barriers, they just mean that if a car park has a barrier then it can be closed if the landowner/occupier sees fit at the end of the advertised parking time - and that's tough if a car is left inside.

Certainly EVERYONE needs to write to their MP and/or the Dept of Transport to object to schedule 4, as mentioned on several threads on here.

A PRIVATE COMPANY FROM A WELL-KNOWN SCAM INDUSTRY CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO BE GIVEN POWERS SIMILAR TO A LOCAL AUTHORITY!

HO87

p_t_p is correct. Summing it up, the clause bans the immobilisation of vehicle by means of a clamp or similar device or by blocking it unless it is by means of a fixed barrier which was present (lowered or otherwise) at the time the vehicle in question was parked.

Simples.

RENEGADE_2

I've said before and I'll say it again. PPCs require more than this schedule, they need to change Contract Law itself. Because what is a "parking charge"? The unpaid ticket from the machine? Or the unpaid de facto penalty? If it is the latter, I will take great pleasure in testing the system. Our work needs to continue, as more and more are becoming aware of the scam, they just need to be told that Contract Law is still the legislation. Nowhere does it state that PPCs may issue "penalties" and any demand for something beyond losses cannot be anything else, call it what you will.

As for those who will pay ... that will only be those who are still unsuspecting now.

robredz

As per HO87 post #3, they are dealing with the fundamentals of Contract Law, and Privity is a fundamental part, as in the test of: " has the person/agency the ppc is attempting to bind by the driver's action, have any CONTROL over their actions and use of the vehicle day to day?" if not and it would be difficult to prove they had, then the contract should fail.

What I think that Schedule 4 is designed to do, and making bad law whilst it is at it, is to impose an obligation on the RK/Owner, in a manner similar to the criminal sanction under Section 172 Road traffic Act 1988 that places a Legal Obligation on the RK to name the driver puts an obligation on the registered keeper (or anybody else who can provide the information) to supply the identity of the driver. This obligation goes against the normal principle that people should not be required to incriminate themselves or others unless they want to. The penalty for failing to provide this information (since the 24th September 2007 when the penalties were increased) is 6 penalty points and a fine of up to £1,000.


The civil pseudo tortious liability imposed on the RK to pay the charges incurred no matter how excessive and unreasonable, by a driver is a ludicrous twisting of law. If allowed it will be unworkable as it will still be open to challenge on Privity of contract,



That could be a good argument against it when writing to MP's