potential parking ticket

AltheHibby

Sarah,

You need to educate them on the finer (no pun intended) parts of the law. An invoice is an invoice NOT a fine. Private parking tickets are not fines, they are invoices. Tell your employer to read this forum and that if they withhold your pay it will be illegal withholding of wages, for which they can get in to mega trouble.

HappyMJ

Send your company an invoice for the parking charge for parking on your property and see if they pay up. It's silly. They should not be paying the charge if you have clearly stated you will be defending it.

Take the company to court if they illegally deduct it from your salary. They said fines and fines are issued by a court. Parking charges are just invoices in the hope people pay....and most people do.

haras_nosirrah

I don't want to lose my job so have to be a bit careful with my reaction

ManxRed

Tell them to seek legal advice.

They clearly haven't up to this point.

This is an invoice for breach of contract terms. If they honestly believe that a private company can fine someone then they are unbelievably stupid and need to be alerted to this fact.

haras_nosirrah

I have written this response but not yet sent

Hi

Is there a number of someone I can talk to at masterlease as I am happy for them to tell the parking people to contact me directly and pass on my details if they are contacted so they are not bothered. As I was the driver (or rather the one stuck in the car park) I am the one liable for the ticket not masterlease should one appear.

I have had two parking tickets before from the council and have paid them with no issue however as this was a circumstance out of my control I would prefer to challenge the ticket with the company myself and appeal if and when a ticket is issued (they will probably try and fine the AA man too) If masterlease pay the ticket then I am not able to challenge the ticket should one be recieved. These PCN tickets have been deemed unenforcable in law as a private company is unable to fine you they are only able to recover their losses. As it is a free carpark their losses are nil therefore it is an unenforcable fine which the private parking companies issue in the hope people pay up without challenging as they are unable to enforce their charges.

The Law

Private parking companies issue parking charge notices when they believe that you have not parked in accordance with the terms and condtions set out in the signs. The reason that they call it a parking charge notice is in the hope that you misread it as a penalty charge notice as per the Road Traffic Act.

The parking charge notice is not a parking fine it is just an invoice. The only action they can take is to claim breach of contract. To pursue a claim for breach of contract they must know the identity of the driver and be able to prove in court that they had a valid contract with the driver.

Under contract law, there is no obligation for the registered keeper of the vehicle to release information about who was driving the vehicle. If the registered keeper was not driving then it is up to the supermarket or private parking company to discover the identity of the driver.

Contract Law
Put simply, contract law requires an offer and an acceptance. The supermarket or private parking firm offer you parking in accordance with the terms displayed. By reading the terms and parking you have accepted the offer and must comply with the terms.
If you breach the parking contract, then the supermarket or private parking firm can only claim the actual amount they have lost. For instance if parking was offered for £2 per hour and you paid for 1 hour but parked for 2 hours, then the maximum they can claim is £2.
If you are unable to read the signs because they are inadequate, badly positioned or obstructed then you have not entered into a contract and therefore the parking charge notice is not enforceable.

Data Protection Act
As many supermarkets and private parking companies use automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) surveillance cameras then they are required by the Data Protection Act to display adequate signs showing that you are entering an area covered by CCTV. In many instances, these signs are extremely small and there is no way you could read the sign whilst remaining in control of the vehicle. These signs must alert you before the cameras record you so that you have the option of turning away and not being recorded. It is therefore possible that in many instances the use of these cameras falls short of what is required by law.

Unfair Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999

As the parking contracts that are offered by supermarkets are of a standard nature and not individually negotiated, I believe that they breach the Unfair Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 as the contract has a significant imbalance in favour of the supermarket or private parking company which contravenes section 5(1) below.
[FONT=courier new,monospace]5.[/FONT][FONT=courier new,monospace] - (1) A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated shall be regarded as unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer.[/FONT]
(2) A term shall always be regarded as not having been individually negotiated where it has been drafted in advance and the consumer has therefore not been able to influence the substance of the term.
(3) Notwithstanding that a specific term or certain aspects of it in a contract has been individually negotiated, these Regulations shall apply to the rest of a contract if an overall assessment of it indicates that it is a pre-formulated standard contract.
(4) It shall be for any seller or supplier who claims that a term was individually negotiated to show that it was.
(5) Schedule 2 to these Regulations contains an indicative and non-exhaustive list of the terms which may be regarded as unfair.

Section 5(5) refers to Schedule 2 of the regulations which contains a list of terms which may be regarded as unfair. Schedule 2 1(e) states:

• [FONT=courier new,monospace](e) requiring any consumer who fails to fulfil his obligation to pay a disproportionately high sum in compensation;

As the charge for parking is usually very small if not free, then the obligation to pay a sum usually in the region of £70 is in my opinion disproportionately high to the initial value of the contract. Full details of the regulations can be found on the Office for Public Sector Information's website - http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19992083.htm

[/FONT]Authorisation of Justice Act 1970
Section 40 of the Act is available below and Section 40(1)(d) states that a person commits an offence if they utter a document falsely represented by him to have some official character of purporting to have some official character which he knows it has not.

Why do supermarkets and private parking companies issue documents called Parking Charge Notices and then refer to them as a PCN. Well it's quite simple. In my opinion it is to make you think that it is a Penalty Charge Notice (also called a PCN) which is issued by a police force or local authority which is a legally enforceable parking fine which is the traditional type of parking fine that we think of which is enforceable by the courts. That is why they don't title their letter "Breach of contract" because they hope that most people will see the initials PCN and pay up or advise who the driver was.
[FONT=courier new,monospace][/FONT]
[FONT=courier new,monospace]40 Punishment for unlawful harassment of debtors[/FONT]

(1) A person commits an offence if, with the object of coercing another person to pay money claimed from the other as a debt due under a contract, he-

(d) [FONT=courier new,monospace]utters a document falsely represented by him to have some official character or purporting to have some official character which he knows it has not.

These companies issue documents which can be confused with official documents that share the same initials which in my opion is a breach of this Act.

Full details of the Administration of Justice Act can be found on the Office for Public Sector Information's website - http://www.opsi.gov.uk/RevisedStatutes/Acts/ukpga/1970/cukpga_19700031_en_1
[/FONT]
I am not trying to be deliberately difficult or put the company in an awkward position however similarly I do not have £90 to throw away not including the admin charge especially being pregnant and therefore due to go onto a substantially reduced income. While Masterlease may reserve the right to pay the ticket, I also have the right of appeal and I wish to exercise this right should I get a ticket.

Kind regards

haras_nosirrah

Trying to save 10k in 7 months as my income will reduce by circa 1.5k a month

Every lidl helps

ManxRed

These PCN tickets have been deemed unenforcable in law as a private company is unable to fine you

Change this bit to

It is worth noting that genuine parking penalties issued by local councils are done so legitimately under legislation (The Road Traffic Act). However private parking tickets are actually invoices issued in conjunction with a claim for breach of contract terms under civil law - a private company does not possess the statutory authority to 'fine' anyone.

Coupon-mad

It's so long and full of legal jargon I would honestly say they won't read it.

I would just reply and say:

Dear ....

''Many thanks for your swift reply in trying to clarify this matter.

I am not wishing to cause any issue here and would rather not be raising this at all of course. I am sorry for involving you in this but a private 'parking charge notice' simply isn't a fine. Nor is it the responsibility of the lease co or employer under any circumstances.

For clarity, the t&cs of the lease hire agreement I signed do not include private parking charges. (QUOTE IT...)

If 'lease company name' were to pay a private fake 'PCN' they would not only be acting outside of the t&cs of my car contract but they would also be acting against the advice from their own industry Trade Organisation.

The British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association is the trade body for companies engaged in the leasing and rental of cars and commercial vehicles. The correct industry advice is on the BVRLA website; they even supply free template letters they suggest using if a lease company really wants to respond:

http://www.bvrla.co.uk/Search/Default.aspx...&btnSearch=

...the Legal Dept's suggestion is for firms to ignore such speculative invoices but those who wish to respond should use this letter (second one on the link):

Private parking letter one (Private_Parking_Ltr1.doc)

I can fully understand that 'lease company name' may be concerned about their position and may mistake a fake 'PCN' for a real fine (they are in fact designed to mislead and impersonate a real PCN). The advice I have been given suggests that lease companies can contact Jay Parmar in the Legal and Policy Dept of the BVRLA who is familiar with the issue of any fake 'PCN' and will confirm that it is not a fine and has nothing to do with a vehicle owner or registered keeper.

If any letter from a private company does arrive about this matter, if 'lease company name' want to respond they should name me as the driver and provide my address and I will deal with the matter completely. I take full responsibility as this is not a fine and has no repercussions for an owner or registered keeper whatsoever.''



...or summat like that (certainly with the BVRLA links).

Anna_Nonymouse

I agree with Coupon-Mad - no way is HR or whoever going to wade through the jargon in your letter.
And your company sound like right tw@ ts. If they do deduct from your salary, you should sue them.

haras_nosirrah

I have sent the coupon mad version

got back

Sarah

Thank you for your detailed response . I will look into this matter for you and will respond in due course once I have had the opportunity to review.

Regards

Just have to see what comes back