parking ticket in staff carpark

p2keel

I work at a NHS hospital and pay £30 a month car parking. Today I was unable to find a space and ended up parking in a disabled space in the staff carpark. Over 50% of these spaces remain empty throughout the day. On returning to my car this evening I had a £50 fine attached to the screen. Is this legal?

give_them_FA

In a word, no. If it is a private parking ticket you can ignore it. Don't reply or enter into any discussion with them and they will have no way of knowing who the driver was in any case. "Disabled bays" are simply a courtesy rather than legal on private land. So not condoning your use of one but there's no need to enrich a parasite as a result.

Ignore. If anyone broke a contract they did. They took money off you for parking then didn't provide you with what you paid for.

Stephen_Leak

Firstly, the legal stuff.

The Equality Act 2010 doesn't say that able-bodied drivers can't also use disabled parking bays. OK, maybe they shouldn't, but they can.

Any warning signs are usually so badly positioned and worded, that they won’t have created a fair and legally binding deemed contract between the car park owner and the driver in the first place. (The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1997.)

Even if there is a contract, all the car park owner can claim from the driver in damages for any breach of contract is what they’ve lost as a result. If this is a free car park or they paid, this is £0.00. By asking you for more, which is unreasonable, it’s become an unfair contract penalty, which is not legally enforceable. (Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. Ltd. vs. New Garage & Motor Co. Ltd., House of Lords, 1914.)

Under various legislation, only councils, the police, train operators and Transport for London can impose legally enforceable fines or penalties. Private parking companies can't.

What do I do now?

Don’t appeal. They always reject them. What’s in it for them to let anyone off?

What’s in it for them is information. They need to know the identity of the driver of the vehicle involved at the time, because that’s who the alleged contract was with. If they don’t know who the driver was, they have to make do with chasing the registered keeper.

With windscreen notices, an appeal letter will tell them your name and address, and maybe that you were driving at the time. If they don’t know who the driver was, they have to buy the details of registered keeper from the DVLA.

With postal notices, they’ve done this already. But they still need to know the identity of the driver.

They sometimes say that they have the right to ask for this information. This doesn’t mean that you have to tell them.

However, even if you’ve written and confirmed who the driver was, it doesn’t make their actions any less unlawful. It just means that instead of unlawfully harassing the registered keeper, they can now unlawfully harass the driver.

What will they do to me?

They will send you a series of letters, then a debt collector and then a solicitor. The debt collector and solicitor are usually also the PPC, but using different headed paper. These will threaten you with all sorts of financial and legal unpleasantness, to intimidate you into paying.

But, they can't actually do anything, for the same reason that a blackmailer couldn't sue their victim if they didn’t pay.

What should I do then?

Continue to ignore everything you get from the PPC and their aliases. Yes, it does seem counter-intuitive to deal with something by ignoring it. Eventually, they will run out of empty threats to intimidate you with, and stop throwing good money after bad.

HappyMJ

p2keel wrote: »

I work at a NHS hospital and pay £30 a month car parking. Today I was unable to find a space and ended up parking in a disabled space in the staff carpark. Over 50% of these spaces remain empty throughout the day. On returning to my car this evening I had a £50 fine attached to the screen. Is this legal?

It is legal.....to attach a piece of paper and call it a parking charge notice. To call it a fine is not though and I doubt the PPC has called it a fine as that would most certainly be thrown out by the court as they are the only ones who issue legitimate enforceable by prison "fines".

It is also legal for you to completely ignore this piece of paper purporting to be a parking charge and well....do nothing.

andrew-the-cat

Does it have the word "fine" or "penalty" anywhere on it? If it does and it has been issued by a private company then it's illegal and you do not have to pay (and they can get in BIG trouble for it).

If not, then it's purely a civil invoice (like me sending you a letter asking you to pay me £100). You do not have to pay.

p2keel

andrew-the-cat wrote: »

Does it have the word "fine" or "penalty" anywhere on it? If it does and it has been issued by a private company then it's illegal and you do not have to pay (and they can get in BIG trouble for it).

If not, then it's purely a civil invoice (like me sending you a letter asking you to pay me £100). You do not have to pay.

on reading it again it does say 'parking charge'

give_them_FA

You already paid your parking charge to the Hospital. You don't have to pay another one to the parasite.

Coupon-mad

p2keel wrote: »

on reading it again it does say 'parking charge'

Then worry ye not! That tells you it's a fake one even if it looks like a PCN.

vax2002

A complicated multi layered impersonation of authority scam.

wealdroam

The only problem you may have OP, is that your employer has contracted the ppc to manage their car park.
You have probably agreed that by paying the monthly parking fee you are not guaranteed a space.

Maybe the ppc and your employer can between them identify the probable driver of that car.

Whilst I agree with all that has been said earlier, consider how much you want to upset your employer before deciding your course of action.

Coupon-mad

I would be careful around any discussion with the employer (say nothing) but I wouldn't pay their parasite.