UKPC charge not paid now debt recovery letter comes - what do I do?

rattyslane

Can anyone tell me if a contract between a management company and the Parking Company counts as a contract with the owners of the land please.

RENEGADE_2

Not sure I follow the question but I'm sure the answer is no.

The principle of Contract Law is that a contract is only valid when the terms are agreed by all parties involved which is another reason private parking signage is invalid from the outset; it has been drafted in advance by one party and the subsequent motorists have not negotiated in the agreement, this makes it negligible.

Coupon-mad

rattyslane wrote: »

Can anyone tell me if a contract between a management company and the Parking Company counts as a contract with the owners of the land please.

It's a contract that doesn't involve a driver of a car, that's for sure!

Only the landowner (or leasehold occupier like Tesco or whatever) can potentially claim losses from a person for trespass in a car park or on their land.

Not their agent.

gops

I received parking notice of £50 in my own shared land by UKPC (My property is in Private Estate and UKPC is the parking operator to check cars being parked illegally in our land & I own my home in the estate)

I have not corresponded with them and received several threatening letters from Debt Collectors, etc for over 3 months time. Now they are harassing me by putting the parking notice on my car 2 times in a week.

How can I take action against them? Should I write letter to my Trust or contact UKPC to stop doing this?

ManxRed

You own the parking space under a freehold or leasehold arrangement?

If so, write to the Mgt Co (copy the PPC if you like) and state that you are withdrawing all implied access to the Mgt Co., their employees, agents and subcontractors (which includes without limitation the PPC) to your land. State that you consider the correspondence from the PPC as harassment and that any further correspondence from them may result in a claim for harassment under the Protection From Harassment Act 1997 against the PPC and the Mgt Co., who you will hold jointly and severally liable for the actions of their agent.

Coupon-mad

Complain to the Trust but ignore UKPC unless you want to just copy them into the complaint. Concentrate on the Trust.

Have the Trust got you jumping through any hoops by having to display a permit or some old rubbish? If so then complain about UKPC harassing you and state that you hereby opt out of the parking scheme as it is of no interest to you and you do not recognise UKPC as having any authority whatsoever. I see that ManxRed posted at the same time as me offering similar advice!

Were you parking in unmarked places, outside of your bay (do you have your own bay)? Not that I am saying there's anything wrong in that in your own place of residence, just wondering what UKPC used as their excuse for the fake PCNs each time?

gops

Trust has selected UKPC recently for managing the parking and ukpc as a result has their own rules of displaying the permit on car, not crossing white line, etc..

The ticket was issued when my permit display had fallen from screen onto the car seat. Earlier on I was issued a ticket for parking on the kerb for which I had paid £50 earlier & this time I got frustrated because they knew that I had valid permit when they issued ticket last time.
Once they saw that I did not respond to the ticket, they have started putting the ticket regularly on my car even though the permit is clearly displayed and my neighbors are also puzzled & are asking me why I am getting so many tickets and this is becoming a real harassment from this company.

There are no individual bays allocated and anyone can park anywhere in the estate.

Coupon-mad

Aha, so they have you down as a mug (sorry) because you sadly fell for one of their fake PCNs and paid it. Don't be a victim again and in fact you can fight back. DO NOT PAY UP AGAIN.

But what you describe IS harassment and at the very least, is against the BPA Code of Practice. Could get the PPC into big trouble with the DVLA if you can show proof of what's happening here. Take a photo each time they put a new PCN on the car and get your neighbour to verify or sign a diary of harassment that you can use to jot down the daily occurences and the fact you were properly parked each time.

But let me get it straight, are you saying that UKPC keep putting new tickets on your car every day, randomly, as a threat and to publicly embarrass you because you haven't paid the last one? That also goes against OFT debt collector and trading guidelines and CPUTR. Here's a thread from CAG forums that explains the latter:

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?291400-What-is-a-CPUTR-2008





''the following practices {are illegal}...

• Misleading Actions
• Misleading Omissions
• Pressure Selling (including aggressive selling)

Finally there is a general ban on any other 'unfair commercial practice'.

This is intended to deal with any unfair trading practice that is not dealt with specifically by the Regulations.''


Complain to the Trust about their agent's actions, with a copy to your MP perhaps, for starters (cc on the letter or email to show that the MP is copied in). Say that both PCNs were unfair, you paid one as you felt intimidated but you absolutely will NOT make the same mistake again. Say that the remedy for UKPC would be to take you to Small Claims if they think you have a case, not slap pretend tickets on your car to make an example of you which is illegal harassment.

What's the date of the latest fake PCN you ignored?

gops

They started putting series of fake PCNs once in 3-4 days period. This happened almost immediately once the debt collection letters stopped coming in mail.
The latest PCN ignored was about 4 days old. Another one may be coming very soon.

Coupon-mad

So appeal the October ones and state that they were only put on the car for a made up reason and that you will take these tickets to POPLA to get them cancelled if UKPC do not withdraw them inmmediately. State that their behaviour in putting pointless extra tickets on the car to try to embarrass you isn't working, but is clearly against OFT debt collector guidelines and unfair trading laws such as CPUTR and also a breach of the BPA Code of Practice too.

POPLA is the independent appeals service and I suspect UKPC will stop doing this when they realise you know about the procedure and they cannot explain their fake PCNs. They cannot ticket because you haven't paid a previous fake PCN. Their only remedy for an unpaid fake PCN a (speculative, worthless invoice) is small claims, which UKPC don't know how to do, never have done!

Keep taking photos each time this happens and keep a notebook with times & dates of this harassment and copy your compalint appeal to the Trust as well so they can see you know their agent is up to no good. Also put on your letter 'cc to BPA and Trading Standards'. Which you could involve later if you want.