ukpc parking charge HEEEEEELLLLPPP

italianstallion

Ok I have read a lttle bit but am a very anxious little person, and this is the story was in free car park in belfast and
sunday 14:00 place empty sunny just passing lots of parking space cheekely park on a bit of yellow line in front of shop a little bit of car on yellow line but thought is not disabled space there are plenty of spaces will just drop off a return Item, and go home literally 10 minutes (my car isnt worth the 60 pounds parking charge)
come out and had one of yellow thing that says parking charge but the irony is they have put wrong make of car and wrong color mine is green not blue but the right reg.
what i do i know everybody says to ignore but i have no debt but i havent got the 60 quid
HEEEElp
Italian stallion

give_them_FA

You don't have any debt now. And you can keep the £60 in your pocket. There is no way for UKPC to enforce this- it is a simple try-on. You may get some asinine letters, just ignore them and then they go away.

If you ignore them they will not have a clue who the driver was so there would be nothing they could do anyway. It really is that simple and works every time. Ignore ignore ignore.

Buona giornata!

Just to add yellow lines mean absolutely NOTHING in a private car park. Totally unenforceable.

ManxRed

A couple of things:

1, Lines painted on private land are legally meaningless (although its a good idea to follow their directives if purely for safety and other considerations. However, legally unenforceable.
2. The car park owner can pursue the driver only for actual losses incurred as a result of your 'transgression', which in a free car park, is zero.
3. Note I say 'car park owner' above. A Private Car Park owner, unless they own the car park, which is rare indeed, cannot pursue you for anything.
4. They don't know who the driver was. Let it remain that way.

Whilst I don't advocate parking on yellow lines, you have not broken any law, and the fact that the parking company are effectively trying to fleece you for £60, means that you should ignore them completely, and do not correspond with them at all. Eventually they will -after a series of threatening letters - give up and go away.

bondy_lad

its a scam, not legal, so nothing can happen, please read the stickies,, you have a PARKING charge notice=loo paper,,the official, genuine version is called a PENALTY charge notice,,only given by police/traffic warden,no matter what they threaten, absolutely nothing will happen, we know, they know and more importantly now you know, so its feet up, glass of vino and dont wory you wont be waking up with a horses head next to you,,,ciao,,.

Wywth

What help do you really need?

You know the advice is to ignore these phoney tickets.

I've followed the advice of this board and collected over 200 over the past year and despite lots of threatening letters (which also get binned), nothing has ever come of it.

I expect to pick up another ticket today after failing to buy a car parking ticket again. D'oh.

Thanks MSE, you've saved me a fortune this past year :T

malkyh

Wywth wrote: »

I expect to pick up another ticket today after failing to buy a car parking ticket again. D'oh.

Thanks MSE, you've saved me a fortune this past year :T

To be fair, you should always pay for your ticket if it is a pay and display car park.

ManxRed

malkyh wrote: »

To be fair, you should always pay for your ticket if it is a pay and display car park.

This. We are not advising people to avoid paying legitimate parking charges, we are advising people not to pay the ridiculous unenforceable 'fines' that these companies try to levy for 'transgressions'.

dannyrobbo86

I Appealed against the ''Parking Charge" the day i got the charge without searching online for forums. i received their conclusion today, they haven't budged....:mad: it was a free car park, not P&D so i haven't duped them out of money.
Shall i still ignore the letters even though they have all my details?
Never had a Parking Charge before so im a bit anxious about just ignoring it.....

BASFORDLAD

Yes still ignore

Stephen_Leak

dannyrobbo86 wrote: »

I Appealed against the ''Parking Charge" the day i got the charge without searching online for forums. i received their conclusion today, they haven't budged....:mad: it was a free car park, not P&D so i haven't duped them out of money.
Shall i still ignore the letters even though they have all my details?
Never had a Parking Charge before so im a bit anxious about just ignoring it.....

Firstly, the legal stuff.

Only councils, the police, train operators and Transport for London can impose legally enforceable fines or penalties. A private company or individual can't. A private parking company (PPC) call their tickets “Parking Charge Notices”, not “Penalty Charge Notices”. In law, they’re called “speculative invoices”.

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 a driver entering the car park in the first place. See The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1997 and Excel Parking Services vs. Cutts, Stockport, 2011.

All the car park owner (CPO) can claim from a driver in damages for any alleged breach of any alleged contract is what they’ve lost as a result. If it’s in a free car park or the driver paid, this is £0.00. Demanding more has been judged to be unreasonable and therefore an unfair contract penalty under the terms of The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1997, which is not legally enforceable. See Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. Ltd. vs. New Garage & Motor Co. Ltd., House of Lords, 1914 and countless cases since.

There are also now recent landmark court cases, VCS Parking Control vs. Ronald Ibbotson, S!!!!horpe, 2012, HM Revenue & Customs vs. VCS Parking Control, Lower Tax Tribunal, 2012 and VCS Parking Control vs. HM Revenue & Customs (Appeal), Upper Tax Tribunal, 2012. In these cases, the judges ruled that only the car park owner can take drivers to court. The Upper Tax Tribunal is a court of record, equivalent to the High Court, and therefore its judgement sets a legal precedent.

What should I do now?

We don’t condone not paying or overstaying in a pay car park. If you owe the CPO the original charge, then you ought to write to the CPO, offering this in “full and final settlement”. In any event, you should write to the CPO, advising them that they are "jointly and severally liable" for the actions of their agents, the PPC, and that any further actions by either of them would be regarded as harassment under the terms of The Protection from Harassment Act 1997. This ought to make the CPO call off the PPC and, hopefully, realise the potential cost of doing business with a PPC.

Don’t appeal to the PPC. They always reject them. What’s in it for them to let anyone off? Actually, there is something in it for them: 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 harassing the registered keeper.

With windscreen notices, an appeal letter will tell them your name and address, and maybe who was 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 had to do 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 told them who the driver was, it just means that they can now harass the driver instead of harassing the registered keeper.

How will they do this to me?

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

But, they can't actually do anything, for the same reason that a blackmailer can't sue anyone who didn’t pay them.

What should I do then?

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

muckybutt

dannyrobbo86 wrote: »

it was a free car park, not P&D so i haven't duped them out of money.
Shall i still ignore the letters even though they have all my details?
Never had a Parking Charge before so im a bit anxious about just ignoring it.....

They have'nt lost anything so they cant charge you anything !

Dont be anxious, you have nothing to worry about. Would you pay me if I said " By you reading this information you thereby owe me £60 for the pleasure " ? No you wouldnt, its the same as them asking you for your money. You dont owe them anything and never will.

Stay strong and focused and ignore them, they do go away eventually.