LPS (again)

glam78

Hi, I've had an "excess charge notice" put on the car today. I was in the carpark longer than expected, but not £60 longer than expected.

I've been reading through the site and I've noted that the basic advice is to just ignore as its unenforceable and basically a scam, but still slightly worried.

It is this Local PArking Security company who have put it there. I had read through the MSE site and copied Martins letter to send to the private companies, copying down some of the advice given on this and other forums regarding it. Should I just send them the letter (I'm not putting my personal details on the letter though, just the ECN reference), should I pay (as I did park longer than I paid for) or just not bother doing anything.

Can I expect several months of threatening letters from this?

The info I've gotten from the forums and was going to put in the letter is below

• The fee is disproportionate

According to the Unfair Consumer Contract Regulations,parking charges on private land must not exceed the cost to the landownerduring the period the motorist is parked there. In my case, the £60charge you areasking for far exceeds the cost to the landowner of £2 for two hours/£5 all day



“Charge” is also an unfair term in pursuant to the UnfairTerms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, Section's 5, 6 and 8 and Schedule2, Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 section 4


The yellow packet the charge comes in is also abreach of The Administration of Justice Act 1970, Section 40 line (d), as itutters removal or tamper is an offence. This relates only to PCN’s which you asa PPC are not authorised to issue

Stephen_Leak

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 take anyone who didn’t pay them to court.

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.

glam78

thanks for the advice

glam78

If you don't know the details of the CPO would you suggest sending the PPC the underpayment only (not their charge just the underpayment) Or would you suggest the best course of action would be to still ignore them?

BASFORDLAD

Just ignore

HO87

Just to clarify, glam, is the ticket you have received actually called an "Excess Charge Notice?"

Excess Charge Notices are used by a small number of councils who have not yet adopted decriminalised parking enforcement (under the terms of the Traffic Management Act 2004) and are backed by statute. One might argue that to describe something that is not a genuine notice as an ECN is to misrepresent authority.

Provided that LPS are not providing a service to a local authority (if this was so payment would be due to the council and not LPS) then this is simply a speculative invoice and you may safely ignore it. If, however, it is a genuine ECN then if left unpaid you could well end up being summonsed to the Magistrates Court.

I do see that LPS describe their invoices as "Excess Charge Notice" on their website but I suggest you check to make sure.

glam78

Hi, yes it is called an Excess Charge Notice and it was a private car park nothing to do with the local council

Kite2010

Sounds like LPS are trying to confuse people by making their worthless invoices seem more important than they are.

glam78

So I really don't have to do anything? I'm still a bit worried over it. Have these ever gone to court before?

Crabman

Hi glam78, have a look at our letterchains (scroll down to LPS) for an example of letters received:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2214803

As far as I'm aware LPS haven't done court but someone else may be able to correct me if this isn't the case.

In the unlikely event court papers are received, come back for help with submitting a defence. As far as I'm aware, such cases on here and Pepipoo which have had a proper defence submitted have been dropped by the parking companies.

The parking companies design their letters to be threatening and intimidating so that recipients pay up under the worry of being taken to court. This is a strategy to make money and sadly it works more often than we'd like.

It's worth bearing in mind that the majority of parking companies happily cash the cheques from those who fall for their threats and forget about the people who ignore them. If their operations were legitimate, they'd take everyone to court and win every time