Overstay in excel car park

sallyp4880

I have received a charge of £60 from excel for staying over the maximum of 2 hours.
My mum owns the car so I understand that she is not liable, and does not have to tell them who was driving.
However, because I did break their terms, am I likely to face court? Can they demand to know who was driving at any point? Has anyone had any experience of challenging their charge in this situation i.e overstaying rather than not paying ?

trisontana

You situation is no different to the many others featured on here. You don't owe them a penny so just ignore.

Half_way

It doesnt matter who was driving, its still completly un enforcable.
infact if your concerned that your mum may cave in/wobble or get upset/angry/anoyed etc you should let her know about the tatics and legalities of the PPC buisness model.
If you are concerned about how she may react a little notice to the car park owners, and the PPC telling them to stop sending threats as its causing distress should do the trick.
If they continue one more letter threateing them with action under the protection from harrasment act ( to both the car park owner and the parking company) should stop them, if not then its time to start procedings against both the car park owner and the PPC.

If the above is unlikely then you can always own up to being the driver to re direct the fake letters to you where thay can safely be ignored by yourself. without troubling your mum.

bondy_lad

sally, just read the stickies,its a FAKE ticket,not real,pretend etc etc,,its a PARKING charge notice=loo paper,,only a PENALTY charge notice is real, you dont have this,now read the stickies on what letters to expect,from excell,roxburghe and graham white,, all 3 are clowns and part of the SCAM, nothing , ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WILL/CAN happen as a result of this, relax, feet up, glass of wine,watch the olympics,but dont wory about this IGNORE.there you go jobs a good un.

27col

Congratulations on having the sense not to call it a "fine".

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. Private parking companies (PPCs) 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 CPO can charge for parking and 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.

EVIEB

Does all this legal stuff still apply in Scotland?

trisontana

No different in Scotland except they don't have bailiffs there, you have Sheriffs Officers. These PPCs are so thick that they sometimes threaten Scottish residents with bailiffs even though they don't exist north of the border.

AltheHibby

EVIE,

It applies in the northern wastelands of Scotland where I live, so it applies where you are.

AlexisV

I don't know of any English based PPC attempting court action outside England and Wales. Even the Scottish based TCP have never done court I believe.

Coupon-mad

EVIEB wrote: »

Does all this legal stuff still apply in Scotland?

Legal stuff?

There are no legalities needed regarding ignoring a fake PCN. Just ignore it, you don't need a law to cite unless you are thinking of suing them for harassment.