Townd and Country Parking

Tufnailsteve

Hi all. In June I took my disabled son to London for check ups. I parked in a TCP car park and got a ticket and displayed the blue badge that we are entitiled to. When I returned I had been given a parking ticket by TCP. I went home and appealed online straight away. I then heard nothing for a couple of weeks so I called them. They claimed to have no record of my appeal!! The next day I received a letter from them saying that my appeal had been rejected as they do not recognise the blue badge scheme. I called them and asked for an explanation as there were no signs in the car park and that they actually had disabled spaces (how do they know who is actually disabled if they dont recognise blue badges). I was promised a call back from a manager to discuss this. Today I have received a letter from a debt agency chasing me for money! I called TCP and demanded to speak to a manager. I was put through to a supervisor who proceeded to call me pathetic and proceeded to accuse me of being rude to him, which I wasnt. I have been promised a call back...from a manager...but I am not holding my breath. Do these private contractors actually have any power in these matters? Any advice would be appreciated.
Steve

Stephen_Leak

Did you display the P&D ticket as well as the Blue Badge?

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 with 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.

The Blue Badge scheme doesn’t apply to private car parks. Anyone, who’s disabled under the terms of The Equality Act 2010 can use a disabled parking bay. If they’re also Blue Badge holders, they don't need to display it. The terms & conditions for private car parks usually state that you shouldn't park in a disabled bay without displaying a Blue Badge. This, in itself, contravenes The Equality Act.

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 equivalent to the High Court, and therefore its judgements set legal precedents.

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, , maybe, also 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.

taffy056

Please stop communicating with them, honestly they are not worth the effort. What you have is an invoice that is not enforceable unless they make a claim in the small claims and win. Last year TCP took 0 (that is ZERO) people there despite issuing thousands of demands. The debt collectors have no powers at all.

You are entitled to park in disabled bays whether you have a badge or not in private car parks providing you have the need and qualify under the Equalities Act 2010, you could sue them for harassment as you were obviously entitled to park there.

You owe them nothing, there is no loss as you paid to park there. This would never go to court as you can prove that you are entitled to park there and you paid. A judge would look at that and probably award you costs for the waste of time.

Keep your money and sanity by ignoring these scamming good for nothing shysters.

bazster

taffy056 wrote: »

You are entitled to park in disabled bays whether you have a badge or not in private car parks providing you have the need and qualify under the Equalities Act 2010, you could sue them for harassment as you were obviously entitled to park there.

Could also sue them for discrimination (including demanding damages for injured feelings).