driver awareness cards

Lynnzer

This link will get you the driver warning cards that I use to make people aware of their escape route. The link is here: forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=17361

These things are worth their weight in gold. Just pop one into any car park ticket bag you see on any windscreen.
Double sided.
Been doing this and similar for years now.
It's really quite amusing.
I even borrowed a pen and a page from a car park attendants note-book one time to write out a note to go into a ticket bag.
I told him I was leaving a note for the wife telling her where I was as I hadn't been able to contact her on the mobile.
He thought he was being really helpful.......

Coupon-mad

Lynnzer, just post a link without the http:// at the start and we can then re-post it with the prefix.

Lynnzer

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Lynnzer, just post a link without the http:// at the start and we can then re-post it with the prefix.

You mean like that? forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=17361
Thanks

HO87

How about: http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=17361 Opens as a PDF.

I like them. Though perhaps we shouldn't be promoting them here even if we are all in the same fight together and many, if not most of us, are crossover merchants anyway. You always were a cussed b*gger, Lynn.

Lynnzer

HO87 wrote: »

I like them. Though perhaps we shouldn't be promoting them here even if we are all in the same fight together and many, if not most of us, are crossover merchants anyway. You always were a cussed b*gger, Lynn.

Cussed? Me?
You mean like this:
Sir,
I write to inform you that new legislation is enforced on the 1st October in respect of car parking which will inevitably impact upon the operation of your own car parking facilities. The new Act (Protection of Freedoms Act 2012) gives new powers to landowners and also confers rights to those persons using your car parks, and particularly to the management company contracted by you.

Briefly, the right is given to the landowner only, to enforce any parking charges onto the actual vehicle's registered keeper where he has failed to provide a name and address of the driver responsible for any contractual parking breach. As such, this would be a welcome means of obtaining payment for a contractual breach of parking, however certain conditions must first be met to allow this.


The main, though not the only, condition is that any charge must represent the actual financial loss to the landowner where any breach has occurred and must not be of a punitive nature. In the case of your own car parks, no charge is made for their use, therefore you would not suffer any financial loss as a consequence of a breach of a contractual arrangement for using it. This applies equally to the service roads.

It follows that any other charge that may be applied can only be justified as being a penalty. The wording of the signs in most parking areas of this sort actually convey the message of the charge being a penalty for some alleged breach of parking condition.


The new legislation makes it quite clear that the nature of any charge cannot be of a punitive nature. It is therefore very clear that the patrolling of your car park by a management company who undertake the monitoring of the car park cannot continue under the same basis as at present.

A recent Upper Tier Tax Tribunal case against a major parking management company by HMRC, has found that the payments received for charges against an offending motorist can only be as an agent of the landowner, and on the basis of trespass where parking is free. Once more, a landowner is only entitled to any compensation for trespass where a clear financial loss can be proven, or damages sustained as a consequence of the trespass.


I am aware that some companies such as yours who offer free or even paid for parking at the location, are not the actual landowner but merely a tenant by virtue of a lease or other instrument. In that case you cannot make any contract to any other party on the basis of the new law for the operation of the car parks. Only the landowner has that right


If you are indeed the landowner then consider that HMRC Customs and Excise have taken and won a test case in the Upper Tier Tax Tribunal. This was in relation to the aforementioned case which can be found in any internet search for “VCS v HMRC”.


The ruling in this case was that VCS was considered as being paid the amounts they received, in relation to the parking contravention charges, from the landowner, whether or not the landowner played any part in the demands or debt chasing activities directly. The net result was that VCS (as will be the case with other companies of this type) have to pay VAT on the amounts received.


It is only a matter of time until HMRC also look further and potentially take similar action against the landowners too as they are already in presumption of having taken the payments from Parking Charges then passing it directly to the management company. This may be considered as undeclared income for tax purposes..

The Management Company, which has no title to the land, cannot lay a claim independently for any contractual parking breach or trespass. This means that if court action for an unpaid debt is taken you may be asked to appear in court as the principle landowner to explain why a free car park should attract any penalising charges for misuse. From this perspective, you will hopefully agree that the continued contract with your car park management company, whoever they may be, is now subject to considerable scrutiny.

Their continued activities from October 1st would inevitably involve them in them making further demands for payment of a pre-determined fee for unauthorised parking, which is penal by nature, and would therefore mean they will be operating in a manner inconsistent with the new Law. They could in effect be seen as demanding money with menaces which is a criminal offence under the Theft Act, but in any event if they continue in this manner they would certainly be breaking the law in one respect or another.

Your own part as landowner in this game of legal Russian roulette may well come under court scrutiny too, and it may be considered that you are allowing, at best, the car park management company to operate on your property in a manner that can be seen as illegal. You could be vicariously liable for any legal challenges against the the car park management company.

Whilst the use of your car park is open to all, and may potentially suffer the occasional misuse, I have found that it's mostly the Disabled Bays that are targeted by the "traffic attendants" who monitor them. In the majority of the cases, those people who have been given a ticket are generally old and frail ladies who have not clearly displayed their blue badge, for instance by it not being shown the right way up. They are also, again by virtue of their disability, the most likely to suffer financial hardship by any such penalty charge as most will be on a low income level or pension.

These people are. by virtue of their age or frailty. very unlikely to successfully appeal the ticket and most never even attempt to do so but pay up immediately as the wording of the ticket is quite clearly intimidating. In any case such appeals do not usually succeed as the retention of income to the greedy companies operating these car parks is of paramount importance, not the justification of their charge or the rights of the driver.

What isn't readily understood by the majority of Blue Badge holders or landowners operating car parks, is that the use of the Blue Badge is governed under the Road Traffic Regulations Act, and has no legal status on private land so there can be no offence of not displaying it correctly, or even at all, in a private car park.


I would suggest that you seek independent legal advice on this matter as soon as possible, and not to rely on information given to you by the car park management company you have contracted, or the British Parking Association since they have a vested interest in continuing the practice and in any case are there to feather each others nests.

Given the above details, I ask that you now give serious consideration to the ongoing management of your car park and the role of the company operating within it as the management company.

Blueblade

"The main, though not the only, condition is that any charge must represent the actual financial loss to the landowner where any breach has occurred and must not be of a punitive nature."

..Wait.. doesn't this apply NOW? Not only after 1st Oct. ?

ManxRed

Yes, and has done for centuries, but no harm in reiterating it again. It'll still apply after Oct 1st.

Lynnzer

Blueblade wrote: »

"The main, though not the only, condition is that any charge must represent the actual financial loss to the landowner where any breach has occurred and must not be of a punitive nature."

..Wait.. doesn't this apply NOW? Not only after 1st Oct. ?

Yeah, I know that, but most landowners don't.
Actually most landowners give away the parking management with little thought about it all anyway so don't give a toss. This reminder puts them to rights and hopefully makes it clear that there's more to parking management than just making a contract to a third party.
What I need to be able to do is to email this message to as many free car park operators as possible but have you seen the list of scammer co's from the BPA website. Some have client lists and are relatively easy to email but the others will take a lot of work.

HO87

Lynnzer wrote: »

Cussed? Me?
You mean like this:

Yes.

Its seems that you have an issue with acronyms of three letters. Now its the BPA. Then it was RSS. Now, that was cussed.

Blueblade

I notice VCSs client list page says "coming soon"..
Wonder how long it's said that..

Lynnzer

Blueblade wrote: »

I notice VCSs client list page says "coming soon"..
Wonder how long it's said that..

Alexis gets a real slagging off there too as well the forum in general. They claim all sorts of things on the occasion of a single win but conveniently forget to mention those it lost.
Nor does it explain why, when pushed, they don't follow through threats of court action for enforcement in the vast majority of cases.

The UKPC site does show the client list so that's one area to work on right away.

My apologies to Broadsword here. If it looks as if I've hijacked his topic somewhat this isn't my intention. It's that the followers of his topic are the very people to bring up to speed with the action I'm taking. I hope they can spare a few minutes each evening by tracing the email addresses of major town centre and other retail organisations then shooting off the text of my agenda to them.
That'll get things moving nicely and may get pretty quick results.
Oh, I've just been informed by my wife that we're going to the Metrocentre this evening........
I have the cards ready.