parking fine from a private company

xcharleyxx

Hi everyone

I'm new to the forum and needing some advice please regarding a parking ticket I feel I should not have to pay. I'll try and make this as clear as possible.

So my boyfriend is living in a rented flat which comes with a parking bay inside a courtyard area which has a secure key you use to gain entrance. He began his tenancy there in May 2010 and I use his parking space approximately 4 days a week.

Approximately November of the same year signs were posted by a company called cmsuk ltd stating that a permit was required to park there. He contacted his lettings agent several times to request a permit but to no avail. Nothing came of this so I continued to park in his space. Bearing in mind the flat is situated in Nottingham city centre, it's not an option to park on the road or anywhere else!

In June 2012, I was issued with two parking tickets within a couple of days of each other. The letting agent finally sent the permit in July. We told the letting agent about the tickets, to which they replied, 'not to worry about it'.

Stupidly, I did nothing about it at the time. I assumed that since they are a private company and not the council, there would be nothing they could do about it. Shortly after I received two letters at my own address threatening legal action should I not pay £140 for each fine within 7 days. Not only do I feel this is unfair, I also cannot afford this so I appealed. I explained the situation and that I feel the letting agent or landlord should be forwarded the fines as they withheld the permit for some unknown reason. Today I received an email stating that my claim has been declined and that they will not respond to any further correspondence from myself.

Please advise what I should do. I don't have the money otherwise I would just pay it to be done with it. Having never dealt with anything like this before I'm unsure what the procedures are and if there's any sort of regulating body I can appeal to.

Many thanks in advance
Charley

surfboy1

Firstly, its not a FINE.
Its an unenforcable invoice which can be ignored.
Does your boyfriends tennancy agreement include the use of this parking space as his own?
I think he will need to check his agreement.
You have a permint , you have every right to park there so you owe the PPC nothing.

Sir_Roger_deLodger

xcharleyxx wrote: »

I assumed that since they are a private company and not the council, there would be nothing they could do about it.

Your assumption was 100% correct, and still is. As you have found out, there is no such thing as an "appeal". Just ignore them from now on, they will eventually give up.

arcon5

[STRIKE]Stupidly[/STRIKE] Wisely, I did nothing about it at the time.

I've corrected this for you

I assumed that since they are a private company and not the council, there would be nothing they could do about it.

And you are correct.

They got your details from the DVLA and using scare tactics to get your money.

Stop corresponding with them, ignore everything from now on and only start to take it seriously if a county court summons does come through.

Coupon-mad

You can predict the letters that they will send if you check the 'old letter chains pre-October' shown on the sticky thread near the top of this forum called 'PPC letter chains'.

Just play snap with the rubbish letters, there are previews of all known letters. But the tenant should complain in writing to the managing agent about the behaviour of their agent otherwise the landowners/agents never know what's going on from their car park scammers.

The real businesses need to know what their parasites are trying to do, so leave it a few months to collect up all the threatograms (ignoring them) and then send copies of them all with a letter of complaint to the agent 'please find attached, exactly what your loathsome parking agents send to the tenants. Luckily we weren't that eaily fooled by a fake PCN but we want you to know this is unacceptable harrassment which could actually get your firm into trouble if someone wanted to take it to Court...however, we have decided to ignore the scam like most informed people with internet access do'.

And if you DID have the money, please please tell us you now know that these fake PCNs are always a scam and that you wouldn't actually pay to get rid of the scam? It's only ignoring some junk mail, we've all done it, it's just like deleting a series of obvious phishing emails. Easy to ignore from start to finish.

xcharleyxx

Thanks guys, you've put my mind at rest!