Parking Eye parking charge notice for lease car- what do i do?

sans62

Today I received a letter from my employers sent originally from Parking Eye car park management, the company car I drive (a lease car) was seen entering a pay & display car park at Fistral Beach 3 weeks ago, entering at 7am and leaving 3 hours later on a dark Saturday morning. I wasn't driving it, I gave my boyfriend the keys and he went for a surf, but he didn't have any change on him, so he didn't pay for a ticket and decided to risk it. Admittedly he should have paid for a ticket, but when he came back to the car, there was no parking ticket on the windscreen etc. so he considered it a lucky escape from the traffic wardens.

Parking Eye have sent me photos of my car entering the car park and leaving, but as I understand it, as it's a parking charge notice and not a penalty charge notice from the council or the police, it's not enforceable by law and therefore I'm not legally obliged to pay anything, am I correct on this even if what he did was factually wrong and the reason behind this ticket is correct? i.e. not paying for any ticket whatsoever?

I have read on other threads about people getting caught at the same car park, pulling up for 30 mins-1 hour, not even leaving their car, eating food in their cars and watching the sun set but not paying for any ticket and also receiving one of these parking charge notices. Am I safe to ignore this? My employers have said that they will pay it and dock it from my January payslip, but should I tell them to not pay and ignore the letters??! I hate how they've got the registered keeper details from the DVLA, which basically was my employers as they've leased the vehicle and given it to me to drive for work. And so now work have got involved in all this and think that I'm some sort of reckless driver even though it wasn't me driving the car at the time!

What I'm worried most about is that apparently since 1st October 2012, the Government changed the law making the registered keeper of the vehicle responsible regardless of who was driving at the time. If the ticket is not paid within 28 days the registered keeper becomes legally liable for the charge.

Any ideas on what I can/should do??
Thanks

Coupon-mad

Absolutely 100% TELL your employers that they have no right whatsoever to pay this invoice which is for the driver alone as long as the driver's details are given in a timely fashon.

Not only that, the fake PCN is actually the liability of your bf, so not even an employee!

Why on earth are they getting involved just because the PPC sent a letter which the lease co/they should simply be passing to you or they should be replying with your details as the person responsible for the car. Point out that this is a well-known FAKE parking ticket, as outed on Watchdog several times, and covered in articles in the press including Fleet News (for company fleet managers!):

http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/2009/5/28/question-private-parking-fines-fleets-urged/30698/

Tell your HR dept that you will write and give your details as driver if their lease company don't seem to understand the simple advice from their OWN Trade Body the BVRLA. Link here for the Lease company/your Fleet Manager which explains the POF Act which you are so worried about. The lease company SHOULD KNOW THIS: CLICKY.

Look at the lower bit, about the POF Act and the SIMPLE need for a lease co to give the driver's details. That's all. Then the lease co and your employing company have ZERO liability and can live happily ever after. It's not rocket science. We have had endless threads about the new law which you can easily find by searching!

If your company dither about this even for a day or two then write to PE yourselves and enclose a copy of the fake PCN, appeal and tell them who was driving (name and address). And that you want to appeal further to POPLA (see second to top thread on the forum). PE will cancel it. If they don't, then ignore them.

DO NOT PAY. DEAL WITH THIS IMMEDIATELY WITH YOUR DUMB EMPLOYER!!

sans62

Thanks Coupon-mad,

Just to clarify, the "letter" my employers passed on to me was literally an email with an attached scanned copy of the parking charge notice from Parking Eye to my employers (as the leaseholders of my vehicle)... and on the main body of the email was a lovely note from my fleet manager saying the following: "I have attached a copy of a parking charge notice for your Company vehicle. I will arrange for the fine to be paid and have £60.00 deducted from your January 2013 salary. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news."!!!!!

They want to charge me £100 but if I pay before the 28th Dec, they'll reduce it to £60. This is the £60 my fleet manager mentions on the note.
I'm writing a note now to my fleet manager instructing for NO payments to be made and for them to ignore any further contact. I'm surprised they have not been told to do this before- which tells me that of the thousands of employees my company has on the road, everyone else must have paid up!

My boyfriend has a full UK drivers licence, but spends most of the year working offshore on the rigs, so should I send this scanned letter back to Parking Eye with a note to tell them to pursue him at BP's oil rig in the North Sea?!?!

The_Slithy_Tove

sans62 wrote: »

Am I safe to ignore this? My employers have said that they will pay it and dock it from my January payslip, but should I tell them to not pay and ignore the letters??!

You can try. Many lease companies seem (deliberately?)ignorant on private parking tickets. They CANNOT deduct your wages if they are foolish enough to pay. This is not a fine, so it's highly unlikely your employment contract or agreement to use a company car allows them to do this.

sans62 wrote: »

What I'm worried most about is that apparently since 1st October 2012, the Government changed the law making the registered keeper of the vehicle responsible regardless of who was driving at the time. If the ticket is not paid within 28 days the registered keeper becomes legally liable for the charge.

Not true. Liability ONLY falls to the keeper IF the keeper (your company) doesn't tell the parking company who the driver was. So they can either do this (without prejudice), or you can volunteer that information to the parking company in the form of an appeal. After that, they must send all further correspondence to you. At which point, you can ignore everything they send, or take it on to POPLA and cost them money - and then ignore.

Most important is to get your company out of the loop.

Half_way

You may want to inform them that if they do deduct the moeny from your salary, then you will see this as an ilegal deduction.

atilla

On a side note, is your boyfriend insured to drive your company car??

sans62

Yes he's insured to drive my car. My company car policy states that I can let anyone I deem "responsible" to drive my car so long as they are over 25 and hold a full drivers licence. Which he does. Clearly not responsible enough though!

As far as I know, my company have not contacted this Parking Eye company to tell them that I'm the registered driver, they've just informed me of this parking notice and that's it. Should I tell my company to contact Parking Eye to tell them that I'm the supposed registered driver but wasn't the driver at the time? The address on the top of the letter is my company's head office, so as far as Parking Eye are concerned, they have no idea who the driver was... Do my company have any obligation to tell them that it was me who is registered to drive the vehicle??

atilla

Wasn't prying. It's just that this issue might upset your fleet manager if he's a precious sort. Don't want to be giving him excuses.

You have now got 'the ticket', you inform PE and the company will/should hear no more about it. You can then carry on ignoring them.

sans62

No don't worry, many people ask me the same. My fleet manager was being pedantic about me letting him driver but I showed her the original company policy which states spouses/partners are allowed to drive my car.

She sent me this message back:
"I am aware parking charge notices on private land can be a grey area. However, I have recently heard through local media that these notices can legally be pursued through the small claims court, in addition I have found a website which gives further information. Please note in particular the governments stance on this subject from 1st October 2012." (here she attaches a link to the penaltychargenotice uk website about private land enforcement).

I have asked her to give Parking Eye my name and address to stop my employers being involved in this dispute (I think she got agitated when I kicked up a fuss that I wasn't paying this rubbish scam ticket but she was still intending to pay this ticket and docking it from my payslip just to resolve the dispute!) but now I can ignore them directly rather than have my employers get involved in this.

I wasn't thinking of approaching POPLA to appeal, mainly because my boyfriend was actually in the wrong for not paying for a ticket. So there's no argument to be had really! They are right, but they're not the council or the police so I'm going to continue ignoring their notices.

atilla

That's the spirit.

parking_question_chap

I know it might not be any help now, but if this happens again tell your company that you had a ticket and it must have fallen off. By doing that they would be less inclined to pay, and you would have a better come back at them if they did.

You could then have given your details to parking eye and ignored all the threats.

However, as you have been truthful, I would say something like this to your employer:

"If you pay on my behalf I will take that up as an illegal deduction and take action accordingly. However if you pass pass on my details to parking eye, I agree to pay any fines if we are taken to court and lose,"

I would put it in an email so you both have a copy.