UKPC Ltd - Hospital Parking Charge

Philter

Hi all

I've been reading these forums and the linked information thoroughly over the last few days. I recently received a 'parking charge' of £60 (reducible to £30 etc etc) from UK Parking Control Ltd for being 'parked without clearly displaying a valid pay and display ticket'. My car was in a hospital car park at night, for about 40 minutes, and was there because of a genuine medical emergency. The 'issue time' and the 'time first seen' on the ticket are both exactly the same.

My initial plan was to completely ignore the ticket, and any letters sent to me. I understand the argument regarding the fact that they have no proprietary interest in the land and therefore I have no contract with them. In addition, they cannot demand a penalty from me for breaching this 'contract', even if it exists. The most they can do, if the contract is binding, is demand damages - which in a hospital car park is surely just the sum of money someone would have paid to park in that parking bay for the length of time someone without a ticket was parked there. They cannot claim office costs etc.

I wish to ensure that in the very unlikely event this goes to court I have been seen to make good any loss they have allegedly incurred due to my car allegedly not having a ticket on display. Therefore I intend to send them £1.50 (the cost of the ticket), as a goodwill gesture, in cash, via recorded delivery. The attached letter will inform them that this gesture covers any damages they are allegedly entitled to, and if they do not return it I will consider that they have accepted it as full and final payment. The letter will tell them that I will not be responding to any further correspondence from them, and will reply only to court documentation. I will then ignore everything else they send me, short of official court papers.

I know that everyone says 'ignore ignore ignore', but can anyone foresee a problem in me doing the above (apart from raising my head above the parapet for them to keep firing off their stock letters).

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or advice you may have!

tom9980

You should be sending the cash to the hospital not the parking company for a start!

After that ignore!

ManxRed

If you are going to go down that road (and I can't see anything wrong in it) I would offer the £1.50 to the landowner (the NHS Trust?) and not the private parking company. It is effectively the landowner's loss, the PPC have lost nothing.

Philter

tom9980 wrote: »

You should be sending the cash to the hospital not the parking company for a start!

After that ignore!

ManxRed wrote: »

If you are going to go down that road (and I can't see anything wrong in it) I would offer the £1.50 to the landowner (the NHS Trust?) and not the private parking company. It is effectively the landowner's loss, the PPC have lost nothing.

Excellent points, thanks! Perhaps I should send the money to the hospital or trust, get a receipt, and then send them the receipt?

spacey2012

The Advice is to Ignore 100% unless they ask for the Actual loss which as stated is £1.50
Anything else can be seen as a part payment of the invoice they sent.
Not a good position to put yourself in.
Gives them some argument of acceptance and consideration.

Philter

spacey2012 wrote: »

The Advice is to Ignore 100% unless they ask for the Actual loss which as stated is £1.50
Anything else can be seen as a part payment of the invoice they sent.
Not a good position to put yourself in.
Gives them some argument of acceptance and consideration.

Thanks As per the previous answers, I am trying to get hold of the accounts department of the healthcare trust to see if I can send them the £1.50, get a receipt from them, and then send the receipt to UKPC, as proof that the landowner has been compensated for any damages allegedly incurred. I doubt the healthcare trust will be interested though, so I may just end up doing nothing.

Coupon-mad

Philter wrote: »

Thanks As per the previous answers, I am trying to get hold of the accounts department of the healthcare trust to see if I can send them the £1.50, get a receipt from them, and then send the receipt to UKPC, as proof that the landowner has been compensated for any damages allegedly incurred. I doubt the healthcare trust will be interested though, so I may just end up doing nothing.

It would be good to have an exchange of an email or two so that you can have a virtual paper trail of your attempt to pay the £1.50 and the landowner's refusal. Not that it will ever go any further than some junk mail chasers from debt collectors - but at least you would feel you've made the offer and acted reasonably just in case you were one of the handful a PPC occasionally tries a small claim punt over (and fails).

Philter

After taking on board the suggestions in this thread, I have decided to write to the Healthcare Trust, offering them £1.50. I have the email address of someone with authority within their finance/accounts department, and intend to send them the following:

"Payment of £1.50 to ****************

This email will initially no doubt seem bizarre, but please bear with me, I am not contending a parking issue directly with **** Healthcare Trust, so some of this email is for your information only.

Between **** and *** on *** Jan 13, I parked my car in a customer parking bay at ****** Hospital, to attend an emergency at A & E (************************************). I was parked for a total of around 40 minutes. When I returned to my car a 'parking charge' of £60 from UK Parking Control Ltd for being 'parked without clearly displaying a valid pay and display ticket' had been stuck to the windscreen. The 'issue time' and the 'time first seen' on the ticket are both exactly the same.

After taking legal advice I do not intend to pay anything to UK Parking Control Ltd, but instead wish to pay £1.50 (the cost of parking in the parking bay for under 1 hour) directly to ***** Healthcare Trust. The reason for this, very briefly, is that parking charges given out by private companies on private land are not subject to criminal law, but to contract law, and penalties and charges due to breach of contract may not be demanded under contract law, only damages in proportion to loss; and therefore in this instance the parking charge is:

1) Punitive

The charge levied against me is punitive (penalties may not be issued under contract law, only compensation or damages for loss) and therefore void (ie unenforceable). The charge of £60 is arbitrary and in no way proportionate to any alleged breach of contract (I would have to have parked in the bay for 40 hours for losses of £60 to be incurred, not 40 minutes).

2) Unfair

The charge levied against me is an unfair term (and therefore not binding) pursuant to the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. In particular, Schedule 2 of those Regulations gives an indicative (and non-exhaustive) list of terms which may be regarded as unfair and includes at Schedule 2(1)(e)

"Terms which have the object or effect of requiring any consumer who fails to fulfil his obligation to pay a disproportionately high sum in compensation."

Furthermore, Regulation 5(1) states that:

"A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated shall be regarded as unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer"

and 5(2) states:

"A term shall always be regarded as not having been individually negotiated where it has been drafted in advance and the consumer has therefore not been able to influence the substance of the term."

3) Unreasonable

The charge levied against me is an unreasonable indemnity clause pursuant to section 4(1) of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 which provides that:

"A person cannot by reference to any contract term be made to indemnify another person (whether a party to the contract or not) in respect of liability that may be incurred by the other for negligence or breach of contract, except in so far as the contract term satisfies the requirement of reasonableness.”

There is a wealth of case law backing up my argument:

- EXCEL PARKING SERVICES VS MS HETHERINGTON-JAKEMAN

- EXCEL PARKING SERVICES LTD V MARTIN CUTTS,
STOCKPORT COUNTY COURT, 15TH SEPTEMBER 2011.

- NHS AINTREE FOUNDATION TRUST V PERERA
NOVEMBER 2011 Case no. 1UD12840

- OB SERVICES v THURLOW
Review of Case (5), 10th February 2011

- PARKING EYE V SMITH, MANCHESTER COUNTY COURT, DECEMBER 2011.
MANCHESTER COUNTY COURT 1XJ81016

- DUNLOP PNEUMATIC TYRE CO LTD V NEW GARAGE & MOTOR CO LTD

As the landowner I wish to offer you a goodwill gesture of £1.50. This would cover the cost of any loss you may have suffered due to me not displaying a valid parking ticket (ie the sum you would miss out on if someone parked in the bay without paying, whilst someone else who had money to give you for the space had to drive off and leave). If you wish to accept the offer of £1.50 I will forward it to you (by whichever method is most convenient for you) along with a stamped addressed envelope, so that you can return a receipt to me, which I will then forward to UK Parking Control Ltd, as proof that you have received an amount of money which compensates you for loss due to alleged breach of contract. Should you not wish to accept the offer, then I will forward the record of your refusal to UK Parking Control Ltd, as proof that I have attempted the above. Either way, as a gesture of goodwill, I have attempted to cover the cost of any loss the landowner may have suffered due to my not displaying a valid parking ticket. If you believe that your actual loss was more than £1.50, please send me a full breakdown of this.

Kind Regards"

Is this a good idea or bad?

Coupon-mad

A good idea as long as it's not Aintree...

Philter

Coupon-mad wrote: »

A good idea as long as it's not Aintree...

Hmmm...not sure what you're getting at here?

The_Slithy_Tove

Philter wrote: »

Hmmm...not sure what you're getting at here?

Just do a search here for Aintree. They are quite good at wasting considerable amounts of public money in taking so-called parking offenders to court. However, with your actions you have a better defence than most.