Highview Parking - Charge Notice

anovis

I have received a £75 Charge Notice which will increase to £95 if I don't pay up soon.

When I received this notice, I did something very stupid ... sent a very polite appeal email to Highview Parking. They promptly sent back a very curt, unsigned email saying they have carefully considered my appeal and rejected it. The tone of this email has made me angry; if they’d been courteous I most likely would have paid up. In fact got up this morning thinking that the first thing I’ll do is credit card payment to them after worrying all weekend.

Sat down with my card to do that this morning and opened their email for instruction. Tone made me angry again & I started reading a number of postings in various forums. I now know that these are highway robbers & I should never have responded to the charge letter.

I am a novice at this so not sure how to approach this forum in an effective way but am panicking and really need some guidance.

The charge notice states the "New Law Effective from 1st October 2012" which makes me think that they’re saying they’ve cleaned up their act and I should pay up.

Really don't want to pay because it is extortionate charge for what they claim over staying by 40mins. My defence was that it took me a while to get out of the car park and their camera is right at the mouth of the exit on to a main road.

I am happy to post their notice and my email appeal with their corresponding reply if that helps. I really need help in deciding whether to fight or pay up. Can anyone help?

trisontana

The new law changes nothing. This from a regular poster on this forum:-

There is a lot of misinformation around concerning the Protection of Freedoms Act. This is largely pedalled by the private parking companies in an attempt to add some kind of legitimacy to their charges, not helped by sloppy and lazy journalism which regurgitates what the parking companies say without checking if it's true or not.

Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 introduces the concept of Keeper Liability for private parking charges if the registered keeper fails to divulge who the driver was. That is all.
It does not make parking charges enforceable (or any more enforceable than they were before, which, on the whole is not enforceable at all)
It does not require the registered keeper to name the driver on request - there is no obligation. If the keeper fails to name the driver, the "liability" (such as it is) reverts to the keeper (see previous point). If the driver and keeper are the same person, then there is no difference anyway.
It does not set out any kind of statutory framework for parking charges, they are still based on contract law or trespass, and in that respect nothing has changed
It does not define the wording that must be used to make parking charge notices "legal", "enforceable" or "valid". The Act sets out wording and points that must be included in order for the parking company to be able to apply keeper liability, but using all the correct words does not make the notice any more legally enforceable than it was before (see point 1)
The only thing the Protection of Freedoms Act does is remove from the registered keeper the defence of "I was not the driver." That was always a weak argument. There are far stronger arguments which make such parking charges invalid, all of which still stand.

ManxRed

Did they include a POPLA code with their rejection of your 'appeal'?

I'm assuming this was in England or Wales.

anovis

trisontana wrote: »

The new law changes nothing. This from a regular poster on this forum:-

There is a lot of misinformation around concerning the Protection of Freedoms Act. This is largely pedalled by the private parking companies in an attempt to add some kind of legitimacy to their charges, not helped by sloppy and lazy journalism which regurgitates what the parking companies say without checking if it's true or not.

Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 introduces the concept of Keeper Liability for private parking charges if the registered keeper fails to divulge who the driver was. That is all.
It does not make parking charges enforceable (or any more enforceable than they were before, which, on the whole is not enforceable at all)
It does not require the registered keeper to name the driver on request - there is no obligation. If the keeper fails to name the driver, the "liability" (such as it is) reverts to the keeper (see previous point). If the driver and keeper are the same person, then there is no difference anyway.
It does not set out any kind of statutory framework for parking charges, they are still based on contract law or trespass, and in that respect nothing has changed
It does not define the wording that must be used to make parking charge notices "legal", "enforceable" or "valid". The Act sets out wording and points that must be included in order for the parking company to be able to apply keeper liability, but using all the correct words does not make the notice any more legally enforceable than it was before (see point 1)
The only thing the Protection of Freedoms Act does is remove from the registered keeper the defence of "I was not the driver." That was always a weak argument. There are far stronger arguments which make such parking charges invalid, all of which still stand.

Really appreciate this extract re the Act. Thanks!

anovis

ManxRed wrote: »

Did they include a POPLA code with their rejection of your 'appeal'?

I'm assuming this was in England or Wales.

Yes, they have given me a POPLA code. And, England - the car park is near Wembley Stadium (addr Stadium Retail Park).

ManxRed

You could appeal to POPLA and cost them £27 plus VAT. The decision is binding on them but not on you, so even if you lose you can continue to ignore them afterwards if you want.

We might be able to help you construct a robust appeal to POPLA that ought to win, but to be honest POPLA aren't as independent as they would like people to believe and do occasionally come up with the odd baffling decision in favour of the parking company. Still, as I say, their decision is not binding on you.

anovis

ManxRed wrote: »

You could appeal to POPLA and cost them £27 plus VAT. The decision is binding on them but not on you, so even if you lose you can continue to ignore them afterwards if you want.

We might be able to help you construct a robust appeal to POPLA that ought to win, but to be honest POPLA aren't as independent as they would like people to believe and do occasionally come up with the odd baffling decision in favour of the parking company. Still, as I say, their decision is not binding on you.

Would appreciate any help to bring this to a relatively speedy conclusion.

£75 Charge feels like a king's ransom. So have to ask when you say "we might be able to help...", are you a law firm? If so, how much is this likely to cost?

ManxRed

No, we're not a law firm.

You need to bear in mind that this private parking mullarkey (the whole UK industry pretty much) is actually a big scam built on the public's general ignorance when it comes to the law.

The invoices - that is what they are - are legally unenforceable. They can only be tested in a civil court (county court - small claims - a relatively informal affair), not a criminal one. In essence the parking companies have no legal case, they are essentially bringing a claim for breach of contract - something which, under contract law, you can only pursue actual financial losses over.

In your case this equates to 40 mins worth of parking. How much would that have cost? A few quid? Was it a free car park? Hence £0.00??

That's what they are entitled to, not £90 or whatever they want to claim.

They know all this, so they are extremely unlikely to ever try and take this to a small claims court. They'd lose for one thing, and the resulting publicity wouldn't help their business. They are happy to simply take the money off people who don't understand the law and simply pay up without questioning it.

The law they are quoting merely allows them (under a limited set of criteria, which we rarely see any of these companies actually achieve) to pursue their invoices from the Registered Keeper of a vehicle instead of the driver, for the monies that the driver would have normally been liable for. Which is - in a free car park - still zero. So the new law changes nothing really.

Stroma

Besides that they are in breach of the bpa code of practice, they must offer at least a 40% discount of the full price, so it should be reduced down to £57 at a minimum. Not that you should take this joke of a company seriously.

If it was me I'd take a scan of the paperwork attach to an email and ask the dvla how they give rk details to companies who do not abide by the code of practice set out by the dvla.

foi@dvla.gsi.gov.uk

anovis

ManxRed wrote: »

No, we're not a law firm.

You need to bear in mind that this private parking mullarkey (the whole UK industry pretty much) is actually a big scam built on the public's general ignorance when it comes to the law.

The invoices - that is what they are - are legally unenforceable. They can only be tested in a civil court (county court - small claims - a relatively informal affair), not a criminal one. In essence the parking companies have no legal case, they are essentially bringing a claim for breach of contract - something which, under contract law, you can only pursue actual financial losses over.

In your case this equates to 40 mins worth of parking. How much would that have cost? A few quid? Was it a free car park? Hence £0.00??

That's what they are entitled to, not £90 or whatever they want to claim.

They know all this, so they are extremely unlikely to ever try and take this to a small claims court. They'd lose for one thing, and the resulting publicity wouldn't help their business. They are happy to simply take the money off people who don't understand the law and simply pay up without questioning it.

The law they are quoting merely allows them (under a limited set of criteria, which we rarely see any of these companies actually achieve) to pursue their invoices from the Registered Keeper of a vehicle instead of the driver, for the monies that the driver would have normally been liable for. Which is - in a free car park - still zero. So the new law changes nothing really.

The more I have learnt this morning the more I feel outraged. This response from you has notched that up so thank you for throwing more light on this.

What is the next step? What information do you need to help me with the POPLA appeal? Sounds like I have to take that step as I have nothing to loose.

By the way, I thought I would visit that car park tomorrow to see what notices are in the carpark. Is that worth doing or with this last post are you saying that this is a matter of principle underpinning Contract Law and such details don't matter?

All day I have been reading up a lot on this subject including the grounds for appeal to POPLA.

Am I right in thinking that POPLA only consider appeals on the grounds of misconduct and definitely not on Contract Law or mitigating circumstances? Is the basis of my appeal to POPLA not likely to be mitigating circumstances and/or as you say Contract Law?

anovis

Stroma wrote: »

Besides that they are in breach of the bpa code of practice, they must offer at least a 40% discount of the full price, so it should be reduced down to £57 at a minimum. Not that you should take this joke of a company seriously.

If it was me I'd take a scan of the paperwork attach to an email and ask the dvla how they give rk details to companies who do not abide by the code of practice set out by the dvla.

[EMAIL="foi@dvla.gsi.gov.uk"]foi@dvla.gsi.gov.uk[/EMAIL]

Stroma, you are so right. In tandem with getting more & more angry with this company as the day progresses I am actually getting quite angry at DVLA. Whatever happened to Data Protection Act? I don't remember ever giving DVLA permission to just handover my personal details such as my home address and the fact that I own this car.

I am going to take up your suggestion. Thanks for the DVLA link.