Parking Charge appeal fail.... parking in my own space!!!

Adslee19

Hi all... need some advice please....

Do I ignore or appeal to POPLA?

I got a "parking ticket" from UKPC a couple of weeks back whilst parked in my own space for a flat that I rent. The permit I had got blown off the dash when I closed the door.

I appealed the ticket to UKPC sending them a copy of my permit as they requested but the ticket was upheld... however they have offered it a reduced rate of £15. If they had any grounds for issuing the ticket why would they reduce the amount they could get for it?

So I am unsure if I should just ignore, or appeal to POPLA? My worry is that if they did decide to take to court that they could argue they have been reasonable by reducing the cost of the ticket and I have been unreasonable in ignoring their correspondance, if that is what I choose to do.

I just can't make sense of how I can be charged for parking in my own space?!

Any help or advice is much appreciated.

Stroma

I would appeal to popla with help from here and pepipoo.com, this will cost them £32.40 and the decision is not binding upon you. This will never get to court ever, they would be frankly insane to issue to the tenant of the land, the judge would probably do them for contempt for wasting the court's time on spurious charges.

Let us know if you decide to go to popla instead of ignoring, we can help you with this.

Adslee19

Thanks Stroma, what do you see as the benefits of appealing over just ignoring?

Coupon-mad

Happens all the time! The amount of threads I have seen regarding 'I got a fake PCN in my own space' on here and other forums is ridiculous! Click and wait for this search to auto-load, here's a simple search which finds just some of many examples like your thread:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=PPC+fake+PCN+own+space

And here's a UKPC thread from pepipoo only yesterday telling you about them, see the links about where they (UKPC) were taken to Court as the most recent instance was about trespassing by putting tickets on cars in their own spaces:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=77754

I always say that if you have appealed then you should also appeal to POPLA IMHO. What's the point of appealing to the scammer then not to the independent adjudication stage - especially as you've now found this forum and pepipoo as well. I see the benefits of appealing to POPLA are to cost the scammers £27 plus VAT to fund that stage of appeal and when you win, they have to desist with all the threatogram letters!

You need more in your POPLA appeal though so read up on other threads on here and on pepipoo, practically every thread on here and there discusses strong POPLA appeal wording. Please don't just send the same old basic appeal to POPLA.

You need stuff about BPA code breaches, bad signage, flimsy non-sticky P&D tickets, the fact there's no contract with you, UKPC don't own the land, have no standing to pursue this and haven't even said if it's issued under trespass or contract. If the former, then what are their losses seeing as they aren't the legal owner - in fact you have more legal standing there than they do. If the latter then you deny any contract as the signs are rubbish and the flimsy 'permits' useless, and anyway you already have a prior contract with your landlord that allows you to park there so any flimsy permit is superfluous and clearly just a money-making exercise by UKPC.

You could also state that you are entitled to 'peaceful enjoyment' of your rented property and in fact you contend to POPLA that UKPC are trespassing. Because you are allowed to park in your own space, you have an overriding right to that space and there's nothing in your rental agreement that says otherwise, nor in your landlord's lease (you may want to check and enclose copies of sentences about your right to park there).

Produce evidence of your own, and demand evidence from UKPC - that will put UKPC on the back foot with POPLA and they'll very likely fail.

And you can demand that UKPC produce their site agreement and/or contract as you contend that it doesn't allow them to pursue fake PCNs against occupiers who have a right to the bays and that their contract/site agreement doesn't in fact meet the BPA Code of Practice (I don't know if it does BTW, but you simply need to bung stuff into your POPLA appeal like that, and the PPC then have to produce the contract and POPLA have to consider what you've said - and most PPCs fail to meet the BPA code in some way or another!).

You can also opt out of this unnecessary scam permit scheme you know - but I expect, as you are renting, it would have to be your landlord who tells the managing agents that you are opting out. You and the other residents do not need this protection racket on site at all.