Received a Parking ticket - Car was being repaired at the time!

Suggs

Hello all

I know I could have posted in the parking and fines sub forum, but wanted advice from the wider audience.

I have today received a PCN parking ticket for £70 for my car being over it's stated permited time.

The point being, the timestamp on the photgraphic evidence is 17:52 on April 2nd
My car was picked up by an accident repair company at 16:04 and signed, dated and timed as such
The location of the fine was a hospital car park, approx 20 miles away, so local to the repairer.

Obviously I am not a happy bunny, slowly getting more and more annoyed about it as it calls into question the 'duty of care' of my car, which is just under two years old and a Seat Leon.

One thing to point out is that two days after the car being picked up, (4 April) I was called and told that there was some damage to the car that would not be covered. My car needed front door and side panels replacing, on insurance, the sill was damaged, but not covered. I never understood where or how this damage could have happened, but paid for the repair anyway. about £280!! But now this takes the biscuit.

As I maintained all along, I never saw the damage to the sill before. Bear in mind it is the drivers sill, you sort of would notice these things. Wether the two things are related or not, I do not know. But I cannot help but wonder!

So does anyone have experience of this sort of thing? Getting a ticket while the car was under the 'care' of another company?

Thank you in advance for your help

pogofish

You really need to post this on the parking board because a "wider audience" is not likely to make as much sense of your confused mishmash.

The only important factor is who issued the ticket and who does it say to pay to. The rest can be worked out from there.

headpin

As it is a hospital then unlikely to be a PCN. Who has issued the document you are calling a PCN? Probably a private parking company. As yo will see all over thee forums it is an unenforceable invoice. You have two choices in this instance.

1. You can ignore the issue and bin all of the wast paper that will drop through your letter box over th next few weeks and months. Or;

2. Provide the name and address of the repairers as the drivers of the vehicle. That means the junk mail should move to them.

So far as the damage to the sill is concerned you should really have disputed at the time and either not paid or endorsed invoice as being paid under protest. You should submit a disputed payment to your CC issuer and take up with repairer. You can also say that you are aware that they had parked the vehicle in the hospital car park and that you believe the damage occurred at that location whilst the car was under their control. You could also add, if you chose 2. Above, that you have provided their details to the parking company, whose "ticket" confirms your allegation of where parked.

Finish off by asking for reimbursement of this additional charge or say you will raise the dispute with the CC company.

Joe_Horner

Other avenues for maximum agrro to the repairers:

If it was an "insurer recommended" repairer, contact your insurers. They may well be interested if people they're giving business to are using customer's cars on (presumably) private jollies.

Ditto the police. It's technically taking without consent seeing as I'd imagine you didn't give your consent for that use. Report it as such. If you can prove the time the car was collected, it's very unlikely that the repairer's insurance would have covered popping into a hospital either.

Ratboy

Inform the garage about the issues in writing,and to the parking people, within 7 days.

Maybe be best to pay the fine (not PCN???), then appeal at same time. With the evidence you have - you can't lose, just play by the rules, follow the book, and come out the other end. Sorted. Nothing to stress about.

Regarding damaged sill; I took my company Avensis in for routine service one day, and they billed for 'replacement door seals', when I queried that they said it had minor scuffing, probably the same with your probably chrome sill kick plate? Easily happens, unnoticed, as you live with it, but the dealer wants it perfect.

Aretnap

Ratboy wrote: »

Maybe be best to pay the fine (not PCN???), then appeal at same time.

Erm... bad idea. You either pay or appeal. Not both. Or if it's from a private company he might ignore it entirely, though I wouldn't recommend that as he'd be setting himself up for unnecessary hassle in the event that they did take a punt on court.

If it was a council ticket then it's actually the owner, not the driver, who is liable, so the fact that it was a garage employee driving isn't an automatic get off. There's an exception if the vehicle was taken without the owner's consent. I'd be arguing that while he might have given the garage implied or explicit consent to take the car for a short test drive after repairing it, he didn't give consent for someone to use it to nip to the hospital to see his mum (or whatever) and acquire a parking ticket in the process.

Suggs

Thanks for the help and pointers, I guess in my frustration I may have muddied the waters a little.

The piece about the parking fine, is as it stands.

The piece about the door sill been damaged and I paid for the repaired, stems from the fact, if my car was not properly secured overnight, but in a public car park, where was the duty of care? What else happened to my car during the time they had it? Could the sill damage be not my fault? I do not know.

If I damaged the sill, fair enough, my fault for not seeing the damage sooner, and yes I would have got the sill repaired anyway.

However, I honestly do not know if I had damaged the sill or not? and with this new information about lack of care, could they have damaged it?

I do not know.

Thanks again all.