Parking Eye reply to defence and notice to proceed

trisontana

Guys_Dad wrote: »

you can counter with Judge McIlwaine's comments about make up of costs in the Ibbotson case where he rejected the inclusion of operating costs such as the PPC is including. Do a search and the transcript is available in full.

And also some recent POPLA decisions which also make the same point .

Computersaysno

Cost - an expense incurred to enable the business to function/trade [eg the signs, uniforms, rent, car, stasff wages].

Loss [under contract law] ... expense directly attributable to the breach of contract [er...10p for a ticket, £2.50 for DVLA, £1 postage...er, that's it]

So PE may claim for 'losses', but not for 'costs'.

Another way to look at it is:
Would PE have incurred the expense if the breach had not occurred?
If they would, then it's a general operating expense not a loss.

trisontana

Neatly summed up here by a recent POPLA decision:-

The Operator submitted that the charge is based upon the cost of enforcing parking restrictions at the site (for example, by erecting signage and employing administrative staff) and the charge was agreed by the land owner and specified on site signage. However,this does not represent a loss resulting from a breach of the parking contract. The loss specified by the Operator is the cost of providing parking enforcement at the site. In other words, were no breach to have occurred the cost of parking enforcement would still have been the same.

nigelbb

PE's business model is !!!! about face. They are a company that specialises in one thing only i.e. deterring motorists from overstaying in a car park whether free or pay & display by threats of charges. However the only time they get paid is if that deterrence fails & motorists actually overstay. Talk about being rewarded for failure! Looked at another way if PE were successful in their job they would earn nothing.

Sweetrevenge

Wow the judge absolutely trashed PE's rep and took the lack of contractual authorisation to issue proceedings very clear didn't he!!! 'and bring your toothbrush" wow!!!

Sweetrevenge

Am I entitled to request a copy of the full copy of the contract between PE and the landowner and at what stage?

If it says words to the effect "and is hereby authorised to issue proceedings .. . " does that get around the issue? Or does the landowner have to issue the proceedings in their own name?

thanks again guys :T

Stroma

That was VCS in court, but the fact is no parking company can explain their losses, and the reason is that they don't really make a loss of the margin that they try to force payment.

But please be aware small claims do not set precedent to other courts, it's just this judge was very up on civil law in this area. And yes you can demand that they show a contract, they won't and will fail because of it

Sweetrevenge

can anyone tell me how I can check whether PE have planning permission for the site please?

Folkiedave

Sweetrevenge wrote: »

can anyone tell me how I can check whether PE have planning permission for the site please?

Not sure what you mean by this. They will have permission to operate by virtue of the contract with the landowner.

The landowner (not necessarily the retail store in a shopping area) will have had planning permission of some form to allow vehicles to park. It may be that these are for a certain number of hours and the parking company/retail store may have changed these themselves. For instance free parking for three hours becomes two hours.

The other planning permission point here is that they (Parking Eye) are making money from this. And thus it should be treated as a business in its own right - and - this is the crunch point - pay extra rates!

Whether you can get a rating department to see things your way is another matter.

Sweetrevenge

Sorry Folkiedave should have made it clearer.:o

Apparently parking eye haven't always sought planning permission for putting signs 7 or 8 foot high on the lampposts around sites and the signs are therefore not allowed???

I've read it somewhere else but I don't know how to find out if their signs are against the planning permissions for the site.

Thanks for your comments, all info very welcome.