Euro Car Parks PCN

harni2013

Hi Guys,
Ive been a reader on here for quite some time now but I'm now after some help so thought id best sign up!

I have a company car which is registered to the lease company we use. Our fleet manager at work has always just binned parking fines from private companies and just warned us that we might get a £4 charge from the lease company for forwarding on the letter (which I'm happy to pay as its a hell of a lot cheaper than most parking in London!)
We have changed our fleet department now and since, parking charges get passed directly to the driver to deal with and today i got my first from Euro car parks for over staying my welcome by 14 minutes and for this privilege, they are trying to con me out of £90.
Now normally i would just ignore it until it goes away as this is the advice given by my lease manager and its always worked for me with my private owned car in the past but recently, I've heard that Euro aren't one to mess about with? How true this is i don't know?

If I'm honest, i am in the wrong. I was stopped at a shopping park in Uxbridge for 1hr14mins and i wasn't actually using the car park.
I know that i have a simple way to shut them up and that is that i must of received the first letter within 14 days. I was stopped in the car park on the 17th Oct and the lease company received the letter today, the 1st of Nov which i make 15 days however the letter date on the letter is 29th Oct. Where do i stand with this?
Secondly, i genuinely dont believe that £90 (or £50 in 14 days) is an acceptable amount bearing in mind that the car park never has more than 10 cars in (out of about 80 spaces) at the time of day i usually park there. Could i argue that the charge is not a fair representation of how much money the stores have lost?
And finally, am i just hearing wrong from people and can i just take the simple route with these guys and just ignore all correspondence?
Just to note, the fine was via a ANPR on the entrance/exit and not a ticket on my windscreen.

Many thanks for all Advice!

Guys_Dad

If you have been a reader then you should know the drill.

You tell the leasing company you are dealing with it so PPC can not go behind your back.

You tell the PPC that you parked for less than the time recorded and that it was in a grace period as defined by BPA CoP. In addition the charge is well in excess of any genuine pre estimate of loss. Please cancel ticket or send POPLA code.

harni2013

Thanks for the swift reply Guys Dad.
I am aware of the usual course of action for this but as i said, the reason why i am questioning this is because i have heard rumours that ECP will do their best to enforce the fine including taking you to court which is too much hassle for me.

Ive emailed the lease company and told them I'm taking action on this so they need not do any more.
The main thing I'm wanting a firm answer on is if the 14 days applies to from the date of "offence" to it arriving on the door step or from date of "offence" to when they send the letter (e.g the 29th in this case according to their letter)

Thanks

bod1467

As I understand, the letter must ARRIVE within 14 calendar days from the date of the "offence", so it looks like it may be out of time. What's the RM date stamp on the envelope?

harni2013

I don't know unfortunately. Because its a company car, the letter was sent to the lease company as they are the registered keepers. They have now scanned it and emailed it to me. What they have done though is date stamped the letter with the received date which is the 1st so one day out.
The only issue i can see with that is is that really any sort of evidence of the arrival date?
The lease company are probably one of the biggest in the country. Not just some small time firm so i don't believe for one moment that it would of been ignored for a few days.

Umkomaas

harni2013 wrote: »

I don't know unfortunately. Because its a company car, the letter was sent to the lease company as they are the registered keepers. They have now scanned it and emailed it to me. What they have done though is date stamped the letter with the received date which is the 1st so one day out.
The only issue i can see with that is is that really any sort of evidence of the arrival date?
The lease company are probably one of the biggest in the country. Not just some small time firm so i don't believe for one moment that it would of been ignored for a few days.

Possibly, and technically, they may be a day out on the issue of the NtK, but frankly it's rather a thin straw to grasp. There are much better points of challenge like GPEOL, signage, proprietary interest in the land, contract with the landowner.

I wouldn't chase shadows on the 'one day out', tackle those elements that virtually guarantee a win.

DO NOT IGNORE - this is old advice, not appropriate today.

ECP are comparatively 'tame'. Here is their record of court papers issued in the past 12 months - make your own mind up.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/168158/response/413887/attach/3/AFINAL%20REPLY%20TO%20LEWIS%2084035.doc

One codicil, as they say in the financial world, 'Past performance is not a guide to future performance'.

Coupon-mad

harni2013 wrote: »

Thanks for the swift reply Guys Dad.
I am aware of the usual course of action for this but as i said, the reason why i am questioning this is because i have heard rumours that ECP will do their best to enforce the fine including taking you to court which is too much hassle for me.

Absolutely wrong rumour - is someone getting muddled up with ParkingEye?!

But you MUST tell your Fleet Manager that the law changed a year ago with the Protection of Freedoms Act (POFA) and that the company (them or lease co., whoever is the registered keeper) can now be held liable if they do not name the driver (name and address). That's all they have to do in future and then the driver can deal with it & appeal it, knowing the company have zero liability from then on.

You need to appeal - you CANNOT leave a Lease co. in the frame - mainly because they might just pay it and then charge you for the privilege! Also because if they carry on the way they are, they (lease co or your company) will end up with court cases against them by Parking Eye or another litigious PPC soon. And they would then be too late to name the driver and they would get the court claim and CCJ, potentially.

:eek: You can see why your Fleet Manager needs a bit of educating about POFA 2012!

The Lease company should ask their Trade Body the BVRLA for a template letter to name and give the address of drivers to PPCs, simple.

harni2013 wrote: »

The main thing I'm wanting a firm answer on is if the 14 days applies to from the date of "offence" to it arriving on the door step or from date of "offence" to when they send the letter (e.g the 29th in this case according to their letter)

It's counted from the day AFTER the incident to the date the keeper (lease firm) receives it. So the lease firm got it on the right day (Day 15). So forget that.

Just write an appeal like everyone here and on pepipoo does, here's a good one but you will need to amend the sentence at the start to get rid of 'I am the registered keeper' and instead say that the registered keeper has passed the Notice to you because you are the usual keeper on a day-today-basis, as defined in POFA 2012:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=82524&st=0&p=871920&#entry871920

Make sure it has your name and address and the extra sentence I suggested.

We know how to win at POPLA so check here when you get a rejection & POPLA code. It really is EASY to get this cancelled. We win at POPLA every time now.

DO NOT ignore a fake PCN now as you can never assume even ECP won't take it to court in a couple of years or something to catch people out. A small claim can be made or any alleged debt within six years...