UKCPS Parking Ticket at Block of Flats - POPLA help needed

rainbowmuppetgirl86

Hi all,

I received a windscreen ticket when I was parked in my friends' block of flats as I was staying there in his absence and I was using his parking permit (no registration on the disc) for the reasoning not displaying a valid permit.

Anyway, I followed advise from the Forum and waited for NTK and sent of a soft appeal following advice from the Forum etc to UKCPS and I included pictures of their inadequate signage etc. My letter to UKCPS is pasted below:

"As the registered keeper of vehicle registration XXXXXXX, I am in receipt of your parking invoice XXXXXX, dated 07/01/14 at 00:36, at location XXX, with reasoning without a valid permit or authority.

I wish to invoke your appeals process as all liability to your company is denied on the following:

1) This charge is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss.
According to the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations, parking charges on private land must not exceed the cost to the landowner during the period the motorist is parked there. In the present case, the £100 charge you are requesting far exceeds the cost to the landowner. Parking permits for residences at X are £35/month.

2) Your signage does not comply with the BPA Code of Practice.
As can be seen by the photographic evidence below, appropriate signage is not present on the entrance to the secure parking area (Picture 1) and following entrance to the secure parking area, there is ONE sign on the left hand side where drivers would have to be looking in order to see it when they would actually be looking ahead where they are driving, therefore this sign is not appropriately located and its sizing is also very small (Picture 2).

These points and others will be raised with POPLA should you not accept this appeal, and you will be expected to provide a full breakdown of your alleged loss, and your full unredacted contract with the landowner.

If you do reject the challenge and insist upon taking the matter further I must inform you that I may claim my expenses from you. The expenses I may claim are not exhaustive but may include the cost of stamps, envelopes, travel expenses, legal fees, etc. By continuing to pursue me you agree to pay these costs when I prevail.

Please issue your cancellation within 35 days of this letter or supply a POPLA code to me so I can appeal to them.

Any communication that does not either confirm cancellation or include a POPLA verification code shall be reported to the BPA as a breach of their Code of Practice - the BPA recently issued guidance to all members to remind them of this fact. Such communication may also be deemed harassment and pursued accordingly."

I have just received their rejection letter which I have typed below, dated 20th March 2014 and I only received it yesterday.

"Dear X

Thank you for your appeal regarding the above parking notice charge.

The location where the vehicle was parked is private land for use of permit holders and or Pay and Display use only. All vehicles must be displaying a valid parking permit or Pay and Display ticket clearly in the windscreen so the warden can check that it is in date and valid. prior to leaving the vehicle it is the responsibility of the motorist to ensure the Permit or Ticket is clearly on display and not dislodged. By parking the vehicle without clearly displaying a permit or Pay and Display tick the driver contractually agrees to pay a parking charge of £100 (reduced to £60 for early settlement if paid within 14 days of original ticket issue), which remains unpaid. The charge will remain on hold for a further 14 days from the date of this letter.

We have considered everything stated in your correspondence but it does not contain enough grounds to uphold your appeal. If you wish to make further representation, with additional evidence, please provide this within seven days of this letter. Second appeals must contain additional reasons not contained within your initial representation which you wish us to consider. You may also appeal to an independent assessor through POPLA (Parking ON PRIVATE LAND APPEALS) details of which will be sent if your appeal is finally rejected.

UKCPS Ltd provide national car parking solutions. We are DVLA and Data Protection registered; SIA approved and members of the British Parking Association (BPA)."

So if I want to make a second appeal it has to be done within seven days of the letter which is tomorrow (27th) and I only received the letter yesterday (25th) and they didn't include a POPLA code in their response letter which I had requested in my correspondence to them.

Please could anyone advise regarding my next step(s)? I would like to continue to fight. The only additional evidence I can think of to add for a second appeal to UKCPS is my inability to pay as I am currently receiving JSA and the fact they did not provide me with a POPLA code. I had thought that POPLA would have been the next step but they did not provide me with a code, so could I get them on that?

I thought I should make a thread before taking this any further etc.

Thanks in advance - any help would be gratefully received.

Redx

just write back asap and say you have nothing further to add and they should either cancel the charge forthwith or include the popla code that should have been included with the initial rejection letter as per the BPA CoP and the recent BPA newsletters

they wont give a monkeys about your financial status so dont bother with that

rainbowmuppetgirl86

Thanks for the quick response and advice Redx.

I thought I had come across something to do with financial situations and evidence before but I don't really want to go down that road and like you say they won't give a monkeys about it. So I will turn around a quick letter to post off tomorrow following your advice.

Overall, was my first letter okay and do you think I can win this?

Thanks again

PS Is it possible to post pictures on the Forum as further down the line I can show the picture of the inadequate signage.

Redx

follow the newbies thread advice and you will win it with advice from here too

start drafting your popla appeal in notepad and post a redacted copy on here before submission, after you have your popla code obviously

rainbowmuppetgirl86

Is the following okay in response to the appeal rejection letter?

"To Whom It May Concern at UKCPS,

Ticket Number: XXXXXX
Vehicle Registration: XXXXXXX

Re: Parking Invoice Appeal Rejection

I am in receipt of your letter, dated XXXXXX, which was not received until XXXXXX, rejecting my parking invoice appeal.

I have already put my points of appeal to you in my parking invoice appeal letter, dated XXXXXX, and on the basis that you have not cancelled this parking invoice, I assume that my appeal is rejected. Therefore, I have an entitlement to put my appeal to an independent assessor, Parking on Private Land Appeals (POPLA) and you are obliged to provide the verification code within 35 days of the rejection of my appeal (XXXXXX) to enable me to access POPLA.

My original correspondence to you, dated XXXXXX, did already request a this POPLA verification code “Please issue your cancellation within 35 days of this letter or supply a POPLA code to me so I can appeal to them. Any communication that does not either confirm cancellation or include a POPLA verification code shall be reported to the BPA as a breach of their Code of Practice - the BPA recently issued guidance to all members to remind them of this fact. Such communication may also be deemed harassment and pursued accordingly.”

You now have two choices:

1. Provide the POPLA verification code to me within 35 days from the date of your correspondence of the XXXXXX.

OR

2. Should you, UKCPS, continue to ignore my appeal, after XXXXXX I will conclude that the parking invoice is cancelled.

Should I get no satisfaction from you following this letter (dated XXXXXX) I will be making a formal complaint to the BPA and DVLA and writing to POPLA to make them aware of UKCPS’ refusal to issue a POPLA verification code."

Hopefully the above is okay and I can send it off ASAP in order to get my POPLA code and then the balls rolling with that.

Thanks for the help.

da_rule

I would potentially change the flowing under your two options for them

1) Provide me with a POPLA code (remove references to date)

Then, in the paragraph under that replace "If I get no satisfaction...." With "If you do not either accept my appeal or provide me with a POPLA code then I will make a formal complain to..."

rainbowmuppetgirl86

Thanks da_rule - I made the changes the day after I initially posted on here and sent the letter off with your advised amendments on Friday and obtained CoP. I will start drafting my POPLA appeal soon while I wait for UKCPS to issue me with a code and I will post a draft letter in due course.

Thanks again - this is a really good forum

The_Deep

Is your friend interested in getting involved? If so he can make life difficult for the managing agents as his guests are being harassed by a company called in by them to see that parking runs smoothly for occupants and their visitors. Is is not their function to harass them for money to which they have no entitlement.

rainbowmuppetgirl86

My friend probably would be willing to get involved but he is currently in Iceland on a research project so I should probably leave him be at least for the time being, but it might be an idea further down the line if necessary. He is one of the representatives for the residents so I could always get him to inform others at residents' meetings etc upon his return etc.

Thanks for the idea The Deep

Coupon-mad

rainbowmuppetgirl86 wrote: »

My friend probably would be willing to get involved but he is currently in Iceland on a research project so I should probably leave him be at least for the time being, but it might be an idea further down the line if necessary. He is one of the representatives for the residents so I could always get him to inform others and residents' meetings etc upon his return etc.

Now that does sound good as a long term plan - no resident/visitor should be paying this scam.

Hope you have found what sort of wording wins at POPLA, in readiness. This will be easy once you get the code, except to suggest that you may want to show us the sign on site please. UKCPS sometimes use a sign that alleges the charge is a contractual fee to park (as opposed to a charge for 'breach').

Please show us a link to a pic of the sign and also the entrance, where often there are no clear signs (which helps your POPLA appeal). I have some wording for a POPLA appeal to suit and win a case v UKCPS where they use 'contract' as a misleading word on their signs.

rainbowmuppetgirl86

Thanks Coupon-mad.

I have uploaded the photos that I have to tinypic so hopefully they will be viewable via the half-links below. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that I took a close up of the sign wording at the time and the incident happened when I was away from home. I will be back in the Leeds are soon so I can take a picture of the actual wording then and add to the POPLA appeal afterwards. Well done on having a template and winning POPLA on UKCPS signage wording The forum is very useful so I shouldn't have much of a problem putting something suitable for POPLA together when I get a bit of free time to bash it out as it were.

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