Popla appeal refused

Aspire2Justice

In October last year I bought an apartment with a 125 year leasehold that included a parking bay. It is a new, small development on private land that was to be managed by Mainstay. It is not near a commercial area, sports ground or train station. The residents parking area is never more than half full.

In mid November we were provided with a windscreen permit for our individual numbered parking bay. I did not stick my permit immediately to the screen because I still had blinds to be fitted and other contractors booked that meant on occasion I had to give workmen access to my property & parking space while I was at work.

On Sat 7 Dec I returned at 5pm from grocery and Christmas shopping (already dark) and did not notice that my permit had slipped from view. Less than two hours later when I returned to my car at 7pm I discovered a £60 ticket on my screen - reason of 'permit not displayed' I appealed to the private parking control company on the grounds that it was 'my space where I had parked every day since moving in and that I had honestly believed that my permit was displayed, as it always had been. It was in the car and must have slipped from view while I was out shopping.' I provided a photo of my permit back in view within an hour of the ticket being issued just before 6pm.



The company rejected my appeal.

On 15 January I appealed to POPLA clearly stating that I had parked my car in good faith, believing my permit was on display as always, and that I was the legal owner of the leasehold of that Bay number. POPLA also rejected my appeal on January 22nd and I received a final reminder notice for £100 a few days later.

Three days later, on January 25th I noticed all parking control signage had been removed from our car park and discovered that, due to numerous complaints from other residents, Mainstay had broken their contract with the parking control company. Our car park is operating perfectly well with no control and my space is never taken by other residents.


Today I have received a Notice of Appointment as Debt Collectors £154.



I do not want to incur a bad debt, I have never had one before in my life. What can I do to fight this unjust fine?

I have copies of all correspondence. Please can someone advise me what I should do now?

pogofish

Start by reading the Newbies sticky - here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4816822

This outlines the various options at the different stages.

And this is not a fine!

Stroma

This will never go to court ever, this is your space for your property, you have a right to park there. Popla thinks that some poxy term by a parking company overrides the fact that you own or lease the bay. I would ignore this garbage. If you feeling militant reply inviting them to take you to court, which parking company is this?

Coupon-mad

Wow - you managed to lose at POPLA, that's rare to read. What a shame - you must have written about the permit slipping which is completely and utterly NOT what to write on a POPLA appeal. Next time you get a fake PCN come to a forum first as we win 100% of POPLA appeals. It's disappointing to read that you unwittingly wasted your 'golden ticket' by not Googling 'How to win at POPLA' or similar, or not noticing that on the POPLA website it tells you that they don't consider mitigating circumstances. Oh dear, what a shame you didn't just come here earlier and win like everyone has done for the past year at POPLA.

But this is presumably VCS(?) and this letter is being sent out in a batch right now by Newlyn. It's the same as here and on lots of threads recently, search this forum for 'Newlyn' as a keyword and you will find several like this:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4027635

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4940840

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4217471

The Newlyn computer has obviously just issued a batch of 'scraping barrel' follow up threatograms which no doubt makes some victims worry and pay up. You are not a victim and on MSE even a small claim is rare and defendable with a high win rate for our posters. I think VCS just lost one last week didn't they, others might recall it, 3 tickets being chased and the defendant was up for the fight! Apart from that I can't recall one before that except Ibbotson which they also lost (shown as a link in the NEWBIES thread, post #6 small claims cases won, well worth reading!).

If you get a 'Letter before Court Claim' then post again here (but NOT a letter saying similar old rubbish from Newlyn) I mean a letter from the PPC or from a solicitor. One of your points of rebuttal would be that the PPC does not have the authority of the landowner at this site - but there would be more points too (the ones you should have used to win at POPLA, such as it wasn't a 'GPEOL'). Was it VCS or Excel?