Parking Eye POPLA appeal - Help needed!

cpr1986

Hi

I received a parking ticket through the post a few weeks ago from Parking Eye. The ticket relates to Walker Street Car Park in Preston. I intend to appeal the ticket after reading through the information on here, which has been very helpful so far. I have now received a letter from Parking Eye rejecting my appeal, it is some 10 pages long and, as I am sure is their intention, has made me feel completely out of my depth! I now need to draft an appeal to POPLA and am hoping someone will be able to help? Here’s what has happened so far:

26.02.14 - Date of parking 'offence'
I overstayed a total of 57 minutes, having originally paid £2 for 3 hours and an additional £1 for 1 hour. (I'm a solicitor and I was delayed at court, I managed to get out to buy another ticket but overstayed on that one aswel!)

04.03.14 - Parking charge notice
Initial letter from parking eye asking for £90, reduced to £54 if paid in 14 days.

11.03.14 - My 'appeal' letter
This was written prior to reading the forums! I basically said I had been held up at court, and also that I had tried to renew my parking using the online service but it wasn't working.

13.03.14 - A further reminder parking charge notice

19.03.14 - 'Rejection' letter from Parking eye
This did not make a great deal of sense to me and didn't respond to any of the points I had made in my letter. It said the parking charge had been placed on hold in order for me to provide further evidence, but basically encouraged me to just pay up.

28.03.14 - My second appeal letter
Having read the forums, I sent something a bit more substantial as follows

Dear Sirs

Re: Ticket number: xxx
Vehicle registration number: xxx

I wrote to you on the 11th March 2014 advising that I was appealing the parking ticket. I have received your letter dated the 19th March 2014 which although appears to be in response to my letter, confusingly it does not advise whether my appeal is accepted or rejected. If the appeal is in fact rejected, then you have not explained why and you have not provided me with details of the Independent Appeals Service (POPLA), their contact details and a unique appeal reference, which is in your Appeals and Complaints Procedure as set out in your original correspondence (04.03.2014) and your reminder letter (13.03.2014).

For the avoidance of doubt, I believe the ticket was unfairly issued and I will not be paying your demand for payment for the following reasons:-

· Mitigating circumstances
There are mitigating circumstances to explain why I could not pay for additional parking and I am requesting that the charge be waived for this reason. Please see attached a copy of my letter dated 11.03.2014 and ticket receipts.

• The fee is disproportionate

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 my case, the £90.00 charge you are asking for far exceeds the cost to the landowner of £4.00 for the 4 hours 57 minutes I was parked. I paid £3.00 so the cost is in fact £1.00.

I look forward to hearing from you in relation to the points raised above.

Yours faithfully,

xxx

07.04.14 – Long letter from Parking Eye
This time they have confirmed my recent appeal is unsuccessful. It says:
Pre-estimate of loss and commercial justification
The Appellant has made submissions either stating or indicating that he does not believe that the Parking charge amount is reasonable/and or a genuine pre-estimate of loss. Parking eye should make it clear at this juncture that the commonly held legal argument that the amount claimed for breach of contract should reflect the losses incurred by the breach (and if they do not they should be considered a penalty) is no longer the method adopted by Judges when deciding whether a charge is a penalty or not. Recently, Judges have found the commercial justification argument to be more persuasive, etc etc. (Let me know if you want me to type the whole lot!)
It then lists cases where they have been successful when the issue has been genuine pre-estimate of loss.
It goes on about one particular case where the Judge apparently agreed that £75 was a reasonable amount, not sure why this is relevant as they are charging me £90!
I have been provided with a POPLA appeal form and reference number.
As I say, if it would help then I will post the complete letter on here but it is very long and I didn’t want to bore everyone with it if it isn’t needed!



I suppose what I am looking for is some advice as to whether it is worth appealing to POPLA? If so, what is the best way to approach my appeal?

Many thanks to anyone who can help me!

Herzlos

It's always worth appealing to POPLA, who will usually agree with you on the genuine pre-estimate of loss. That they've got court cases where it's been said otherwise is irrelevant as there have been many poorly defended cases; they normally claim the cost of uniforms, signage etc and GPEOL even though it clearly isn't.

Look for some template POPLA appeals on here and appeal.

If they uphold the claim (they will), then you're sorted. If they don't you can beat them at court. In either case it'll cost them some money.

Redx

all the info the OP needs is in the NEWBIES sticky thread at the top of the forum, especially links to examples of successful popla appeals

Coupon-mad

I suppose what I am looking for is some advice as to whether it is worth appealing to POPLA? If so, what is the best way to approach my appeal?

You seem to have missed the NEWBIES thread at the top of the forum with a hyperlink in post #3 'How to win at POPLA'. And you haven't read the fact we win 100% of POPLA appeals?

cpr1986

Thanks, I'll have another read through!

Guys_Dad

cpr1986 wrote: »

Thanks, I'll have another read through!

As a solicitor, then you will appreciate that the victories at POPLA all turn on points of law - see the POPLA DECISIONS thread under the main sticky thread at the top of the column, but read posts in reverse as at the beginning, we were finding our way,

The main points that win are "Is there a valid contract witgh the landowner in place that permits charging customers?"

Second is "PPCs are not allowed to penalise, only recover Genuine Losses. The sum demanded exceeds any potential loss".

There are other points, but use your legal mind to appreciate the points being made and adapt a standard template if necessary.

But note - POPLA are not permitted to consider mitigation, so forget that.