Help with PCN for Wing Parking

Agooner

My wife received a windscreen PCN for parking without displaying a parking permit while visiting my parents on 17/03/2014. The notice to owner letter from PCS arrived on 02/05/2014 and I appealed using the template from the sticky. The appeal was rejected on 20/05/2014, a copy of the letter is below, but the POPLA code was not included.

Do I appeal again to Wing Parking? If so on what basis? Or should I ask them for the POPLA code and appeal that way?

Thanks for your help

Thank you for your recent letter regarding the above that has been passed to us by Debt Recovery Plus. We have reviewed the case in light of your appeal and we confirm that the vehicle concerned was parked in an area where parking is restricted and that the area is adequately signed to that effect.

We also confirm that the Parking Charge Notice was issued because no parking permit was displayed as is required.

The warning signs on display in the area clearly inform drivers that a valid parking permit must be clearly displayed in order to allow users to park. On this occasion, at the time that the Notice was actually issued, no permit was on display.

Your appeal is based on the following grounds:
• The amount being claimed is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss to your company or 
the landowner
• Your signage does not comply with your BPA Code of Practice and was not 
sufficiently prominent to create any contract
• You are not the landowner and do not have the standing to offer contracts nor to 
bring a claim for trespass.


The landowner is fully within their rights to set their own requirements for vehicles that wish to park and in this instance have determined that vehicles are not allowed to park on the estate without clearly displaying a valid parking permit.


Furthermore, we are satisfied that the area is adequately signposted as the photographs that were taken of the vehicle at time of the incident clearly shows the vehicle parked across the road from a parking warning sign which advises drivers that such restrictions are in place.


Regardless of whether a parking charge is based on a breach of contract or a trespass (or other tort) the parking charges which may be demanded is the amount stated on the car park signage. This is because "damages" is specifically defined in The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 as relating to the amount of the parking charge stated on "one or more notices" (i.e. the car park signage). There is no question that the charge made is a "penalty", because Parliament has deemed that parking charges, such as ours, are legally enforceable, so long as the amount demanded is stated on the car park signage (which it was).

Furthermore, since the Act permits parking charges to be rendered on private land, and the case of Parking Eye Limited v Somerfield Stores Limited [2012] EWCA Civ 1338 (Court of Appeal) held that the parking company was entitled to claim the sum of £75 in 2005 for a parking charge, (and the case specifically says that such a charge was not a "penalty") - which with inflation is close to £95 - and would therefore not be a "penalty", reference to the Unfair Contract Terms Act is not of any relevance in the context of this parking charge. You should also be aware that the amount of our parking charges accords with the recommendations of the British Parking Association (BPA), of which we are a member.

As members of the BPA we are fully aware of the latest BPA Approved Operator Scheme Code of Practice in relation to signs. We would however like to draw your attention to Appendix F of the relevant document - the clause relating to the transitional period in which the BPA have allowed up until October 2015 for all its members to confirm with the conditions relating to signs. As we are currently still in the transitional period, this does not affect the validity of issue of the PCN and neither does it discount the fact that the vehicle was incorrectly parked.

Whilst we accept that Wing Parking are not the Landowner of the property, we dispute your claim that we do not have sufficient interest in the land to issue contracts. We suggest that this claim is made purely on the basis of having read various internet sites rather than a knowledge of the exact legal standing between ourselves and our client.

We confirm that the contract to park is not actually offered by ourselves at all, it is offered by our clients, who do hold the necessary legal interest in the property. We are not offering the contract, we are merely acting as agents in the management of that contract. We have a written and signed agreement with Catalyst Housing Group where they authorise us to carry out this service for them.

Both ourselves and our clients are satisfied that the written and signed agreement between us does provide us with sufficient legal authority to issue the PCN and to seek to recover payment of that PCN from you on their behalf.

We believe that we have given you a full response to the grounds that you have raised for your appeal and in light of our response, the parking charge remains due and owing.

The reason for the issue of the Notice is supported by photographs taken at the time and these also support our actions. If you wish to view images of your vehicle at the time of enforcement, you can do so on our website. Please select the link that says "Enforcement Images" and follow the instructions. You will need to enter both your registration number and the reference number of the Notice you were issued in order to view the images. However, please note that you DO NOT have to make payment or enter any personal data or credit card details to view the images

We have thoroughly reviewed this case and whilst we appreciate your comments and circumstances, we have acted in accordance with the instructions from our clients and the warning sign that was on display prior to the issue of the Notice. The Parking Charge Notice was correctly and legally issued and therefore the Notice and the charges must stand.

We trust the above clarifies the situation. We will allow a further period of 14 days from the date of this letter during which you may pay the discounted charge of £60.00 and thereafter the full charge of £100.00 will be due. Your account has already been amended to reflect the lower charge and full details of how to pay are shown on the rear of the PCN or on our website,

We hope that we have addressed the issues raised in your appeal, but if you are dissatisfied with the facts outlined in the reply, you have the option of taking your appeal further, to stage 2, by writing within 14 days to:
Wing Parking Plaza 668 Hitchin Road Luton
LU2 7XH
Alternatively you may email appeals@wingparking.co.uk.

We recommend that any Stage 2 appeal is submitted in the same manner as the corresponding Stage 1 appeal as this will make it easier to match the correspondence.

The Stage 2 appeal must be made within 14 days of the date of this letter and must state why you are not satisfied with the Stage 1 reply and must include any relevant new evidence. Please remember to quote your vehicle registration and the PCN reference number. Please note that enquiries about appeals will not be dealt with by telephone.

Coupon-mad

You need to jump thru' the hoops to stage 2. See other Wing threads, this is what they do to waste your time but you must send another appeal. You can word it in a more 'normal' way for the Housing Group.

waamo

Report them to the BPA and DVLA. Contact details are in the Newbies thread.

Wing keep doing this but the BPA code of practice is clrear that a POPLA code should be given on the first appeal.

Agooner

I've drafted my second appeal. How does it read?

Thanks

Dear Wing Parking,

PCN Number:
Vehicle Registration Number:

Thank you for your recent letter rejecting my first appeal and inviting me to pay your parking invoice. I decline your invitation and wish to invoke stage 2 of your appeals process, since all liability to your company is denied on the following basis:

1) Your client is not the landowner and does not have the standing to offer contracts nor to bring a claim for trespass. The area where the driver parked is privately owned, with the homeowner having purchased the property from your client, Catalyst Housing Group. Therefore, your client does not hold the necessary legal interest in the property.

2) The amount being claimed is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss to your company.

3) Keeper liability cannot be established.

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 contract with the landowner.

If you do reject the challenge and insist on 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.

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 have issued guidance to all members to remind them of this fact. Such communication may also be deemed harassment and pursued accordingly.

Yours Sincerely,

Coupon-mad

Yep that will be fine, press on to get that POPLA code!

Agooner

I've sent it off. Fingers crossed on a positive reply.

Thanks

Hate_PCNs

Hi all,

Just received a letter from PCS acting for 'wing parking' requesting I make a payment for £120, what shall I do?

Whenever I use to get these 'parking charge notices' I just ignored them as they weren't legitimate, what's changed?

Much appreciated for any advice given.

HO87

Firstly you should start you own thread.

This is particularly relevant with Wing because they operate for a number of different London boroughs and, I am aware that, the procedures differ across them. The fact that you situation may seem similar is, in this case, no guarantee that it is.

Coupon-mad

Hate_PCNs wrote: »

Hi all,

Just received a letter from PCS acting for 'wing parking' requesting I make a payment for £120, what shall I do?

Whenever I use to get these 'parking charge notices' I just ignored them as they weren't legitimate, what's changed?

Much appreciated for any advice given.

As you would, check the sticky threads at the top of the forum. You need to follow the advice in the NEWBIES sticky thread and appeal because that is the 'Notice to Keeper' (of sorts). And search here on the forum for other Wing threads so you can read about their faffing about 3 stage appeal.

And start your own thread if you get stuck (no need yet, you have your advice and must just send an appeal as per the NEWBIES thread; the template will do the job).

Agooner

All,

Following on from my previous entry on 20/05 I emailed Wing Parking on 22/05 appealing their decision and asking for the POPLA code. I didn't hear anything back from them and thought the matter had been resolved.

This was until 18/09 when I received a letter from Wing Parking stating that they had no record of me making an appeal and invited me to pay their notice. I politely replied, with a forwarded copy of my previous email and their acknowledgement that they had received it.

FAO :

Dear X,

Thank you for your letter, dated 18 September 2014, regarding parking charge notice PCN - X, in which you stated that you have no record of receiving a further appeal from me.

Please find below, my appeal, which was emailed to: X and X on 22 May 2014. The appeal was in response to Donna Lewis' letter dated 20 May 2014, in which she rejected stage 1 of the appeals process.

I did not receive a response to this email, which your letter now claims that you did not receive. As the points I raised in my email have not been addressed and because of the time that has now passed since the email was sent, I had assumed that the matter had been resolved.

My previous email of the 22 May 2014 still stands. Please refer to it and address the concerns in it.

Yours Sincerely

Early today I received this email:

Thank you for your email.

Your Stage 2 appeal dated 22 May was received by us and a reply was sent on 4 July 2014.

A copy of that is attached.

Confirmation that our email reply was sent is also attached,

In light of this we confirm that we fully replied to both your Stage 1 and Stage 2 appeals.

You did not submit a further appeal within the time period allowed and so the appeal process is now closed and payment is due.

Therefore our reminder letter is correct. If payment is not received in accordance with our letter, the matter will be passed for debt recovery which will incur further costs.

We will not enter into further correspondence.

Regards

1. I did not receive this email, which they claimed to have sent on 04/07
2. Although today's email included a copy of the email they claimed to have sent, it did not include the confirmation receipt that was claimed it would include.
3. The previous responses from Wing Parking have been in the form of letters. This makes me doubt as to whether a response to my second stage appeal was ever sent.

I have copied below the response they claimed to have sent.

Thank you for your recent letter regarding the above; we have noted your comments and we apologise for the delay in replying.

We have again reviewed the case in light of your appeal and we confirm that the vehicle concerned was parked in an area where parking is restricted and that the area is adequately signed to that effect.

We also confirm that the Parking Charge Notice was issued because no parking permit was displayed as is required.
Your appeal is based upon the following grounds:
• We do not have the right to offer contracts
• The amount claimed is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss
• Keeper liability cannot be established
We have already clearly explained our standing on the first two items in your appeal. Your second appeal is merely a restating of issues that have already been dealt with.

We confirm that the contract to park is not actually offered by ourselves at all, it is offered by our clients, who do hold the necessary legal interest in the property. We are not offering the contract, we are merely acting as agents in the management of that contract. We have a written and signed agreement with Catalyst Housing Group where they authorise us to carry out this service for them.

Both ourselves and our clients are satisfied that the written and signed agreement between us does provide us with sufficient legal authority to issue the PCN and to seek to recover payment of that PCN from you on their behalf. You may own a residential property, but you do not own the land upon which the vehicle was parked.

Whether or not the amount charged is a genuine pre-estimate of loss is not relevant. The issue of parking charges needing to be directly related to a genuine pre-estimate of loss has been superseded by the recent decision by HHJ Moloney QC in the cases of Parking Eye v Beavis & Wardley where it was decided that a parking management scheme such as this is commercially justifiable provided tests of proportionality and reasonableness are applied. This decision specifically states “although there is a sense in which this contractual parking charge has the characteristics of a deterrent penalty, it is neither improper in its purpose nor manifestly excessive in its amount. It is commercially justifiable”. Therefore these charges passed all tests of commercial justification, proportionality and reasonableness.

We maintain that all relevant aspects of that case are also relevant in this particular case and therefore we maintain that your argument regarding a genuine pre-estimate of loss is not valid and has no bearing on this matter.

Finally we confirm that Section 4 of the Protection of Freedom Act is applicable and we believe that Keeper Liability does exist. Therefore we believe that the keeper is under an obligation to either accept the charge or provide details of the driver of the vehicle.

The reason for the issue of the Notice is supported by photographs taken at the time and these also support our actions. If you wish to view images of your vehicle at the time of enforcement, you can do so on our website . Please select the link that says "Enforcement Images" and follow the instructions. You will need to enter both your registration number and the reference number of the Notice you were issued in order to view the images. However, please note that you DO NOT have to make payment or enter any personal data or credit card details to view the images.

Following this second review of your case, whilst we appreciate your comments and circumstances, we find that we have acted in accordance with the instructions from our clients and the warning sign that was on display prior to the issue of the Notice. Therefore we believe that the Parking Charge Notice was correctly and legally issued and therefore the Notice and the charges must stand.

This second rejection of your appeal marks the end of our appeal process. You now have three options:
a) Pay the Parking Charge Notice at the discounted price of £60 within 14 days. Please note that after this time the discount period will expire and you will be required to pay the full charge of £100. Your account has already been amended to reflect the lower charge and full details of how to pay are shown on the rear of the PCN or on our website,
b) Make a final appeal to POPLA – an Independent Appeals Service.
The grounds under which you can appeal to POPLA regarding the parking charge notice are set out below. If you are not sure which ground applies to your case, then you can just explain your case fully, but POPLA cannot allow an appeal solely because of mitigating circumstances.
• The vehicle was not improperly parked: e.g. the vehicle was not parked where stated on the parking charge notice; that you believe you were still within the time you paid for; that the voucher was clearly displayed or that the parking conditions were not properly signed.
• The parking charge (ticket) exceeded the appropriate amount: e.g. that you are being asked to pay the wrong amount for the parking charge or that the charge has already been paid.

• The vehicle was stolen: e.g. that the vehicle was improperly parked after being stolen. However, the fact that someone else was driving your vehicle, for example a family member, friend or colleague, is not in itself a valid ground of appeal. The fact that you told the driver that they could only use your vehicle on condition they did not get any parking tickets is not a valid ground of appeal.
• I am not liable for the parking charge: e.g. that you had sold the vehicle before, or bought it after, the alleged improper parking. However, the fact that you had paid to park the vehicle in the first place (even if, for example, the voucher was not clearly displayed) is not in itself a valid ground of appeal.

If you wish to make an appeal to POPLA, it must be submitted to them within 28 days of receipt of this rejection letter. We enclose the relevant form you will require to submit an appeal to POPLA, together with notes on how to complete it or alternatively you may complete an appeal application online at the POPLA website, where you will also find much more information about how the POPLA appeals service operates.

Please note that if you submit an appeal to POPLA, you must include the following Verification Code on your application:X
Do not send the completed form back to us as it will not be dealt with by us. You must contact POPLA directly if you wish to appeal further. Please be advised that there are limited grounds for submitting an Appeal to POPLA and they will only investigate the strict legality of the Parking Charge. POPLA will not take into account mitigating circumstances and if you opt for this independent arbitration of your case and that appeal is rejected, no further extension of the discount period will apply and they will instruct you to pay the full amount of £100.

c) If you choose to do nothing, we will seek to recover the monies owed to us via our debt recovery procedures and may proceed with County Court action against you, both of which will result in additional costs being charged to this case which we will also seek to recover.
As stated previously, this letter marks the end of our appeal process and we cannot enter into further correspondence on this appeal outside of the POPLA appeal process detailed above. Any such correspondence will not be acknowledged or replied to.

I would appreciate some advice as to how best to proceed. Due to not having received the email/ it not being sent in time the POPLA deadline has now passed. What should I do next?

1. Can I still appeal to POPLA on the grounds that I did not receive the code within the specified timeframe?
2. Reply to the email asking for the confirmation that it was sent?
3. Or wait for the debt collector's letters and then go from there?

Thank you

-Af

Coupon-mad

Can I still appeal to POPLA on the grounds that I did not receive the code within the specified timeframe?
Reply to the email asking for the confirmation that it was sent?
Or wait for the debt collector's letters and then go from there?

None of the above except the one in bold - but you should complain to the BPA about this and state that Wing have made you jump through a 2 stage appeal but never sent a POPLA code at all and the email they claim to have 'forwarded' was NEVER sent and has not been proved as sent. It appears to be a figment of Wing's imagination or was stuck at their end as a draft email, never sent.