We’d like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum.
This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are – or become – political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.
IMPORTANT: Please make sure your posts do not contain any personally identifiable information (both your own and that of others). When uploading images, please take care that you have redacted all personal information including number plates, reference numbers and QR codes (which may reveal vehicle information when scanned).
📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!
Parking Eye - Parking Charge Notice
Georginio
Posts: 22 Forumite
Before I say anything about my newly received PCN, I wanted to say a thank you for those that run this forum. I was really angry when we received the PCN, but also felt quite helpless. This forum has changed that.
I spent much of last night and this morning reading the various FAQ's etc.
My specific problem is that the PCN was posted to my home address based on a car park from a holiday. I do not know the car park well, and it is far, far further than I could realistically travel now to get photo's etc of the signage, or even state where those signs were.
I am fully happy with the wonderful shortened stage 1 appeal template, but having now read ahead to the stage 2 POPLA appeal I am wondering if this will be an issue.
Any thoughts will be gratefully received.
I spent much of last night and this morning reading the various FAQ's etc.
My specific problem is that the PCN was posted to my home address based on a car park from a holiday. I do not know the car park well, and it is far, far further than I could realistically travel now to get photo's etc of the signage, or even state where those signs were.
I am fully happy with the wonderful shortened stage 1 appeal template, but having now read ahead to the stage 2 POPLA appeal I am wondering if this will be an issue.
Any thoughts will be gratefully received.
0
Comments
-
You don't need photos, just say the signs were rubbish (which they always are) and let them prove the contrary.Je suis Charlie.0
-
No it won't be an issue. There are a few generic signage examples you can use for PE. Their signs are almost always too high up to read, full of ridiculous information and often have dreadful entrance signs. So it won't be a problem.
And if it was eg Cornwall, chances are someone may have signs anyway.
If you can say where the car park someone may be able to help.Newbie thread: go to the top of this page and find these words: Main site > MoneySavingExpert.com Forums > Household & Travel > Motoring > Parking Tickets, Fines & Parking. Click on words Parking Tickets, Fines & Parking. Newbie thread is the first post. Blue New Thread button is just above it to left.0 -
Thank you,
It was Watergate Bay Beach , cornwall.0 -
You won't have any issue beating PE re a PCN issued about Watergate Bay beach car park. The usual POPLA arguments will win, as they have before.
PRIVATE 'PCN'? DON'T PAY BUT DON'T IGNORE IT (except N.Ireland).
CLICK at the top or bottom of any page where it says:
Home»Motoring»Parking Tickets Fines & Parking - read the NEWBIES THREAD0 -
Thank you for your help here, and more importantly in the resource bank this forum is.
My stage 1 appeal is in. I will keep you informed when I hear back.
Thanks again.0 -
Dear Geniuses,
I have received my rejection from Parking eye, and am now preparing my POPLA.
I cannot claim to have drafted what is below as it is copied and pasted basically in its entirety from elsewhere on the site. It is the closest to fitting my situation I could find and have just changed a few details. The biggest change is that the original was a case of an overstay whereas Parking Eye are claiming that no parking was purchased.
If someone could let me know what they think about the below I would be eternally grateful.
I am just thrilled about how professional and knowledgeable it sounds.
Re: ParkingEye PCN, reference code xxxxxxxxxx
POPLA Code:
I am the registered keeper and I wish to appeal a recent parking charge from ParkingEye. I submit the points below to show that I am not liable for the parking charge:
1) No genuine pre-estimate of loss
2) The Notice to Keeper is not compliant with the POFA 2012 - no keeper liability
3) No standing or authority to pursue charges nor form contracts with drivers
4) The signage was not readable so there was no valid contract formed
5) The ANPR system is unreliable and neither synchronised nor accurate
1) No genuine pre-estimate of loss
This car park is Pay and Display and as far as I can ascertain as keeper, ParkingEye have claimed that no parking was purchased. Having received the Notice in the post I had very little information (see point #2) so contacted the car park owner and it seems that up to 1 hours would have cost £1.20 so the only recoverable sum under the POFA 2012 is the sum of the alleged 'outstanding' parking charge = £1.20 at the most. Parking Eye have not told me these details (see point #2).
In ParkingEye v Smith at Manchester County Court in 2011, claim number 1XJ81016, the original claim of £240 was deemed an unrecoverable penalty, unrelated to damages incurred and the only sum that could be recovered was deemed to be £15 (the amount of the pay and display fee for more than one visit). The entirety of the parking charge must be a genuine pre-estimate of loss in order to be enforceable. As the PCN sum is massively inflated over and above the stated tariff, I require ParkingEye to submit a breakdown of how this sum was calculated prior to the parking event, as being capable of directly flowing from a minor alleged breach.
The Operator cannot reasonably claim a broad percentage of their entire business running costs as they operate various different arrangements, some where they pay a landowner a huge amount akin to a 'fishing licence' to catch motorists and some where they have pay and display, and others which are free car parks. I suggest there was never any advance meeting held with the client, nor regard paid to any 'genuine pre-estimate of loss' prior to setting the parking charges at this site (before putting signs up and enforcing the charges, back when the contract was initially signed). I put this operator to strict proof to the contrary and to explain how the calculation happens to be the same whether the alleged overstay is 20 minutes or 20 hours.
The ParkingEye Notice to Keeper alleges 'breach of terms' and as such, the landowner/occupier (not their agent) can only pursue liquidated damages directly flowing from the parking event. This must amount in its entirety, only to a genuine pre-estimate of loss, not some subsequently penned 'commercial justification' statement they have devised afterwards, since this would not be a pre-estimate. Any later 'new' calculation (even if dressed up to look like a loss statement)would fall foul of Mr Greenslade's explanation abut GPEOL in the POPLA 2014 Report and would also falls foul of the DFT Guidance about private parking charges. The British Parking Association Code of Practice uses the word 'MUST': "19.5 If the parking charge that the driver is being asked to pay is for a breach of contract or act of trespass, this charge must be based on the genuine pre-estimate of loss that you suffer.''
This charge cannot be 'commercially justified' so this Operator would be wasting their time to adduce the flawed and not persuasive 'ParkingEye v Beavis' small claims decision (now being taken to the Court of Appeal by Mr Beavis anyway, due to be heard in February 2015). POPLA Assessor Chris Adamson has stated in June 2014 that:
''In each case that I have seen from the higher courts,...it is made clear that a charge cannot be commercially justified where the dominant purpose of the charge is to deter the other party from breach. This is most clearly stated in Lordsvale Finance Plc v Bank of Zambia [1996] QB 752, quoted approvingly at paragraph 15 in Cine Bes Filmcilik Ve Yapimcilik & Anor v United International Pictures & Ors [2003] EWHC Civ 1669 when Coleman J states a clause should not be struck down as a penalty, “if the increase could in the circumstances be explained as commercially justifiable, provided always that its dominant purpose was not to deter the other party from breach”. This supports the principle that the aim of damages is to be compensatory, beginning with the idea that the aim is to put the parties in the position they would have been in had the contract been performed. It also seems that courts have been unwilling to allow clauses designed to deter breach as this undermines the binding nature of the initial promise made. Whilst the courts have reasonably moved away from a strict interpretation of what constitutes a genuine pre-estimate of loss, recognising that in complex commercial situations an accurate pre-estimate will not always be possible, nevertheless it remains that a charge for damages must be compensatory in nature rather than punitive.''
2) The Notice to Keeper is not compliant with the POFA 2012 - no keeper liability
As this was a Pay/Display car park, the Notice to Keeper (NTK) has to set out the position clearly in terms of 'describing the parking charges due'. The NTK fails to state the amount of the parking charge which remains unpaid (i.e. the fee or tariff which allegedly remained unpaid, not the inflated sum which this Operator also calls a 'parking charge'). As keeper I can see from the limited information before me in the NTK, only that the car stayed for a certain amount of time and that the contravention was 'either/or' an overstay or failure to pay.
This does not create any certainty of terms, it leaves a keeper to wonder what the hourly rate tariff even was and whether the driver paid nothing, or paid too little, or paid only for half an hour or an hour, or paid in full but put in the wrong car registration, or some other event. As this operator has the technology to record car registrations, to collect and record payments and to take photos of cars arriving and leaving, they are certainly able - and indeed are required under the POFA - to state on the NTK the basic requirements to show a keeper how the 'parking charge' arose.
These are the omissions:
''9(2)The notice must—
(b)inform the keeper that the driver is required to pay parking charges in respect of the specified period of parking and that the parking charges have not been paid in full;
(c)describe the parking charges due from the driver as at the end of that period, the circumstances in which the requirement to pay them arose (including the means by which the requirement was brought to the attention of drivers) and the other facts that made them payable;
(d)specify the total amount of those parking charges that are unpaid...'
This so-called outstanding 'payment' is not quantified at all - I have had to guess what it might have been, by contacting the landowner to find out the tariff and then had to interrogate the driver to find out more detail!
POPLA Assessor Matthew Shaw has stated that the validity of a NTK is fundamental to establishing liability for a parking charge. ''Where a Notice is to be relied upon to establish liability ... it must, as with any statutory provision, comply with the Act.'' As the Notice was not compliant with the Act due to the omissionsof statutory wording, it was not properly given and so there is no keeper liability.
3) No standing or authority to pursue charges nor form contracts with drivers
I believe that this Operator has no proprietary interest in the land, so they have no standing to make contracts with drivers in their own right, nor to pursue charges for breach in their own name. In the absence of such title, ParkingEye must have assignment of rights from the landowner to pursue charges for breach in their own right, including at court level. This has not been produced by the operator in their rejection statement so I have no proof that such a document is in existence. I contend that ParkingEye merely hold a bare licence to supply and maintain (non compliant) signs and to post out 'tickets' as a deterrent. A commercial site agent for the true landholder has no automatic standing nor authority in their own right which would meet the strict requirements of section 7 of the BPA Code of Practice.
I therefore put ParkingEye to strict proof to provide POPLA and myself with an unredacted, contemporaneous copy of the contract between ParkingEye and the landowner. This is required so that POPLA and myself can check that it allows this Operator to make contracts with drivers themselves and provides them with full authority to pursue charges, including a right to pursue them in court in their own name. Please note that a witness statement to the effect that a contract is in place will not be sufficient to provide sufficient detail of the contract terms (such as revenue sharing, genuine intentions of these restrictions and charges, set amounts to charge for each stated contravention, etc.). In any case, ParkingEye's witness statements have been exposed as photocopy templates from clients who may well have no knowledge of any individual parking event and the signatory may never even have seen the contract.
4) The signage was not readable so there was no valid contract formed between ParkingEye and the driver
The only signs are up on poles (away from the Pay & Display machine, which is not a 'sign' nor does it communicate full contractual terms & conditions). Any upright signs were not so prominent among all the other signage on site that they were ever seen by the occupants of the car. I believe that ParkingEye place their signs so high that terms would only be legible if a driver got out of a car and climbed a stepladder, holding a torch, to try to read them. Any photos supplied by ParkingEye to POPLA will no doubt show the signs in bright sunlight or with the misleading aid of a close up camera and the angle may well not show how high the sign is nor the fact the ParkingEye signs are one of many pieces of information in the clutter of this busy car park. As such, I require ParkingEye to state the height of each sign in their response and to show contemporaneous photo evidence of these signs, taken at the same time of day without photoshopping or cropping and showing where the signs are placed among a myriad of other information bombarding a customer. I requested this photographic evidence in the initial appeal to ParkingEye and was ignored.
Unreadable signage breaches Appendix B of the BPA Code of Practice which states that terms on entrance signs must be clearly readable without a driver having to turn away from the road ahead. A Notice is not imported into the contract unless brought home so prominently that the party 'must' have known of it and agreed terms beforehand. Nothing about this Operator's onerous inflated 'parking charges' was sufficiently prominent and it is clear that the requirements for forming a contract (i.e. consideration flowing between the two parties, offer, acceptance and fairness and transparency of terms offered in good faith) were not satisfied.
5) The ANPR system is unreliable and neither synchronised nor accurate
ParkingEye's evidence shows no parking time, merely photos of a car driving in and out which does not discount the possibility of a double visit that morning. It is unreasonable for this operator to record the start of 'parking time' as the moment of arrival in moving traffic if they in fact offer a pay and display system which the driver can only access after parking and which is when the clock in fact starts. The exit photo is not evidence of 'parking time' at all and has not been shown to be synchronised to the pay and display machine clock nor even to relate to the same parking event that day.
As keeper I cannot discount that this may have been a double visit (possibly even with two drivers since the car has more than one family member who drives it). Or the driver may have driven in, realised it was pay and display then driven out to get change before returning (and of course the ANPR cameras show only the first and last visits). The BPA even mention this as an inherent problem with ANPR on their website;
Link removed as I am a newbie
The BPA's view is: 'As with all new technology, there are issues associated with its use:
a) Repeat users of a car park inside a 24 hour period sometimes find that their first entry is paired with their last exit, resulting in an ‘overstay’. Operators are becoming aware of this and should now be checking all ANPR transactions to ensure that this does not occur.
b) Some ‘drive in/drive out’ motorists that have activated the system receive a charge certificate even though they have not parked or taken a ticket. Reputable operators tend not to uphold charge certificates issued in this manner...'
Even if an Operator shows a list with 'no record' of that car registration in between the times, this would not discount the 'double visit' possibility as it is well known that car registrations are completely missed when a vehicle is followed closely by a higher vehicle, or by a temporary interruption in the camera recording. Or even an item temporarily obscuring the camera from picking up one car registration, such as a passing bird or wind-blown carrier bag or leaves appearing in front of the camera, even for moments, would stop a record appearing of a car leaving in between the stated times. I put the Operator to strict proof to the contrary. All footage would have to be checked and this Operator will be unable to refute the double visit possibility since they don't bother to record continuous footage. If I am wrong then they must show POPLA a complete 'video' that they allege shows no more entries or exits that day by this car.
Further, this Operator is obliged to ensure their ANPR equipment is maintained as described in paragraph 21.3 of the BPA Code of Practice and to have signs stating how the data will be stored and used. I say that Parking Eye have failed to clearly inform drivers about the cameras and how the data will be used and stored. . I have also seen no evidence that they have complied with the other requirements in that section of the code in terms of ANPR logs and maintenance and I put this Operator to strict proof of full ANPR compliance.
In addition I question the entire reliability of the system. I require that ParkingEye present records as to the dates and times of when the cameras at this car park were checked, adjusted, calibrated, synchronised with the timer which stamps the photos and generally maintained to ensure the accuracy of the dates and times of any ANPR images. This is important because the entirety of the charge is founded on two images purporting to show my vehicle entering and exiting at specific times. It is vital that this Operator must produce evidence in response and explain to POPLA how their system differs (if at all) from the flawed ANPR system which was wholly responsible for the court loss recently in ParkingEye v Fox-Jones on 8 Nov 2013. That case was dismissed when the judge said the evidence from ParkingEye was fundamentally flawed because the synchronisation of the camera pictures with the timer had been called into question and the operator could not rebut the point.
So, in addition to showing their maintenance records, I require ParkingEye to show evidence to rebut the following assertion. I suggest that in the case of my vehicle being in this car park, a local camera took the image but a remote server added the time stamp. As the two are disconnected by the internet and do not have a common "time synchronisation system", there is no proof that the time stamp added is actually the exact time of the image. The operator appears to use WIFI which introduces a delay through buffering, so "live" is not really "live". Hence without a synchronised time stamp there is no evidence that the image is ever time stamped with an accurate time. As their whole charge rests upon two timed photos, I put ParkingEye to strict proof to refute all of my points about their flawed ANPR records.
This concludes my POPLA appeal.
Yours faithfully,
0 -
Georginio - are you saying that the original parking event letter related to overstay and the rejection with popla code now cites a different ''offence''?
Have you checked the pcn no. matches the one in this rejection letter?
re: appeal critique. That can wait until you answer the above, but this needs mild edit, as shown:
This carpark uses Pay and Display and ParkingEye claim that no parking was purchased[which is it? this, or overstay? see point #2 but careful, because there you say ' the contravention was 'either/or' an overstay or failure to pay. '. Is this quoting parking lie's rejection letter? You are appealing the original parking event as given on the pcn. Did you pay anything?] The RK contacted the car park owner[did you determine that pe are not the landowner, for 1 and 3?] 1 hour's parking costs £1.20, so the only recoverable sum under the POFA 2012 is the sum of the alleged 'outstanding' parking charge = £1.20 at the most. [to say this suggests we are back to 'overstay'? What unpaid time do pe allege? Fewer than 60 mins, clearly. But I wouldn't quantify what pe 'can recover' The point of popla is to ensure they get nothing ]
' Parking Eye have not told me these details '(see point #2)- so why refer to them? Make clear whether the pcn was overstay, but this has changed in the rejection letter. Is that what you have quoted, with that 'either/or' pe need to make their minds up.
Did the RK pay anything?
#
5. I'd lose this. Await others' comments:
As keeper I cannot discount that this may have been a double visit (possibly even with two drivers since the car has more than one family member who drives it). Or the driver may have driven in, realised it was pay and display then driven out to get change before returning (and of course the ANPR cameras show only the first and last visits). The BPA even mention this as an inherent problem with ANPR on their website;
#
Avoid using I/me/myself. Use 3rd person/ the Registered Keeper.
Expert help will be along soon.CAP[UK]for FREE EXPERT DEBT &BUDGET HELP:
01274 760721, freephone0800 328 0006'People don't want much. They want: "Someone to love, somewhere to live, somewhere to work and something to hope for."
Norman Kirk, NZLP- Prime Minister, 1972
***JE SUIS CHARLIE***
'It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere' François-Marie AROUET
0 -
PE alleges no parking was purchased. They have been consistent in this. Any confusion is down to my poor attempt at rewriting the letter. The photos in the original NTK show the car entering and leaving in under an hour.
The letter template I copied was for an overstay in a pay and display with PE, but it seemed the closest I could find to my circumstance and I figured I could change it. I just haven't gone far enough, but I'm clearly stumbling with the wording.
The original PCN stated "By either not purchasing the appropriate parking time or by remaining at the car park for longer than permitted". This was then refined to "no parking was purchased" on the rejection letter. Should I only be referring to what the original PCN states?
PE are not the landowner, and I have established who is. I completely see what you are saying about not wanting to quantify what can be recovered, I just thought I was trying to make it clear how disproportionate the charge is.
Nobody has paid anything.0 -
Don't know much regarding parking fines but thought I would share this link to some developing news.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/drivers-may-reclaim-millions-in-unfair-parking-fines-9746466.html0 -
Apologies for my last (rubbish) attempt at this. I think this is much better. Again any critique would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for wasting peoples time with the last.
Re: ParkingEye PCN, reference code xxxxxxxxxx
POPLA Code:
I am the registered keeper and I wish to appeal a recent parking charge from ParkingEye. I submit the points below to show that I am not liable for the parking charge:
1) No genuine pre-estimate of loss
2) The Notice to Keeper is not compliant with the POFA 2012 - no keeper liability
3) No standing or authority to pursue charges nor form contracts with drivers
4) The signage was not readable so there was no valid contract formed
1) No genuine pre-estimate of loss
The demand for a payment of £90 is punitive, unreasonable, exceeds an appropriate amount, and has no relationship to any loss that could possibly have been suffered by the Landowner or the Operator. ParkingEye must therefore be required to explain their 'charge' by providing POPLA with a detailed financial appraisal which evidences the genuine pre-estimated amount of loss in this particular car park for this alleged contravention. However, with or without any 'breach', the cost of parking enforcement would still have been the same and there was no loss or damage caused so ParkingEye have no cause of action to pursue this charge. I specified in my original appeal that I would like to see a breakdown of the costs incurred by ParkingEye as a result of the alleged breach. ParkingEye have failed to provide this information, stating that the charge is in line with BPA guidelines and therefore “deemed reasonable”. This reply completely fails to demonstrate that the whole charge is a genuine pre-estimate of loss. The fact that the recommended maximum level in section 19.5 (“we would not expect this amount to be more than £100”) has not been exceeded merely means that the operator does not have to justify the amount in advance. In no way does it absolve the operator of their responsibility to base the figure on a genuine pre-estimate of loss, or to comply with section 19.6 which states that the charge can “cannot be punitive or unreasonable”. I put it to ParkingEye to prove that a loss has occurred at the time that this charge was levied and ParkingEye submit a breakdown of how this sum was calculated prior to the parking event, as being capable of directly flowing from a minor alleged breach, such that the charge is a genuine pre-estimate of loss.
If ParkingEye claim that the charge is 'commercially justified' and cite 'ParkingEye v Beavis & Wardley', I put forth that such a claim is irrelevant since Mr Beavis is taking that flawed small claim decision to the Court of Appeal, just as HHJ Moloney fully expected at the time he made his decision, which was full of caveats and full of holes and a distinct lack of case law. In addition, POPLA Assessor Chris Adamson has stated in June 2014 upon seeing VCS' latest effort at a loss statement - their latest attempt to get around POPLA that:
''I am not minded to accept that the charge in this case is commercially justified. In each case that I have seen from the higher courts, including those presented here by the Operator, it is made clear that a charge cannot be commercially justified where the dominant purpose of the charge is to deter the other party from breach. This is most clearly stated in Lordsvale Finance Plc v Bank of Zambia [1996] QB 752, quoted approvingly at paragraph 15 in Cine Bes Filmcilik Ve Yapimcilik & Anor v United International Pictures & Ors [2003] EWHC Civ 1669 when Coleman J states a clause should not be struck down as a penalty, “if the increase could in the circumstances be explained as commercially justifiable, provided always that its dominant purpose was not to deter the other party from breach”.
This supports the principle that the aim of damages is to be compensatory, beginning with the idea that the aim is to put the parties in the position they would have been in had the contract been performed. It also seems that courts have been unwilling to allow clauses designed to deter breach as this undermines the binding nature of the initial promise made. Whilst the courts have reasonably moved away from a strict interpretation of what constitutes a genuine pre-estimate of loss, recognising that in complex commercial situations an accurate pre-estimate will not always be possible, nevertheless it remains that a charge for damages must be compensatory in nature rather than punitive.''
My case is the same and Parking Eye’s contract with the Watergate Bay hotel is nothing like ParkingEye's contract in the Beavis case anyway, where Parking Eye paid £1000 per week for what was in effect a 'fishing licence' to catch victims and where the Operator made out they were the principal. In my case, ParkingEye are“operators”who put up signage and 'issue tickets'. The front of house manager from the hotel has confirmed to me in writing that Parking Eye have been“operating”the car park on their behalf. Despite my request for a copy of the contract between Parking Eye and the landowner in my appeal to Parking Eye, nothing has been forthcoming. Of course money changing hands will affect any calculations of so-called 'loss' and is one of several reasons why I will require the landowner contract in full (unredacted) as per point #2.
2) The Notice to Keeper is not compliant with the POFA 2012 - no keeper liability
As this was a Pay/Display car park, the Notice to Keeper (NTK) has to set out the position clearly in terms of 'describing the parking charges due'. The NTK fails to state the amount of the parking charge which remains unpaid (i.e. the fee or tariff which allegedly remained unpaid, not the inflated sum which this Operator also calls a 'parking charge'). As keeper I can see from the limited information before me in the NTK, only that the car stayed for a certain amount of time and that the contravention was 'either/or' an overstay or failure to pay.
This does not create any certainty of terms, it leaves a keeper to wonder what the hourly rate tariff even was and whether the driver paid nothing, or paid too little, or paid only for half an hour or an hour, or paid in full but put in the wrong car registration, or some other event. As this operator has the technology to record car registrations, to collect and record payments and to take photos of cars arriving and leaving, they are certainly able - and indeed are required under the POFA - to state on the NTK the basic requirements to show a keeper how the 'parking charge' arose.
These are the omissions:
''9(2)The notice must—
(b)inform the keeper that the driver is required to pay parking charges in respect of the specified period of parking and that the parking charges have not been paid in full;
(c)describe the parking charges due from the driver as at the end of that period, the circumstances in which the requirement to pay them arose (including the means by which the requirement was brought to the attention of drivers) and the other facts that made them payable;
(d)specify the total amount of those parking charges that are unpaid...'
This so-called outstanding 'payment' is not quantified at all - I have had to guess what it might have been, by contacting the landowner to find out the tariff and then had to interrogate the driver to find out more detail!
POPLA Assessor Matthew Shaw has stated that the validity of a NTK is fundamental to establishing liability for a parking charge. ''Where a Notice is to be relied upon to establish liability ... it must, as with any statutory provision, comply with the Act.'' As the Notice was not compliant with the Act due to the omissionsof statutory wording, it was not properly given and so there is no keeper liability.
3) No standing or authority to pursue charges nor form contracts with drivers
ParkingEye have no proprietary interest in the land concerned and have not responded to a request for a copy of the contract with the landowner in which authority to pursue outstanding parking charges is set out in section 7.2 paragraph (f): “whether or not the landowner authorises you to take legal action to recover charges from drives charged for unauthorised parking” has not been addressed. In the absence of this evidence, I believe that ParkingEye do not have the legal capacity to enforce such a charge.
I require the unredacted landowner contract including any payments made between the parties, names & dates & details of all terms included. The front of house manager from the hotel has confirmed to me in writing that ParkingEye are merely an employed site agent and this is nothing more than a commercial agreement between the two parties. There is nothing that could enable ParkingEye to impact upon visiting drivers in their own right, for their own profit. For the avoidance of doubt, I will not accept a mere “witness statement” or site agreements instead of the relevant contract, as these do not show sufficient detail (such as the restrictions, charges and revenue sharing arrangements agreed with a landowner) and may well be signed by a non-landholder such as another agent.. There would be no proof that the alleged signatory can act on behalf of the landowner or has ever seen the relevant contract. Also a letter or statement would fail to show any payments made between the parties, and would omit dates & details of all terms in the actual contract - and so would fail to rebut my appeal point about the Operator's lack of standing & assignment of any rights.
4) The signage was not readable so there was no valid contract formed between ParkingEye and the driver
The only signs are up on poles (away from the Pay & Display machine, which is not a 'sign' nor does it communicate full contractual terms & conditions). Any upright signs were not so prominent among all the other signage on site that they were ever seen by the occupants of the car. I believe that ParkingEye place their signs so high that terms would only be legible if a driver got out of a car and climbed a stepladder, holding a torch, to try to read them. Any photos supplied by ParkingEye to POPLA will no doubt show the signs in bright sunlight or with the misleading aid of a close up camera and the angle may well not show how high the sign is nor the fact the ParkingEye signs are one of many pieces of information in the clutter of this busy car park. As such, I require ParkingEye to state the height of each sign in their response and to show contemporaneous photo evidence of these signs, taken at the same time of day without photoshopping or cropping and showing where the signs are placed among a myriad of other information bombarding a customer. I requested this photographic evidence in the initial appeal to ParkingEye and was ignored.
Unreadable signage breaches Appendix B of the BPA Code of Practice which states that terms on entrance signs must be clearly readable without a driver having to turn away from the road ahead. A Notice is not imported into the contract unless brought home so prominently that the party 'must' have known of it and agreed terms beforehand. Nothing about this Operator's onerous inflated 'parking charges' was sufficiently prominent and it is clear that the requirements for forming a contract (i.e. consideration flowing between the two parties, offer, acceptance and fairness and transparency of terms offered in good faith) were not satisfied.
This concludes my POPLA appeal.
Yours faithfully,
0
This discussion has been closed.
Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply
Categories
- All Categories
- 352.4K Banking & Borrowing
- 253.7K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
- 454.4K Spending & Discounts
- 245.4K Work, Benefits & Business
- 601.2K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
- 177.6K Life & Family
- 259.2K Travel & Transport
- 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
- 16K Discuss & Feedback
- 37.7K Read-Only Boards

