Planning appeals following the Beavis Case

Mike172

So if PE win tomorrow (I know verdicts not due till March???) where does that leave the whole POPLA GPEOL thing? UKCPM dont bother fighting POPLA appeals from this forum but I suspect they will if PE win I mean how easy would it be to turn round and say well actually.... it is a GPEOL see this case. How would we appeal then?


If PE lose and the industry gets shaken up (I dont know if it actually will..... something tells me itll get brushed under the carpet, or ignored) and by chance law is passed to permit firms to operate fairly and on the level of say the council, and they do operate fairly, how would we appeal then?


Private parking ticke.... I mean invoices are about to go from something easy to beast at POPLA using the forum advice to something thats about to be impossible to beat without genuine reasons, possibly mitigating circumstances, which ever way the case goes tomorrow. Providing the industry does change and get shaken up. Something will surely have to happen as a result of this case.

Technics

It depends. Some PPC's still use breach of contract as the basis for their charges. A win for PE probably wouldn't mean a lot in that case as a loss must be either actual or a GPEOL because they are recovering a loss.

For PPC's using contractual charges a win for PE will make their life easier. They won't need to justify the charges as being a loss. They will still need to prove they are commercially justified. Which is rather vague. There are still other issues with the contracts that could also make them hard to enforce. It would be a bit like a legal version of Three-card Montey where it's fine to shake you down because you've received entertainment value and nobody guaranteed they would play fair.

I suspect a win for PE would see an end to anyone using breach of contract to peruse motorists. However, it does seem to fly in the face of the intention of PoFA where the intention was to allow landowners to recover losses. A win allows them to create "losses" to recover as they please.

bazster

I suspect whoever wins it's heading for the Supreme Court so it'll probably drag on for another year.

salmosalaris

Technics wrote: »

It depends. Some PPC's still use breach of contract as the basis for their charges. A win for PE probably wouldn't mean a lot in that case as a loss must be either actual or a GPEOL because they are recovering a loss.

For PPC's using contractual charges a win for PE will make their life easier. They won't need to justify the charges as being a loss. They will still need to prove they are commercially justified. Which is rather vague. There are still other issues with the contracts that could also make them hard to enforce. It would be a bit like a legal version of Three-card Montey where it's fine to shake you down because you've received entertainment value and nobody guaranteed they would play fair.

I suspect a win for PE would see an end to anyone using breach of contract to peruse motorists. However, it does seem to fly in the face of the intention of PoFA where the intention was to allow landowners to recover losses. A win allows them to create "losses" to recover as they please.

Au contraire , a win for PE will mean they all probably stick to breach because they will have a precedent setting judgment from the CoA allowing them to recover a charge for breach of contract that was designed to deter that breach
As for POPLA , GPEOL would be dead in the water so PE will re-enter the ring

Cygnus_Alpha

Let's not forget, GPEOL is not the only defence. Poor signage - a hallmark of PE - is still a possible defence.

The irony is, the more successful PE is at catching people out, the more difficult it will be for them to make money as people will avoid their car parks.

salmosalaris

And it will be interesting to see how POPLA handle whether there is commercial justification for a charge of £100 when there is an actual loss of P&D revenue of 10p or failure to enter a reg no correctly for example .

Mike172

I hope the regulars will pull something off because without their help I know Ill be screwed.

TDA

Technics wrote: »

It depends. Some PPC's still use breach of contract as the basis for their charges. A win for PE probably wouldn't mean a lot in that case as a loss must be either actual or a GPEOL because they are recovering a loss.

Think you've got the wrong end of the stick on this one I'm afraid. The case tomorrow will be looking at whether de facto penalties for breach of contract can be commercially justified or not. If PE win then for every parking case, provided the material facts are the same, there will be no genuine pre-estimate of loss argument.

hoohoo

TDA wrote: »

Think you've got the wrong end of the stick on this one I'm afraid. The case tomorrow will be looking at whether de facto penalties for breach of contract can be commercially justified or not. If PE win then for every parking case, provided the material facts are the same, there will be no genuine pre-estimate of loss argument.

The material facts are the same for at most 44 car parks run by PE,

Their cost of sales is £2.3 million. So if all of that was payments of £1,000 a week they could fund 44 car parks.

TDA

hoohoo wrote: »

The material facts are the same for at most 44 car parks run by PE,

Their cost of sales is £2.3 million. So if all of that was payments of £1,000 a week they could fund 44 car parks.

The payment of £1,000 a week that PE make to the landowner did not appear to factor into the judges reasoning regarding the charges being commercially justified in any way. It was only discussed briefly regarding the principal v agent debate, the judge gave other reasons for his belief that the charges were commercially justified none of which were to do with the £1,000 payments. Read the judgment. I'm not sure how many more times this can be said...

Castle

hoohoo wrote: »

The material facts are the same for at most 44 car parks run by PE,

Their cost of sales is £2.3 million. So if all of that was payments of £1,000 a week they could fund 44 car parks.

About £2.1million of the £2.3m is the depreciation charge on the "Servers and camera equipment", which leaves only about £250k for the car park rentals.