Parking Eye Reply - They say we can't win - Please Help

Herzlos

It's maybe worth including as an appendix to an IAS appeal.

14wrence

Hi Guys, Thanks again for all your help.

I have this reply ready to go. I must admit, I don't really know if I can use point 3. (Failure to invoke keeper liability) - please coudl someone let meknow if this does not apply at all to my case and I need to take out.

Many thanks again. Here it is:

As the registered keeper, I appeal on the following grounds:
1. The charge is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss.
2. No standing/authority to form contracts with motorists
3. Failure to invoke Keeper Liability under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (the POFA).
4. Unclear and non-compliant signage created no contract with the driver.
5. The ANPR records are unreliable, non-compliant and not proof of one parking event.

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1. The charge is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss.
This car park is a free shopping car park limited to 1 hours parking. It is alleged the driver overstayed in this car park. The adjoining shop was closed and the car park was empty as a result, therefore there can be no loss of a result of this parking event.
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, 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 ParkingEye Notice to Keeper alleges 'breach of terms/failure to comply' and as such, the landowner/occupier (not their agent) can only pursue liquidated damages directly flowing from the parking event. This might be, for example, a reasonable sum based purely upon the alleged lost parking revenue, or even loss of retail revenue at a shopping centre if another car was prevented from parking. However, this is not the case because the occupants of the car recall that the car park was almost empty on arrival and when the driver left.
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. Given that ParkingEye charge the same lump sum for a 30 minute overstay as they would for 3 hours, and the same fixed charge applies to any alleged contravention (whether serious/damaging or trifling), it is clear there has been no regard paid to establishing that this charge is a genuine pre-estimate of loss caused by this incident in this car park.

The DfT Guidance and the BPA Code of Practice require that a parking charge for an alleged breach must be an estimate of losses flowing from the incident. ParkingEye cannot change this requirement so they have no option but to show POPLA their genuine pre-estimate of loss for this charge, not some subsequently penned 'commercial justification' statement they may have devised afterwards (since this would not be a pre-estimate):

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.''

Neither is this charge 'commercially justified'. In answer to that proposition from a PPC which had got over-excited about the ParkingEye v Beavis small claims decision (now being taken to the Court of Appeal by Mr Beavis anyway) 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. No standing/authority to form contracts with motorists
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. I contend that they merely hold a bare licence to supply and maintain (non compliant) signs and to post out 'tickets' as a deterrent. Authority to merely 'issue tickets' is not the same authority as a right to form contracts in their own right, with visiting drivers. As a commercial site agent acting under an agency agreement 'on behalf of' the a principal, ParkingEye has negative responsibility and no automatic standing nor authority in their own right which would meet the strict requirements of section 7 of the BPA CoP.

I put ParkingEye to strict proof to provide an unredacted, contemporaneous copy of the contract which - to demonstrate standing and authority - must specifically state that ParkingEye can make contracts with drivers themselves and that they have full authority to pursue charges in court in their own name. A witness statement to the effect that a contract is in place will not be sufficient because it will not show which restrictions are to be enforced, what the times/dates/details of enforcement are. How will I know that the landholder contract allows ParkingEye to charge £100 for this particular contravention if the contract is not produced? Showing a piece of paper signed by someone who has never seen the actual contract, saying merely that ParkingEye can put up signs and 'issue parking charges' would not prove that they can form contracts with drivers nor show that they can charge this amount for this contravention.

3. Failure to invoke Keeper Liability under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (the POFA).
In order to pursue Keeper Liability under the POFA, ParkingEye must have met the strict conditions in the Act. However, they have failed to fulfil the requirements of the “Notice to Keeper” (‘NtK’) as per para. 9 Sch 4 of the Act which reads in part:

“(1) A notice which is to be relied on as a notice to keeper for the purposes of paragraph 6(1)(b) is given in accordance with this paragraph if the following requirements are met.
(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;
(e) state that the creditor does not know both the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver and invite the keeper—
(i) to pay the unpaid parking charges; or
(ii) if the keeper was not the driver of the vehicle, to notify the creditor of the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver and to pass the notice on to the driver;
(f) warn the keeper that if, after the period of 28 days beginning with the day after that on which the notice is given—
(i) the amount of the unpaid parking charges specified under paragraph (d) has not been paid in full, and
(ii) the creditor does not know both the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver,
the creditor will (if all the applicable conditions under this Schedule are met) have the right to recover from the keeper so much of that amount as remains unpaid;
(h) identify the creditor and specify how and to whom payment or notification to the creditor may be made;
(4) The notice must be given by:
(b) sending it by post to a current address for service for the keeper so that it is delivered to that address within the relevant period.
(5) The relevant period for the purposes of sub-paragraph (4) is the period of 14 days beginning with the day after that on which the specified period of parking ended.
(6) A notice sent by post is to be presumed, unless the contrary is proved, to have been delivered (and so “given” for the purposes of sub-paragraph (4)) on the second working day after the day on which it is posted; and for this purpose “working day” means any day other than a Saturday, Sunday or a public holiday in England and Wales.”

The NTK fails due to the following reasons:
The following points (A)-(E) may be observed as flaws in this NTK, making this non-compliant under the POFA 2012:

(A) The 'period of parking' is not 'specified', only the times the car was seen in traffic on arrival and on the final time it left that day. There's no evidence of parking at all.
(B) It does not 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) It fails to describe any alleged unpaid parking charges “for the specified period of parking” (a period which was not specified). POFA requires that a NTK describes any 'outstanding' 'unpaid' charges which the driver owed as at a time not later than the DAY BEFORE the issue of the postal NTK. The sum for breach of contract cannot be described as ‘unpaid by the driver’ prior to the day the NTK was issued, because it only arises and could be described as 'unpaid', if at all, at/after the time of receipt of the NTK by the keeper. The inflated PCN amount now being pursued for 'breach' should not be confused with the sum intended by Schedule 4 of the POFA, just because it is also - coincidentally, perhaps - called a ‘parking charge’. The timelines are clearly stated in the Act and it is clear that the Act requires any unpaid tariff that the driver owed before the NTK was issued, to be stated - and that this is the only sum that can be pursued from a registered keeper.
(D) It does not identify the creditor, who could be the landowner, a retailer, a managing agent, or the Operator, or another party. The fact that an Operator's name is on a NTK as the payee, does not 'identify' them as the creditor because administrative functions such as sending notices and collecting monies can be carried out by other parties, such as agents and debt collectors who are never 'the creditor'. This Operator could simply be an administrator, a debt collector only - the creditor could be any other party if not specified here. Such basic detail cannot be assumed. The creditor has to be 'identified' with words to the effect that 'the creditor is...'.
(E) The NTK fails to show the arrangements for complaints and the geographical address of the client/landowner, since this Operator is an agent . This is a requirement for all consumer contracts since June 2014, in accordance with the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regs 2013 and also a breach of the POFA not to include full details of such arrangements for complaints.

The fact that some of this information may be able to be implied by a reader familiar with the legal context of parking does not mean that the NTK is compliant. A NTK is a fundamental document in establishing keeper liability. The requirements of Schedule 4 of POFA2012 as regards the wording in a compliant NTK are prescriptive, unequivocal and a matter of statute, not contract law. Any omission or failure to set out even some of the mandatory NTK wording means there is no 'keeper liability'.

In this case the driver has not been identified so the charge has no legal basis to be enforced against me.

4. Unclear and Non-compliant signage which created no contract with the driver, who did not see any signs.

The occupants of the car recall seeing no signs on entrance to the car park. The date and time of the alleged incident would also have meant there was no daylight, as the photo’s attached, which were sent by ParkingEye, clearly display; meaning that any signs in the car park may have been difficult to see and read.
Any photos supplied by ParkingEye to POPLA will no doubt show the signs in daylight or with the misleading aid of a close up camera & flash and the angle may well not show how high the signs are. As such, I require ParkingEye to state the height of each sign in their response and to show contemporaneous photo evidence of these signs in the dark without the aid of flash photography. 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. This would include the signs being lit - and it can be seen from ParkingEye's own photos of an isolated numberplate in the dark, that the entrance (where signs must be clear) was in fact pitch black. 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
Furthermore the policy states: 'All signing of roadside facilities and signing arrangements within sites must comply with the current Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions {TSRGD} and any other guidance as may be issued from time to time by the Department for Transport or the Highways Agency. Approval must be sought from the
Highways Agency’s signs specialist for the use of all non-prescribed signs.' I put ParkingEye to strict proof that the DFT/Highways Agency has granted special authorisation for their traffic signs (any signs relating to traffic) in this particular MSA to be exempt from this policy requirement. It will not be acceptable for ParkingEye to claim that these particular signs are in their own opinion not 'traffic signs' when these signs provide information to vehicle users in moving traffic, who may never leave their vehicles.
Failure to comply with Government policy would render the alleged contract unenforceable.
In any case, unless signs are seen and understood before parking, they are not imported into any contract. In a free car park, where the Operator does not own the land (the named principal being the only party capable of offering the spaces and other amenities in the facility), there is no possibility of a contract, since no consideration can flow between a driver and a site agent. No money/offer/promise/permit or any other tangible nor implied nor executory consideration was capable of being exchanged with ParkingEye in this case.
No reasonable person would have accepted such onerous parking terms and I contend the extortionate charge was not 'drawn to his attention in the most explicit way' (Lord Denning, Thornton v Shoe Lane Parking Ltd [1971] 2 QB 163, Court of Appeal). Lord Denning continued: 'The customer is bound by those terms as long as they are sufficiently brought to his notice beforehand, but not otherwise. In {ticket cases of former times} the issue...was regarded as an offer by the company. That theory was, of course, a fiction. No customer in a thousand ever read the conditions. In order to give sufficient notice, it would need to be printed in red ink with a red hand pointing to it - or something equally startling.'

5. ANPR records are unreliable and not proof of one parking event.
The charge is founded entirely on two photos of my vehicle entering/leaving the car park at specific times. I put ParkingEye to strict proof that their ANPR system is not fundamentally flawed because of known issues such as missing checks and maintenance of the timer/cameras and the possibility of two visits being recorded as one. The Operator's proof must show checks relating to my case/my vehicle, not vague statements about any maintenance checks carried out at other times.

The 'two visits recorded as one' problem is very common and is even mentioned on the BPA website as a known issue:
http://www.britishparking.co.uk/How-does-ANPR-work
The BPA says: ''As with all new technology, there are issues associated with its use:
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.''

Since I am merely the registered keeper, I have no evidence to discount the above possibilities. ParkingEye show no parking photographs so they cannot say for certain that the car was not involved in non-parking related activity - e.g. queuing or filling up with petrol or water, nor can they show the car did not leave the site and return. This could easily be a case of two visits, or if my vehicle was on site for the time shown, I suggest that it may well not have been 'parked' for more than 2 hours. There is a petrol station on site, as well as air and water, so I put ParkingEye to strict proof of actual parking for over two hours with no other petrol station-related activity. Even if the car first drove past the cameras and though the car park the driver may have decided to get petrol whilst the passengers were in the MSA facility and so 'parking' for over two hours would not have occurred. The Government rules require a full two hours free parking to allow a driver to rest. So I require ParkingEye to rebut these assertions.

I agree with the BPA that this ANPR technology has issues associated with its use. These also include (but are not limited to) synchronisation errors, buffering, faults with the timer, faults with one or other of the cameras, faults with the wireless signals and differences between the settings of the in/out clocks. The operator uses WIFI with an inherent delay through buffering, so "live" is not really "live". Hence without a synchronised time stamp there is no evidence that the image is ever accurate to the minute.

In addition, the BPA CoP contains the following in paragraph 21:
''You may use ANPR camera technology to manage, control and enforce parking in private car parks, as long as you do this in a reasonable, consistent and transparent manner. Your signs at the car park must tell drivers that you are using this technology and what you will use the data captured by ANPR cameras for.''
ParkingEye fail to operate the system in a 'reasonable, consistent and transparent manner'. They place signs far too high to see on arrival and these are not lit, so there is no opportunity for drivers in moving traffic at the entrance to be 'informed that this technology is in use and what the Operator will use the data captured by ANPR cameras for'. I contend that as well as being unreliable, this is a non-compliant ANPR system being merely a secret high-up spy camera - far from 'transparent' - unreasonably 'farming' the data from moving vehicles at the entrance & exit and neither 'managing, enforcing nor controlling parking' since the cameras are not concerned with any aspect of the actual parking spaces, nor any parking event at all.

Umkomaas

3. Failure to invoke Keeper Liability under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (the POFA).

Have you checked your NtK against all the points (A to E) you list here, or is this a copy and paste from another appeal?

PE have progressively sharpened up their NtKs to the point, I'd say, where they are more or less there.

(D) It does not identify the creditor,

PE were the first PPC to put this into their NtK once the forums started to raise it at POPLA almost 2 years ago - your inclusion of this point causes me to query the whole of your appeal point 3.

14wrence

Umkomaas wrote: »

Have you checked your NtK against all the points (A to E) you list here, or is this a copy and paste from another appeal?

PE have progressively sharpened up their NtKs to the point, I'd say, where they are more or less there.



PE were the first PPC to put this into their NtK once the forums started to raise it at POPLA almost 2 years ago - your inclusion of this point causes me to query the whole of your appeal point 3.

It is just a copy and paste. As I said, I think I should probably leave out as unsure about it at all. For info, I have put a pic of PE's PCN earlier in the thread.

Cygnus_Alpha

I won in court against PE on signage despite them telling me beforehand in mediation that they had won 100% of their cases since Beavis.

Basically they hid their sign behind a tree and why shouldn't they when thousands would just send them £60.

Signage is a key point. If the sign was not lit or placed in a position where you could not have read it them no contract has been entered into.

BenefitMaster

Cygnus_Alpha wrote: »

I won in court against PE on signage despite them telling me beforehand in mediation that they had won 100% of their cases since Beavis.

They Lied... I can personally name at least four cases they have lost since Beavis. Including Cargius.

Chickabiddybex

I got a Parking Eye ticket last year and they sent me the same letter - I still won on the grounds that it was not a pre-estimate of loss!

14wrence

Thanks for all the info guys.

As I may have said at the beginning of all this. The driver parked there twice on the trot. Unknowing that he could not while the shop was closed.

Anyway, first letter they sent - which I discussed earlier, and got a POPLA code, and have since sent off the POPLA appeal (shown earlier in the thread). However the second is a complete change of tact from PE.

They are now saying in their response, that as I have called the driver "the driver", it sounds like somebody else was driving the car. And that they now want to let them know who the driver was. And if car was stolen they want a crime number as further evidence. until then, they are putting this charge on hold for 14 days.

Are they trying to trick me into telling them the driver. I thought it was none of their business.

Captain_Krunch

Yes, they are trying to trick you. You have made an appeal. You are under no obligation to name the driver so wait for them to send you a popla code. After 14 days they must send you the code.

vrbarreto

The !!!!!!!s will also not be mentioning that the only reason the court case was ruled in their favour was that the judges deemed that it was proportionate (how on Earth?) as the establishment needed the rules to be adhered to to ensure a churn of customers... If the establishment is shut then there is no churn and therefore the specific case that they won on has nothing to do with you... They're trying it on.. as per usual. Popla them and cost them £27