Settlement offer to F1rst Parking

R9Green

"Reasons for the Assessor’s Determination

On 6 May 2015 the Appellant’s vehicle was parked at the University of Essex. A parking charge notice was issued on the ground that no valid ticket or permit was displayed.

The Appellant has raised a number of grounds of appeal, including whether the Operator has established that the Appellant is liable for the parking charge as the registered keeper of the vehicle in question, according to Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.

Liability for parking charges lies primarily with the driver; however, Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 provides that, in certain circumstances, the registered keeper of a vehicle may be held liable for parking charges incurred by the driver of the vehicle.

In order for the Operator to be able to recover unpaid charges from the registered keeper, four conditions must be met.

The second of these conditions is that: either a notice to driver in accordance with paragraph 7 of the schedule, followed by a notice to keeper in accordance with paragraph 8 is given; or, a notice to keeper in accordance with paragraph 9 is given.

These paragraphs set out the content each Notice is required to include. As liability is statutory, it is for the Operator to prove that all of the relevant content was included in the Notices.

Although the Operator has produced a computer-based record of the information relating to this parking charge, and a blank copy of its standard notice to keeper, the Operator has not produced copies of any of the notices issued to the Appellant. As such, I am not satisfied that any compliant notices were issued and therefore am not satisfied that the Appellant is liable for the parking charge as the registered keeper of the vehicle in question, according to Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.

As the Operator has also not shown that the Appellant was the driver of the vehicle, I must therefore allow the appeal."

Umkomaas

Great stuff! Having fully compliant NtKs and associated procedures is something rarely achieved by PPCs.

PoFA 2012 is THE LAW and PPCs can't conveniently side-step the precise requirements or claim 'misunderstanding' or 'administrative error' and still hold the RK liable. They might get away with some of these with signage, or planning consent for ANPR cameras, but not in relation to PoFA.

Over the past couple of years GPEOL has been such a slam dunk win that PoFA issues have been relegated down the appeal paragraphs' list, but with the Beavis case yet to be finally resolved, PoFA takes on a greater importance in winning POPLA appeals (although we now need to see how the Ombudsman Service will deal with things in the future).

But to win via PoFA non-compliance it is even more important that the RK never reveals who might have been the driver in any correspondence or telephone conversations (not that we advise ever phoning a PPC or debt collector).