Appeal rejected!

itzillution

Hi,

I was issued a private parking notice a few weeks ago for parking in a 'Patients Short Stay' parking area after their operational hours. I had stopped there to help out a friend of mine who is a patient who require assistance for walking after his recent knee surgery to get to his flat(he actually stays in the same apartment complex where this alleged surgery parking is). The car not even left unattended, I had my partner near the car while I was helping my friend to walk upto his flat who tried explaining the situation to the parking warden but he chose to ignore her and issued the parking notice and asked her to appeal with evidence.She could not move the car from there as she was not insured to drive the car, I did come back to the car within couple of minutes and but thr warden had left the property by then and I drive off from the property. I did appeal to the CPM stating all these facts and evidences of my friend's medical condition etc. but today I received a refusal letter from them where they have not even considered my mitigating grounds.They just said that there were clear signs and I had breached the contract and under any circumstances I should not have parked there after their operational hours which I found very unfair.

I have already appealed to POPLA stating all these facts and highlighting the fact that CPM has not even considered the mitigating circumstances.But I read in forums that popa don't normally give successful verditcs on mitigating circumstances, so I am expecting a negative outcome. Can you experts advise on what I can do once POPLA reject the appeal please? The CPm letter says that if I appeal to POPLA I would lose the discount and end up paying £100 instead of discounted £60 penalty.

Should I just pay that £60, assuming POPLA will reject the mitigating circumstances, or should I just ignore this rude, unfair ticket? If I ignore, what happens next? Please advise.

Thank you,
AP

itzillution

My appeal letter:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Ref: Appeal against Parking Charge Notice Ref.No. **** VehicleReg: ****
Date: **.09.2015

I want to hereby appeal against your parking charge notice Ref. *** dated 05.09.2015 on the following grounds. Please respond to each individual point that I state below.

1. First and most importantly, I want to state that the reason for me to park in the alleged Patients short stay parking area was on migrating circumstances to assist a patient to get to the lift and to his flat. I had to park the car for a short duration to help my friend living in **** Flat #***who is unable to walk by his own without assistance after his ‘Right knee ACL and partial menisectomy surgery. Please find the attached documents HHFT Discharge Summary – Patient’s Copy and the Orthopaedic Appointment letter attached herewith to prove his medical condition since the surgery last month and also proves his residential status at **** Flat #****. The surgery was performed on *** 2015 but since it is a major operation, he is not allowed to walk on his own without support for at least 8 weeks or until the Doctor certifies that he is safe to do so. As an after care to the surgery, the patient does have to attend regular massage sessions to his knee and on this given day, I was helping the patient to return from a private massage session, I had also picked him up from the same area earlier in the day. As it appears to be the case, the pain increases after these physical sessions which meant he could not walk fast enough for me to return to the car quickly enough in which case I would not have been charged for this offense.
2. Yes, we could have parked the car in his allocated parking bay but there was another car parked there at the time of this incident which prevented us from parking there and hence this short term patients parking area was the next nearest possible parking area where we could park the car to help him to his flat with minimum walk.
3. I would also like to invite your attention to another most important fact here that the car was not left completely unattended at the time of this event. My partner was at the scene when this happened but unfortunately, she was away from the car for few minutes to open the door for us and to get the lift. She opened the door for us and got us the list and returned to the car to see the parking charge notice being issued. She did try explaining the situation but was advised to appeal explaining the circumstances and evidences as the ticket was already issued. In this circumstance, you can’t even say we had really parked our car there, it was more like stopping the car there to help a patient get home.
4. If you have the CCTV cameras to take evidence from, you can even see that we had driven out from the parking at 23:20hrs which was just couple of minutes after the Parking Charge Notice was issued which proves my above mentioned points and that we were not away from the car for a longer to call it a proper parking offence.
5. Also, it cannot even be termed as a trespass as it is the building where my friend stays and I was only accompanying his at the time of this incident, please see the attached documents which will prove his residential status at Crown Heights. There were, for example, unoccupied places available for others to park so my presence did not prevent the parking of other cars. Even if you call it as a contractual breach to argument-sake, it can have caused no financial, functional or operational loss whatever to you or to the land owner at that time of the night. If you believe I have committed a trespass or contributed to substantial loss, please include the evidence in your response.
6. I did see the patients short stay parking notice there but did not realise that there will be a time restriction at that time of the night considering that I was only stopping there for only few minutes. Having since re-visited the site and researched the rules I now understand why the signage was not clear to me at the time of my visit, clearly my priority at that time was to help the patient to get home with minimum discomfort, rather than going through the parking restriction conditions.

Considering the humanitarian circumstances and facts mentioned above, I hope you would agree with the fact that I acted on the best interests of a patient and took the best possible option available to me at that time. Considering that, may I request you to review the parking charge notice Ref.No. **** on the grounds of migrating circumstances. And based on the given unavoidable circumstances and evidences, I request you to cancel the Parking Charge Notice issued against me and confirm the same at the earliest.

If you require any further evidence or need to talk to me or to the patient, please do feel free to revert back to me either on my residential address, or on mobile or email address given below.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully,

Name-Address

Herzlos

The odds are nothing will happen beyond some debt collector threat letters.

If it were to go any further then you'd need to write a stronger defense using legal points (i.e. 2 is a case of "frustration of contract"; you were unable to park in the given bay because there was a car in it) rather than relying on mitigation.

Unfortunately as you've named yourself as driver you've made it a bit harder (you get some additional defense points as keeper).

Mike172

lol.

What did you expect this upstanding business definitely not concerned with its own greedy pockets to do, allow your appeal? Private parking firms are scammers.

Appeal to POPLA, cant believe you are even thinking of paying.

Unfortunately I cant confidently say Ombudsman are any good. London councils who managed POPLA up until a few weeks ago were very good and I made a habbit of baiting them into giving me tickets for a laugh because appealing was so easy. I don't trust Ombudsman who are now running POPLA.

Lucky for you UKCPM (Assuming thats who CPM are...) don't make a habbit of defending themselves at POPLA so youll probably win on those grounds. I don't believe they ever made any attempt with my 18 successful appeals , most were allowed based on 'operator did not submit evidence'. I had 2-3 which were overturned on signage but still I do not believe they put up a fight.

Youll find a template somewhere in my threads for a POPLA appeal if needed. You can appeal by post I believe, my appeal exceeds the character limit for online appeals.

If POPLA does fail UKCPM don't really do court. Sure they did 15 court cases last year and they were all for multiple unpaid tickets. They don't appeal to chase for unpaid single tickets.... They have 6 years to pursue you though.

itzillution

Thank you for your insight, in my case there were signs of short stay parking where I had parked, but I didn't really notice a time restriction in there. Or I did not bother checking as I was thinking that, I was not parking there coz my partner was standing next to the car until I came back after dropping my friend at his flat, my bad! But in the appeal rejection letter, they had given me the photographic evidence of the signs, so they do have proof in this instance(i have not denied it in my appeal anyway as I wanted to be honest). Do you think POPLA would still be able to help me on migrating circumstances? Or will they accept my argument that issuing the notice was rude while there was someone in the car at that time?

Umkomaas

Do you think POPLA would still be able to help me on migrating circumstances? Or will they accept my argument that issuing the notice was rude while there was someone in the car at that time?

Neither! They will only deal with legal and technical argument.

The place to challenge on mitigating/compassionate grounds is with the hospital trust you were visiting. Have you contacted PALS (Patient Advisory and Liaison Service) at the hospital? They should be your advocates there.

Mike172

I would just submit an appeal tbh..... Youre making a huge meal out of it. Neither the PPC nor POPLA care about how many seconds you were there for or if you did not see the signs, or if you were just dropping someone off, or if you ate wheetabix for breakfast.

This isn't as complicated as you think. I !!!! myself first time I got a ticket too so I remember what it is like but eventually you realise just what these PPCs are - scammers. What goes on in the industry is frankly disgraceful and I am surprised things are still happening.

If London Councils were still dealing with POPLA Id just tell you to send the appeal off in my threads. Because it really was that simple.

I just don't trust Ombudsman.... I've one appeal with them currently and I am on the fence as to whether or not they will turn out to be like IAS are... Once they rule in my favor Ill be back into the game of baiting them.

POPLA will not rule on mitigating circumstances, they never did. And the PPC's always decline your appeals - they want your money.

Just appeal to POPLA using a template. I said UKCPM dont fight and I meant it. You will probably win based on the fact they submit no evidence. If they do and you loose because Ombudsman turn out to be like the IAS then you are in the same boat as myself and many others.

Dont pay.

itzillution

Operator NameUK Car Park Management
Operator Case Summary
The appellant has parked within clear view of our sign - IMAGE 1. The probability of the appellant not being aware of the parking restrictions is merely impossible. The large green sign above the vehicle clearly states "Patients Short Term Stay" The appellant has not disputed the signage or stated that they didnt know or see the restrictions. The appellant was parked within this space on Saturday 05-09-2015 at 23:18:28. The signage clearly states "7pm-11pm - Mon - Sat 30 Min Max Stay (No Return 1 Hour)" This is a clear breach of the parking restrictions. Signage is clearly displayed thoroughout the car park - See CROWN HEIGHTS . The appellant states that they were not there long and the vehicle was not completely unattended, regardless of this, the vehicle was stationary which is deemed as parked. The driver was not in the vehicle at the time of the contravention as shown in the photograhic evidence taken. I appreciate that the appellant was taking a friend that had walking difficults however the parking restrictions were breached and the parking charge notice was issued correctly, by parking at the restricted area, the appellant has contractually agreed to pay the parking charge notice and therefore is liable for the PCN.


So what next for me? What comment can I submit as a reply to this in POPLA before they give their verdict, which will be negative most likely I can't see their photographs in POPLA although they mentions about it in their response but it was there in their appeal rejection letter which they sent me earlier. The area where I parked was a bit dark making it difficult to read their T&Cs, and you can see that it is a bit dark where I parked the car in the photographs they attached in their appeal rejection letter too, do I need to make that clear in my response in the POPLA portal? Now if I have to pay, I would have to pay £100 instead of £60 since CPM took 20 days to respond to POPLA, thus I missed the 14 day discount period, can I ask them to be allowed to pay that discounted rate?

I am so confused on what to do...pls advice...


Thanks...

O

bod1467

There is no generic POPLA appeal (template) on this site ... there never has been. The template is for the first appeal (which OP has already done and received the noted reply).

Check out the POPLA decisions thread, and maybe PM Mike172 for a copy of his POPLA appeal ... I believe he's had several run ins with this same company.

Guys_Dad

My appeal point would be based on their rejection
"The appellant was parked within this space on Saturday 05-09-2015 at 23:18:28. The signage clearly states "7pm-11pm - Mon - Sat 30 Min Max Stay (No Return 1 Hour)" This is a clear breach of the parking restrictions. Signage is clearly displayed thoroughout the car park - See CROWN HEIGHTS . "

You were parked outside the time limits on the sign.

End of. Or am I missing something???

You don't need any other points - their rejection clears you.

itzillution

Guys_Dad wrote: »

My appeal point would be based on their rejection
"The appellant was parked within this space on Saturday 05-09-2015 at 23:18:28. The signage clearly states "7pm-11pm - Mon - Sat 30 Min Max Stay (No Return 1 Hour)" This is a clear breach of the parking restrictions. Signage is clearly displayed thoroughout the car park - See CROWN HEIGHTS . "

You were parked outside the time limits on the sign.

End of. Or am I missing something???

You don't need any other points - their rejection clears you.

I was appealing based on 2 points:
1. Car was not unattended, I had my partner next to the car while I was assisting my patient friend to get home.
2. As stated in their reply, there was a big green sign at the entrance of the parking bay which said 'Patient's short stay' and nothing else(no time restriction or anything) and I hence I assumed it was OK to stop for 5 minutes there.
3. As they said in their reply, there was another small signage on the adjascent pillar which was not easily noticeable, which had the time restrictions hidden behind the other T&Cs. The car park was a bit dark and hence that small signage was not clearly visible and also, I did not pay attention to other signs as I saw no restrictions or T&Cs in the big green sign stating 'Patient's short term stay'.
4. Shouldn't that green signage state further time restrictions or references to another sign on it? One could easily get confused with that and ignore the other signs with restrictions as they are on the adjacent pillar, and are small in size.

Well, not sure if they are good enough for a case...