Secure-A-Space, 5 PCN's in 17 days in allocated parking space.

Umkomaas

Can you confirm whether, for the appeal(s) you are about to submit to POPLA, you have received a formal 'Notice to Keeper' through the post from SaS?

I've not read back through the thread in detail, but in a quick glance over it I didn't spot any mention - but it was only a quick skim!

Then we can take the 'no NtK' appeal point from there.

BiscuitMuncher

Thanks for the quick reply @Umkomaas

Nothing received through the post

Umkomaas

BiscuitMuncher wrote: »

Thanks for the quick reply @Umkomaas

Nothing received through the post

Good! So no NtK served. I presume you've not revealed in any of your correspondence with SaS who the driver was.

Have a look at this POPLA appeal thread and see how it 'fits' your circumstances.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5378359

Come back after reading.

BiscuitMuncher

Here is my new draft based on the above example. Thanks for the link Umkomaas. (I had this bookmarked as part of my research as well amongst lots of others).

In my original email to SaS, before I found this forum and entered the murky world of PPC's and when I thought I was dealing with a company with integrity, my original email did mention the RK was also the driver/owner of the vehicle.

Draft:

Re: SaS, {PCN Reference}
POPLA Code: {POPLA Reference}

Dear POPLA Adjudicator,

As a law abiding citizen who always pays his way, I was extremely upset to hear of a £100 ‘parking charge notice’ displayed on the vehicle of which I am registered keeper for. The newly purchased vehicle in question was parked in its own residential car parking space. The space in which it was parked is for sole use of that vehicle.

How a £100 ‘fine’ can arise from a residents’ vehicle being parked in that same residents’ allocated parking space, without being unlawful, is beyond me.

I submit the points below to show that I am not liable for the parking charge:

1 The Notice to Keeper is not compliant with the POFA 2012 - no keeper liability
2 Vehicle issued the PCN is considered to be a genuine resident
3 Unreasonable and unfair terms – no contract agreed to pay £100. Inadequate signage
4 No genuine pre-estimate of loss
5 No standing or authority to pursue charges nor form contracts with drivers
6 No contract between driver and SaS

1. The Notice to Keeper is not compliant with the POFA 2012 - no keeper liability
To date I have not been issued a Notice to Keeper (NTK) by SaS. As a Notice to Driver was provided on the vehicle, an NTK is required to be issued no sooner than 28 days after, or no later than 56 days after the service of that notice. This stipulation is laid out in Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (PoFA).

The alleged infringement occurred on 27/11/2015 and from my understanding the NTK was required to reach me by 25/12/2015 (??? 28days??). As none of the mandatory information set out by Schedule 4 paragraphs 8 and 9 of the PoFA has been made available to me as Registered Keeper the conditions set out by paragraph 6 of Schedule 4 has not been complied with. Therefore there can be no keeper liability and as a result I request that SaS provide evidence to POPLA of who the driver was.

The keeper liability requirements of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 must be complied with, where the appellant is the registered keeper, as in this case. One of these requirements is the issue of a NTK compliant with certain provisions. This operator failed to serve any NTK at all. As there has been no admission as to who may have parked the car and no evidence of this person has been produced by the operator, it has been held by POPLA multiple times in 2015 that a parking charge with no NTK cannot be enforced against the registered keeper.

2. Vehicle issued the PCN is considered to be a genuine resident
With regards to the PCN, the vehicle in question belongs to a tenant of the building complex. If for example all of the ‘resident only’ spaces were occupied by valid residents, regardless of whether permits were displayed, SaS would still have incurred zero loss. When empty, these resident spaces cannot be re-offered in exchange for fees to those who have no association with the buildings, making the charges punitive.

The reason land owners employ parking companies are to stop non-residents abusing the car park in question. Genuine residents should not be deterred from using the parking spaces provided to their properties.

3. Unreasonable and unfair terms – no contract agreed to pay £100. Inadequate signage
In the rejection of appeal letter from Secure-A-Space Ltd. they state that “the vehicle parked without a valid permit in extremely close proximity to one of the numerous contractural agreement signs”. This is not true, the vehicle is 4.2 metres away from the nearest sign.

The sign is 600mm x 400mm, and the main “Contractual Agreement You are Parking in a 24 Hour Protected Parking Zone” is 56mm high. The blue lettering on a yellow background below the main warning is in two smaller sizes of fonts (17mm and 7mm high or 70% & 87.5% smaller respectively than the main warning font)

The smallest font is difficult to read from the location of the registered keeper’s parking bay. Only upon close inspection is the sign fully legible.

Unreadable signage breaches Appendix B of the British Parking Association’s (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.

4. No genuine pre-estimate of loss
The charge of £100 is punitive and unreasonable, contravening the BPA Code of Practice section 19. SaS 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 SaS have no cause of action to pursue this charge. 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 “cannot be punitive or unreasonable”.

SaS cannot include their operational tax-deductible business running costs - for example, costs of signage, staffing and dealing later with the appeals, or hefty write-off costs. This would not represent a loss resulting from a breach of the alleged parking contract and in any case I believe SaS are likely to be paid by their client - so any such payment income must be balanced within the breakdown SaS supply and must be shown in the contract, which leads me to appeal point 5 below.

5. 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, SaS must have assignment of rights from the landowner to pursue charges for breach in their own right, including at court level. 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 SaS to strict proof to provide POPLA and myself with an un-redacted, contemporaneous copy of the contract between SaS and the landowner, not just another agent or retailer or other non-landholder, because it will still not be clear that the landowner has authorised the necessary rights to SaS.

6. No contract between driver and SaS
As per the property lease signed and agreed to in 2015, there is no mention of SaS, or any other parking company or third party to manage the car park in question. There is no mention of requiring to display a permit to park in the space provided with the property. As per appeal point 5 above, the vehicle was parked while observing the requirements of the property lease therefore there is no contract between the keeper and SaS.

Clause 15 of the Assured Shorthold Tenancy agreement states:

15. Cars and Parking

15.1 To park a private vehicle only at the Premises.

15.2 To park in the car parking space, garage or driveway allocated to the Premises, if applicable.

15.3 To keep any garage, driveway or parking space free of oil and to pay for the removal and cleaning of any spillage caused by a vehicle of the Tenant, his family, contractors or visitors.

15.4 To remove all vehicles belonging to the tenant, his family or visitors at the end of the Tenancy.

15.5 Not to park any vehicle at the Premises that is not in road worthy condition and fully taxed.

This extract of the AST is attached with this PoPLA appeal.

The Tenancy Agreement makes no mention of the need for a parking permit being required or the need for a parking permit to be displayed.

No mention was made of a parking permit being required or the need for a parking permit to be displayed by the letting agent or in any welcome pack literature and the appellant did not have sight of any Management Company terms and conditions when the tenancy started.

The Management Company concierge never made it known that a parking permit was required or the need for a parking permit to be displayed until after receipt of the Parking Charge Notice when asked by the registered keeper.

The Landlord stated in an email dated 30/11/15 “There is a parking space for the flat which you should be able to use for free.”

It is too late to bring other terms into a contract (not even those on a sign) if these terms were not part of the agreement made at the time of the AST commencing. They were not. The residents had no idea that a 'fine' of £100 could possibly apply.

In any case, even if POPLA consider signage to be relevant in this instance, the driver was not adequately informed of the terms nor warned 'prominently in large letters' of the actual sum of the parking charge anywhere, which fails 2(3) of Schedule 4 outright.


This concludes my POPLA appeal.

Yours Sincerely,


BiscuitMuncher

Umkomaas

First off - much less daunting than the previous thousands of words to try to plough through.

If you've given away who the driver was, then you wouldn't be getting a NtK. But this would apply only to tickets issued prior to the date of the email you sent to SaS with the driver implicated. It would not apply to any subsequent ticket, as there is no admission in relation to any one of those.

What was the date of your email to SaS in relation to the issue dates of the range of NtDs (Notice to Driver) attached to your windscreen?

So if your email only relates to your first NtD your appeal point of 'No Keeper Liability' is on very thin ice (but will be a very powerful point for POPLA appeals for NtDs after the date of your email).

Turning to the draft above:

a. I'd drop all the stuff about 'law abiding citizen/extremely upset.... etc' Instead I'd open with words to the effect that you are the legal tenant of the premises, you have every right to park where you did, there are no restrictions placed on you in the context of displaying parking permits, your tenancy agreement is supreme, no third party can adjust or amend your legal agreement with the landlord. That should do as an opening preamble. Then, it's on to the appeal proper.

List your bullet point headers (as you've done), but they will need adjusting to accommodate the following.

b. Place 'No Standing' as your first appeal point

c. Follow that with 'No contract between SaS and the driver'.

d. You need a specific 'Signage' appeal point. If you've got photos to back up your assertion that the signage does not comply with the BPA CoP para 18 and Appendix B attach them. I wouldn't go into any detail about how they don't comply, rather require SaS to prove that they do comply. You throw the rock in the road, they need to find their way around it!

e. Drop the following:

In any case, even if POPLA consider signage to be relevant in this instance, the driver was not adequately informed of the terms nor warned 'prominently in large letters' of the actual sum of the parking charge anywhere, which fails 2(3) of Schedule 4 outright.

f. You need a better heading than this. The 'Vehicle' can't be a resident (genuine or otherwise)!

2. Vehicle issued the PCN is considered to be a genuine resident

g. In your GPEOL paragraphs you need to head off the possibility that SaS may pray in aid Beavis by drawing a clear distinction between his circumstances (free retail car park where turnover of vehicles was deemed essential to businesses on the park, plus car park abusing commuters catching trains from the nearby station) and your circumstance (private residential car park where you, as a paying tenant, have unequivocal rights to parking there).

New POPLA is still very new to us, with no pattern as to how they will adjudicate appeals, so none of us yet have total confidence that what has worked previously will work now. But you only need to win on one point to kill this, whereas the PPC needs to win on all accounts for your appeal to fail.

If you've got a bit of time before your POPLA deadline, leave this up to see if others wish to comment

Remember, don't miss the deadline, and one separate appeal for each PCN.

BiscuitMuncher

Thank you very much Ukomaas for your reply and suggestions.

Umkomaas wrote: »

What was the date of your email to SaS in relation to the issue dates of the range of NtDs (Notice to Driver) attached to your windscreen?

PCN No. 1 issued 27/11/15, appeal to SaS dated 30/11/15

PCN No. 2 issued 2/12/15, appeal to SaS dated 2/12/15

Both rejections with relevant PoPLA codes came back on same day 8/12//15

Umkomaas

Can you upload a redacted copy of your initial appeals for the above two (you may have used exactly the same for each, but upload both if different) to see exactly what you said before we write off the 'No Keeper Liability' appeal point.

BiscuitMuncher

redacted initial appeal to PCN No. 1

Dear Sir,

I am the current tenant of Flat No. xxx, xxxxxxxx, xxxxx along with my (family member) XYZ (both our names appear on the rental agreement).

XYZ is the registered keeper and driver/owner of the vehicle, xxxxxxxx. He purchased the car last week and was unaware of any regulation to show a permit.
The vehicle was parked in our allotted parking bay and I find it a bit harsh to that he is now faced with paying a Parking Charge Notice and, therefore, this email is an appeal to nullify this charge.

I have contacted xxxxxxxx Property Management about getting a parking permit but they said our Landlord should have one he can give us.

For completeness below is XYZ's full name and address as the registered keeper to enable you to process this appeal.

I look forward to your favourable reply.

Yours Faithfully,

BiscuitMuncher

BiscuitMuncher

redacted initial appeal to PCN No. 2

Dear Sir,

After submitting an appeal for a previous charge xxxxx issued on xx/xx/15!my (family member) has been issued with a Parking Charge Notice today.

I spoke to one of your operators this afternoon to confirm that:

1. I have sent an appeal for the first charge.

2.!I have been in contact with xxxxx Property Management and my Landlord to obtain a permit.

3.!My landlord was not aware a parking permit was required.

Once again here are the details of the car and registered keeper so I can appeal against today's charge.



I also!emailed you the correspondence between myself and xxxxx Property Management and my landlord Mr. xxxxx xxxxx today for completeness.

Once again I look forward to your favourable reply on this matter.

Yours Faithfully,


Biscuit Muncher

patman99

You really need to set up some kind of spreadsheet to start to keep on to of these PCNs so you don't get in a muddle and appeal any of them too early.

The first 2 PCN appeals should not have been sent until day 22 (by post) or day 25 (if by email). This takes each beyond the 14 days for the PPC to gain RK info from the DVLA and start to issue you a NtK.

I would ask your LL for a copy of the lease (or if he hasn't got it, ask a neighbour) so that you can check that there really is no mention of the need to obtain and display a permit to park within your allocatted space.

At least then, you can quote the sections of the lease regarding the parking space.