Letter before claim

Coupon-mad

Feedback has been given on pepipoo, this must be your thread:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=108631&st=60&start=60

I post as SchoolRunMum (SRM) over there.

Kind_Of_Irritated

I know you kind people must be wondering where I've been. Back now. Technical issues.

One big question: I have been advised that the Oct 2015 "period of grace" applies in private parking spaces.

http://www.racfoundation.org/media-centre/private-parking-grace-period-reaction

The 5 pics I have been sent of the car in my son's car park (by the other side) were ALL taken within a period of LESS THAN ONE MINUTE. There is also only a time on the ticket, not a period of time.

Is this a killer blow?

The_Deep

No, this, (and other matters therein), is the killer blow.


http://parking-prankster.blogspot.com.es/search?updated-min=2016-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2017-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=50

Kind_Of_Irritated

Yes, got all of that marvellous stuff in my draft. (Thanks Parking Prankster). But because my draft defence is now so long (like War & Peace) I am taking forever to hone it down. But please confirm if this is an important point to add - 10 minute rule. I haven't seen it mentioned on here before.

Umkomaas

I haven't read back through the thread, but grace periods tend to apply to overstay situations. Was the ticket for an overstay (timed from:to) or a 'trespass'?

I rather think you are clutching at straws, an unnecessary diversion from the real issues.

Kind_Of_Irritated

Who knows!? I'm confused.com

Thing is that RAC link says 10 minute rule applies anyway. I was in my son's car park. I have a permit (no time limit) but it was not showing.

Umkomaas

If there are no timings shown by the PPC (i.e., 2 hours parking allowed but this was overstayed by 9 minutes) then how are you going to argue a period of grace applies?

Who knows!? I'm confused.com

Well, if you don't, how do you expect others to second guess?

Simple questions. Simple answers required.

For how long was the car parked?
Is there a parking time limit?
If so, how long is it?
Was the car parked beyond the time limit?
How is the parking contravention described on the windscreen ticket/NtK?

Coupon-mad

Kind_Of_Irritated wrote: »

Who knows!? I'm confused.com

Thing is that RAC link says 10 minute rule applies anyway. I was in my son's car park. I have a permit (no time limit) but it was not showing.

Yes there is a BPA Grace period, in the BPA CoP*, to allow drivers 'reasonable time' to read any signs and decide whether to park. That is not a defined period of time although common sense would say it's ten minutes at least (like the other 'grace period' to leave after allowed parking time, which is the only one which is defined). Also by taking photos and observing for a minute or so, the parking firm have failed to eliminate the possibility of mere unloading of something (which is your defence, isn't it?). Covered by rights of way in the car park.

But the Jopson case and Saeed v Plustrade and 'PACE v Mr N' and 'Link v Ms P' and all of those transcripts are your main evidence, because your son has primacy of contract and rights of way and easements that a third party cannot interfere with/unilaterally revoke. They are not even a party to the lease agreement, and as agents of the managing agent cannot introduce onerous rules & charges if that conflicts with the lease. Those other cases support this view and the first two (Jopson and Saeed) are appeal cases.





*and Link are not in the BPA AOS anyway. They are IPC, no appeal worth trying for consumers, no nothing!

Kind_Of_Irritated

Thanks again, Coupon-mad. Do you ever sleep? :A

Later today I hope to get my defence up here for you all to look through and probably help me distill it down.

I have another query though. The Management Board's secretary actually told my son in an email that ALL powers regarding deciding who had authority to "charge" car parkers (whether residents/visitors/non residents presumably) had been handed over to Link Parking.

All powers and authority? My son replied to him that that is not possible. If Link brings this argument up in court and says the Management Company's Secretary signed an agreement to this effect what is my response to this?

I realise this is for a later date when/if it goes to court. I imagine it is not worth mentioning this email silliness in my response.

Coupon-mad

The Management Board's secretary actually told my son in an email that ALL powers regarding deciding who had authority to "charge" car parkers (whether residents/visitors/non residents presumably) had been handed over to Link Parking.

Your response (helped by your son as the resident, showing the agreement he relied upon for himself and his visitors) would be that that's a classic example of derogation from grant. See the 'Saeed v Plustrade Ltd' transcript, it explains in detail that a landowner can't do this to the detriment of residents rights:

Here it is in full:

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2001/2011.html

''34: The attitude of the defendants as revealed in past correspondence appears to have been.... “since we have the power to specify a parking area, it logically follows that we have the power to withdraw a specification or not to specify at all”. In my judgment this attitude represents a breach of the well-known and well-established principle that a grantor shall not derogate from his grant.

Though this principle is of general application, it has particular relevance on the sale or letting of land. Its rationale was explained by Nicholls LJ in Johnston & Sons Ltd v Holland [1998] 1 EGLR 264 at p 267 as follows:

‘A grantor having given a thing with one hand,’ as Bowen LJ put it in Birmingham, Dudley & District Banking Co v Ross, ‘is not to take away the means of enjoying it with the other’. ‘If A lets a plot of land to B,’ as Lord Loreburn phrases it in Lyttelton Times Co v Warners, ‘he may not act so as to frustrate the purpose for which in the contemplation of both parties the land was hired.’
A little later Nicholls LJ said:

“In Megarry and Wade on the Law of Real Property, 5th ed, p 849, the view is expressed that in truth the doctrine is an independent rule of law. This approach was approved by Lord Denning MR in Molton Builders Ltd v City of Westminster (1975) 30 P&CR 182, at p 186. He stated the broad principle thus:

''.....if one man agrees to confer a particular benefit on another, he must not do anything which substantially deprives the other of the enjoyment of that benefit: because that would be to take away with one hand what is given with the other''