Forgot to display permit for my own space

Coupon-mad

ncobo1664 wrote: »

I've submitted an appeal to the IAS quoting the Jopson vs Homeguard case of last year. By the sounds of it in all likelihood it will be rejected. My Landlord has agreed to look into this for me when he returns.

What will happen next if indeed the appeal is rejected? How likely is it that they will start a court claim?

Did you attach the Jopson v Homeguard/14 Services transcript itself as evidence? If not then the IAS will use any old excuse to chuck your side of the argument out and pretend they've never heard of it and that you've failed to show the case you are relying upon. Hope you showed it and pointed out it is a higher level (Senior Circuit Judge) Appeal case.

But we'll see. The IAS decision will be worth a wry chuckle, regardless.

As your PPC is Homeguard 14 Services, maybe they will not contest it, and might prefer that the IAS Assessors don't learn of their failure.

What will happen next if indeed the appeal is rejected? How likely is it that they will start a court claim?

Almost certain.

Half_way

If its not too late you should tell the IAS that you expect them to meet or exceed the requirements as laid out byThe Alternative Dispute Resolution for Consumer Disputes (Competent Authorities and Information) Regulations 2015, in that you expect to see evidence that the IAS system is fully transparent ( assessrs names published) and it is independent that is it does not share directors and/or management ( ie Will Hurley and/or John Davies ) with the IPC( trade association) or Gladstones Solicitors ( who attempt to pursue motorists through the courts.

If they do not meet those requirements then you will be under no obligation to accept any decision by such a body, and they will be reported to the Chartered Trading Standards isntute ( whos logo they display on the IAS website) as well as the Advertising Standards Agency for suggesting on their website that they comply with the ADR regulations

Coupon-mad

Yes but if they agree and offer the non-standard IAS which *does* meet that standard (LOL) they will charge you £15 and you have to agree to be legally bound by the decision. NEVER pay £15 for non-standard IAS.

Half_way

I was under the impression that the non standard appeal fails on the £15 bit, as well as the agreeing to be bound section.
If you know what you are doing an IAS appeal/challenge can be useful to engineer a ridiculous response which can then be used as a complaint to your local MP, the DVLA ( as the IPC are not a fit ATA) the CTSI and anyone else

safarmuk

@ncobo1664 - can you put up a redacted copy of your appeal letter here please? I'd like to take a look to see if you got the salient points across well enough and to then cross-reference it to the response.
I also if you don't mind want to use it (redacted) as an example in another discussion I am having.

ncobo1664

Update:

IAS appeal is ongoing. I've claimed primacy of contract based on my tenancy agreement/ landlords lease.

They have acknowledged that I have the right to park in the space but they claim that the charge is for not displaying a permit. Unfortunately in my original appeal, directly to the parking operator, I made them aware that I has received the permits and one of them was in my car. So they are claiming I entered a contract by accepting the permits and breached that contract by not displaying one of them.

safarmuk

If they have acknowledged that your tenancy allows you the right to park in the parking space then that should be that. That is Primacy of Contract.

When you say "ongoing" what exactly do you mean - are you in correspondence again or have you actually had your appeal rejected on that explanation above?

Can you post up the actual (redacted) response ... would like to see that.

The_Deep

they are claiming I entered a contract by accepting the permits and breached that contract by not displaying one of them.

But as you did not need a permit, and they were in no position to offer you one, is that not similar to being mis-sold PPI? Look what happened to the banks in that case.

Coupon-mad

ncobo1664 wrote: »

Update:

IAS appeal is ongoing. I've claimed primacy of contract based on my tenancy agreement/ landlords lease.

They have acknowledged that I have the right to park in the space but they claim that the charge is for not displaying a permit. Unfortunately in my original appeal, directly to the parking operator, I made them aware that I has received the permits and one of them was in my car. So they are claiming I entered a contract by accepting the permits and breached that contract by not displaying one of them.

...and the IAS will side with the PPC. Ignore the outcome.

ncobo1664

The appeal process has multiple stages whereby the parking operator submits a reply to my original appeal, then I can submit another response and so forth...

Here's a transcript of the appeal so far:

My Original Appeal:

I challenge this parking charge as keeper of the car.

I believe that your company does not have the right to add terms and conditions to an existing residential lease or assured shorthold tenancy agreement. In support of this belief I would like to make you aware of the case of Homeguard v Jopson [2016] B9GF0A9E which makes it clear that if a private company is engaged to manage the parking in a private residential zone, they cannot override a resident's lease.

You have obtained my data from the DVLA without reasonable cause, since despite losing two appeal cases heard in Oxford, your firm (Homeguard, t/a 14 Services) continues to disregard the rights of tenants and leaseholders to use their own residential car park without threat of interruption or charge. I have primacy of contract and your blanket 'parking charge' regime, trespassing against vehicles on this land, is indicative of derogation from grant by your principle.

Homeguard t/a 14 Services must take this as formal notice that I reserve the right to report your company to the Information Commissioner and to sue your company and the landowner/management agent for a sum not less than £250 for misuse of my data, should you continue to process it beyond this date except merely to confirm within 21 days that you have deleted my data from your records.

Could you provide me with the following information:

1. Who is the party that contracted with your company?
2. Is your charge based on damages for breach of contract? Answer yes or no.
3. Please provide all photographs taken of this vehicle.
4. Please provide proof that the timing of any camera used was synchronised with all other cameras and/or systems & machines.

Do not send debt collector letters and do not add any costs which would be a thinly veiled attempt at 'double recovery'. I will not respond to debt collectors and to use a third party would be a failure to mitigate your costs as well as deliberate and knowing misuse of my data.

Operator Response:

The appellant was the driver.
The appellant was the keeper.
The operator is seeking keeper liability in accordance with PoFA..
ANPR/CCTV was used.
The Notice to Keeper was sent on 27/01/2017.
A response was recieved from the Notice to Keeper.
The ticket was issued on 15/01/2017.
The Notice to Keeper (ANPR) was sent in accordance with PoFA.
The charge is based in Contract.

Dear IAS,

The arguments put forward by the appellant are standard and what are normally sent to us when appealling.

The questions he has asked, he could have asked in the beginning but did not do so.

He never mentioned being a resident, let alone provided any evidence of residency.

The appellant states that we have no right to add terms and conditions etc. We have not sought to make any amendments as we are not party to tenancy agreements/leases etc. It is the managing agents, directors etc who bring us in and they are the ones who instigate the scheme.

Notice was sent out to all residents as attached.

In reference to the Jopson judgment that was mentioned, this judge (since retired) is not a senior judge, nor is it a landmark decision. The judgment was originally found in our favour and the judgment was overturned at appeal level.

Since we had the right to request appeal on this decision, it is not landmark and the judge was not senior enough to set such precedent.

In point 9 of the Jopson judgment, it refers to the lessor writing to the lessee. Our client did indeed write to everyone.

The Judge also ignored a previous court directive that the appellant submit their case to court no less than 3 clear days prior to the hearing. The hearing was at 10.00 am on the Friday with the appellant submitting papers at 19.00 on the Wednesday evening. This was not time for us to have found any such letter of the client writing or to answer some of the points made as we were not privvy to them.

While this may seem insignificant, this is just an example of the Judge's stance, who also believed that a sign should make mention of exceptions for milk floats.

The above are just a few points of why we believe this judgement should be discarded as irrelevant and we have also attached the judgment for your viewing.

As well as the judgement refers to a woman who was claiming to have been "unloading" and made a distinction in his view of what he thought parking meant and said she was "stopped" and not parked.

The appellant is not a leaseholder as he has a landlord.

The appellant, has by using the parking permit, taken part in the scheme. This is an essential part of contract law that should in our view be given consideration.

The permit belongs to 14 Services and the service is run by ourselves and we have a signed contract.

If a resident/landlord does not wish to take part in the scheme. then the resident could have contacted his landlord or indeed ourselves to say that he does not wish to be included as he does not agree with having to display a parking permit.

He did not notify us and has used the parking permit. As the scheme was set up to assist residents to enable them to have better access to their allocated space, rather than others parking in them then it is fair that residents simply display a parking permit.

The households were issued with 4 parking permits. one of them being a cling parking permit, so if he found difficulties in displaying a card permit, then he could have chosen to display the other.

Having had no communication from the resident that he rejected the scheme, then the bay continued to be included and we still have not had any notification that he does not wish to be included in the future.

In accordance with the signage, DVLA data was applied for. If the appellant did not want us to apply for and use the data, then he should have displayed the permit or contacted us/landlord/managing agent etc, to look into excluding himself. This then would have been discussed as we do have provision for this as we operate in areas where there are freehold bays.

We are accused by the appellant of "continuing to disregard the rights of residents..." If we disregarded the rights of residents we would not be issuing them with free parking permits and a free service. It is not too much of a burden for them to simply display a permit.

Moreover, the appellant has not only not shown any evidence of being a tenant, he has also appealled still using the address which matches the DVLA data. The address is not an address on the development.

We cannot be trespassing when we have not only permission to be there, but also instruction to be there. As well as the appellant knew we would be there as he used the parking permit, albeit incorrectly so we could not see it.

If the appellant did display the parking permit clearly on the dashboard, then there would have been no need to issue any charge.

The only way we know that a vehicle is authorised to be where it is, is with the clear display of a parking permit.

We therefore maintain that we believe the charge to have been issued correctly.

Please note that the wording on the signage attached, is the same, however the actual signage at blank is green and cream in colour to match the aesthetics of the building.

My Response:

I must, again, state that I have primacy of contract. Any agreement you have in place with management agents will not override the landlords lease. I have confirmed with the landlord that the lease has not been varied to include any parking regulations. As a tenant I am entitled to the same rights as described in said lease.

I have a tenancy agreement which entitles me to park on the estate in the space allocated to blank and it does not say "on condition that you display a permit". If it does not say that, then I have the right. What 14 Services are seeking to do is, unilaterally outside the contract, restrict that right to be only valid when a permit is displayed. 14 Services cannot do that. It must be the other contracting party, the landlord, who amends the tenancy agreement to restrict the right to park in the space allocated to blank in circumstances in which a permit is displayed. That is not in my tenancy agreement and you as a third party cannot unilaterally alter the terms of a tenancy agreement.

I will not be providing my tenancy agreement as evidence for this process. I will however attach a letter sent to me by the landlord blank stating my legal entitlement to park in the space.

Operator Response:

The tenancy agreement/lease etc is irrelevant to us. If the tenant did not wish to display a parking permit, (the terms and conditions of which were clear), then the appellant should have contacted us or the landlord/managing agent etc to object.

By using the permit, not objecting to the scheme which he was informed of, and parking where there was signage then he has agreed to the parking scheme.

The parking permits x 4 were all hand delivered to the property with photographic evidence taken of delivery. At no point did the resident contact us to tell us he was unhappy about the permits or any of its content.

The landlord we believe had also been written to and we have received no communication from him to say he was unhappy with the scheme.

For future parking he should perhaps consider contacting his landlords, managing agents etc and asking for ways for his bay to be excluded. If his bay then is excluded then he will need to return all 4 parking permits which remain the property of 14 Services.

The tenancy agreement/lease (none of which has been shown) has no relevance to us because we are not accusing him of breaching his tenancy agreement. That is always a matter between he and his landlord.

Whichever permit the resident was using there is clear information that the permit must be on display as this is the only way we know a vehicle is authorised to be where it is.

On the rear of the flexible card permit it states -

"Parking otherwise than in accordance with the signage in situ will result in the issuing of a parking charge notice".

"Your managing agent/landlord has no authority to appeal the issue of a parking charge notice on your behalf nor are they able to instruct cancellation of charges".

On the front of the permit it says

"This permit must be clearly displayed this side up on the dashboard of the vehicle at all times when it is parked. Retrospective evidence will not be accepted"

"This permit remains the property of 14 Services".

If using the cling style permit

The letter section states

"2. This permit is only valid whilst clearly and fully displayed in the FRONT windscreen, bottom left hand corner (UK Standard passenger side not a side or rear window) and with all credentials available (unobscured) from the outside to be inspected. We will not "search" footwells, seats, dashboards, under sunvisors, other windows etc."

"4. We do not accept notes of any kind in windows or retrospective evidence of right to park".

"8. It is the responsibility of the permit user to have read this letter and by using this permit it is deemed that the conditions in this letter have been accepted." If you need a further copy of this letter (for your landlord or future reference) please contact us.

"10. Parking otherwise than in accordance with the signage on site will result in a parking charge being issued".

While the appellant argues "primacy" of contract, a contract is a meeting of two minds. The scheme was not imposed on the appellant but is a scheme brought in to assist genuine users of the estate.

It is our scheme that increases the peaceful enjoyment of residents by helping ensure they can park in their allocated bay and also that they can contact us should they have any problems.

A contract that is brought in afterwards is still valid if the user of a service takes part in that service. The resident has took part in the service by accepting the permit, and not rejecting it. He has also handled the permit and according to himself.

If he saw the scheme as an imposition then it is for himself to say he didn't want the scheme to enable us to try to arrange his exclusion by discussion with our client. We do accommodate such exclusions.

However , this appellant has engaged with the contract on one level but then when he wishes to evade a charge, he then seeks to use primacy of contract, although he has used the parking permits.

Without someone contacting us to inform us that they are unhappy with the terms and conditions of the scheme, then we cannot know they are not happy.

We are also unable to offer an "opt out" as it is not for us to undermine our client after we have been contracted.

The appellant to our knowledge has still made no contact with us as to express going forwards that he wants us not to operate in his allocated bay.

14 Services have never denied the appellant the right to park. On the contrary, it is in acknowledgment of a right to park that authorised users (at our expense) is issued with a permit for such drivers with a right to park to display.

The charge was issued for not displaying a parking permit and not for parking where he had no right to park.