Skip hire when moving

douglasjmontgomery

Hi everyone,

We recently hired a skip which was placed in the road opposite our house. Two days after settling the bill and having the skip collected we were informed by the skip hire company that the local council (Lambeth, London) had issued two fixed penalty notices for an uncovered and unlit skip amounting to a £100 fine. As the 'parking' permit is issued via the skip hire company, they told us they had paid it and now billed us plus an admin fee.

I asked to see copies of these notices from the Council to confirm their legitimacy which they forwarded to us by email, so it appears the skip hire company are not deceiving us just to bump up the final bill. In a further twist, it appears the council had driven around twice in the same evening and issued a further £50 fine without informing anyone of the initial contravention and resulting fine. So we were penalised twice, without letting us know of the first or second instance.

My questions are:

a) Did the skip hire company have any obligation or responsibility to warn us that the law requires us to cover and fit a lamp/reflector on the skip, and should they at least offered us the option to hire a lamp and cover thereby drawing attention to this lawful requirement? They did neither. Whilst I accept that ultimately we are legally responsible for ensuring these road safety precautions are carried out, we were not warned either by the Skip Hire company or the Council that lamps and covers were even necessary.

b) Are the council allowed to issue a penalty notice and fine at 10.20pm, not inform you that you're guilty of an offence, then drive round again three hours later at 1.30 am and issue another penalty and fine?



Thanks for reading, and I look forward to any replies.

Doug

davidmcn

Generally I would say ignorance of the law is no excuse, and skip hire companies aren't obliged to give you legal advice.
I think you can get a parking ticket once a day, so 10.20pm and 1.30am may be ok, if a rather profitable wheeze (11.59pm and 12.01am, say?). Not sure though.

eddddy

I see this a bit differently. In Lambeth, I believe the following is the case...

• The skip hire company must apply for the skip licence.
• The skip hire company is responsible for coning and lighting the skip and is liable for a fixed penalty, if it's not done (as part of the licence conditions)
• The skip hire company's contract with you says you must cone and light the skip

So I guess the skip company is saying...

• You breached the contract (by not coning and lighting the skip)
• The skip company had to pay out £100 in penalties as a result of your breach
• They are claiming £100 (plus admin costs) in damages from you

But it sounds like you're saying they never showed you a contract, or told you about that contract term.

• If that's the case, you shouldn't really have to pay them the £100

So your argument is probably with the skip company about whether they told you or not. (Good luck with that!!!)


As for the penalty notices, I don't know if Lambeth Council would even discuss the matter with you, as you're a 3rd party.

Thrugelmir

douglasjmontgomery wrote: »

We recently hired a skip which was placed in the road opposite our house.

Is that where you requested it to be left?

EachPenny

douglasjmontgomery wrote: »

...had issued two fixed penalty notices for an uncovered and unlit skip amounting to a £100 fine. As the 'parking' permit is issued via the skip hire company, they told us they had paid it and now billed us plus an admin fee.
....it appears the council had driven around twice in the same evening and issued a further £50 fine without informing anyone of the initial contravention and resulting fine. So we were penalised twice, without letting us know of the first or second instance.

b) Are the council allowed to issue a penalty notice and fine at 10.20pm, not inform you that you're guilty of an offence, then drive round again three hours later at 1.30 am and issue another penalty and fine?

Are you sure the hire company didn't advise you? There is often something in the small print on the back of the paperwork they give you which will explain the need for lamping/sheeting.

Can you confirm that what they did was issue one FPN for the skip being uncovered at 10:20pm and one FPN for the skip being unlit at 1:30am? I.e. a total of two FPN's?

If that is the case then I don't think the Council have done anything wrong. Each offence is separate and as far as I know they can issue a FPN for each one. It might be (especially at this time of year) that their enforcement policy for unlit skips give some leeway after lighting up time, so at 10:20pm they were giving you the benefit of the doubt over the lighting, but by 1:30am it was clearly intentionally unlit.

The fact nobody knocked on your door and pointed out the dangers of unlit skips rather than just issuing a FPN reflects the way local government now works. You would hope the patrols would have access to information about who had hired a particular skip, but if they don't then how would the enforcement officer know which house door to knock on, especially at that time of night?

The parking ticket example davidmcn gives would relate to the same contravention - which apparently isn't the case with your skip. You can get multiple PCN's per day, but for different contraventions - so if you are parked on a yellow line at 10pm and then parked on a zig-zag at 11pm you could obviously have two penalties for the same vehicle on the same day.

Another issue to consider is what the FPN represents - unlike a PCN, the FPN is providing an opportunity to pay a penalty instead of being prosecuted. Paying a FPN is not an admission of guilt, but an agreement that an offence has been committed. It isn't an area of the law I know well, but I do wonder whether the skip hire company should have paid the FPN without consulting you first - they have, in effect, denied you the opportunity to be prosecuted and to have your side of the story put before the court. It is of course unlikely you'd want to go down the prosecution route instead of paying the FPN, but the hire company haven't given you the option. It would be interesting to see what the contract you had with them said on this point.

In response to davidmcn's point about just before and after midnight - even if it is legally possible for the council to issue PCN's in those circumstances if it is for the same contravention (which would be easy to prove from the Council's own evidence) then I think it very likely you would win an appeal against the second penalty. Maybe a question for the parking board

patman99

The skip hire firm is the one responsible for obtaining the required on street permit for placing a skip on the public highway and also for lighting and signage assocciatted with the skip.

They should have asked you were the skip was to be placed at the time of the hire.

Thrugelmir

EachPenny wrote: »

The fact nobody knocked on your door and pointed out the dangers of unlit skips rather than just issuing a FPN reflects the way local government now works.

Why should the Council Official go round knocking on doors to ascertain who hired the skip? As a rate payer myself not a good use of public funds.

eddddy

For anyone that's interested,

Here's a link to Lambeth's website confirming that the Skip Hire company are responsible for getting the licence:
https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/business-services-rates-and-licensing/licence-applications/apply-for-a-skip-licence

Here's a link to the licence application form, confirming that the the skip hire company are responsible for lighting the skip (condition 8):
https://www.lambeth.gov.uk/sites/default/files/brl-skip-licence-application-form_0.pdf

Here's a random example of the t&cs from a skip hire company that operates in Lambeth (I suspect other companies will say the same):

15. The Hirer shall ensure from the time that the Skip is deposited until is collected by the Supplier:-

(b) It is properly coned where necessary during the hours of daylight and coned and lighted during the hours of darkness.

Link: http://www.justskips.co.uk/skip-hire-terms-and-conditions.asp

Hence, the OP is not responsible for any Penalty Notices issued by the council - but is responsible for any breach of contract with the skip company - as noted in post #3

EachPenny

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Why should the Council Official go round knocking on doors to ascertain who hired the skip? As a rate payer myself not a good use of public funds.

Because the law being broken is intended to ensure the safety of the public. If the skip is not lit at night it poses a danger to road users. The highway authority has a duty to ensure road users safety, and the powers it uses to license skips and issue FPN's are part of the legislation which helps them comply with this duty.

If an authorised council officer sees an unlit skip on the highway which poses a danger then it could be argued (for example by someone who is injured in an accident involving the skip) that the council officer should have sought to ensure public safety by fixing the problem (the lack of lighting) by either asking the person responsible to get the lighting working, or perhaps by placing the council's own lights/cones to mark the hazard.

By issuing a FPN the council have acknowledged a dangerous situation exists - common sense suggests they should seek to resove the danger as soon as possible and it would really be a very good use of taxpayer's funds if a bit of door knocking prevented someone being injured who potentiall may go on to take legal action against the council.

In a similar vein, if a highways authority official comes across a deep hole in the road dug by a utility company which does not have the necessary signs/guarding which would be the better approach - to go back to the office and issue a FPN to the utility company, or make arrangements with the utility company (or the council itself) to urgently get the signing/guarding in place?

When the 2003 Act was being promoted there were concerns that authorities would see the FPN powers as a mechanism to generate revenue, and not necessarily to secure the safety of the public.

eddddy wrote: »

Hence, the OP is not responsible for any Penalty Notices issued by the council - but is responsible for any breach of contract with the skip company - as noted in post #3

It is a good point, but under sub-section 139(5) (Highways Act 1980) if the offence "is due to the act or default of some other person [not the skip owner], that other person is guilty of the offence".

Which means if the contract specifies that the hirer is responsible for lighting the skip (and complying with other conditions of the license like the cover) then the hirer (not the owner) would appear to be the one responsible for the 'act or default' and therefore should probably be the one prosecuted (or offered the FPN option) instead of (or perhaps as well as) the skip owner.

It is one of those situations where some case law might be needed to sort things out. In the OP's case it is arguable the skip company should have responded to the council's FPN saying the OP was responsible and that they (the company) would rely on the defence under S139(6) if the council were to proceed with a prosecution.

By paying the FPN the company deny their customer the opportunity to in turn use the defence under S139(6) if, for example, the lights were there when they last looked, but were subsequently stolen.

Thrugelmir

EachPenny wrote: »

Because the law being broken is intended to ensure the safety of the public. If the skip is not lit at night it poses a danger to road users.

So at 1.30 in the morning. People get woken up and the hirer has to find suitable lighting and coning. Let me guess, the council should provide that too.

Cakeguts

I would have thought that since the council owns the road that it would have been quite a good idea to ask them if you could park a skip on their road and were there any rules that you needed to follow?