Spring Parking fine HELP!

trace6570

Hi everyone,
Sorry for the long post, but I would love some help with my case. I have gone as far as I can by using the templates on here but now I'm unsure of how to proceed.


I was issued with a parking notice on my windscreen last November. The place in which I parked had a row of parking bays with parking notices and then a row with none. I parked in a bay with no signage and my blue badges were on the dashboard (they are always on there). I was parked for around 40 minutes and found the sticker when I returned.


I was advised by numerous people to throw it away and ignore any letters as it wasn't issued by the council or the police. So for a while that's what I did, until the debt collection agencies started to write threatening my with court.


After searching the net and finding this forum, I sent a the template letter of appeal to Springs and also a template letter from here to the debt collection agency.
The debt collection agency sent me a response fairly quickly some of which I have pasted below:
Internet templates
I must also stress that simply sending in standard template responses, most likely obtained from the internet, will not resolve the matter. In addition, I would recommend that professional legal advice be sought on this matter as an alternative.
Court action
I feel obligated to inform you that, under the Pre-Action Protocol of the Civil Procedural Rules, court action must only be viewed as a last resort. I am attempting to abide by this direction by trying to settle the matter amicably without court involvement.
Your actions may be viewed as obstructive to this aim and will be made clear to the court should the matter escalate to such a stage.


Then Springs sent a response including photographs of the car. The photographs are all close up and don't show the position in which the car was parked in relation to the signs. They have of course said that they are not going to cancel the charge, but did give me a POPLA number.


So now I'm unsure of what to do next. I have revisited the site and taken photographs of where my car was parked in relation to the signs, should I send the photographs to Springs with another request to cancel to charge?

waamo

Have you tried contacting the landowner to get it cancelled?

fisherjim

Ignore the silly debt collectors use your POPLA appeal wisely with an appeal based on info on here, seek to get it cancelled by the landowner if possible.

Remember PPC's and debt collectors make up all sorts of threats and send their own templates to intimidate you.

Redx

read this thread about debt collectors

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5035663

and read post #4 of the NEWBIES sticky thread

dont believe what your "friends" tell you , they havent got a clue

trace6570

thanks so much for the replies. How do I go about finding the landowner?

fisherjim

trace6570 wrote: »

thanks so much for the replies. How do I go about finding the landowner?

Without knowing the location hard to say, was it an office, or a trading estate, or a shopping park etc.
It sometimes tells you on the signage.

trace6570

Ah ok, to be honest I'm not sure myself. The closest building to the car park is a pub so I'm assuming it may be something to do with them? I'll have to have a ride up to see if there is any there. On finding out who the landowner is, do I just attempt to write a letter to them?

System

Try the Valuation Office website (https://www.2010.voa.gov.uk/rli/en/basic/find) If you enter the postcode or address it will give you a list of rateable properties - one of which may be the car park. You then contact the Council and ask who pays NDR (Non-domestic Rates) on the property.

Coupon-mad

trace6570 wrote: »

Hi everyone,
Sorry for the long post, but I would love some help with my case. I have gone as far as I can by using the templates on here but now I'm unsure of how to proceed.


I was issued with a parking notice on my windscreen last November. The place in which I parked had a row of parking bays with parking notices and then a row with none. I parked in a bay with no signage and my blue badges were on the dashboard (they are always on there). I was parked for around 40 minutes and found the sticker when I returned.


I was advised by numerous people to throw it away and ignore any letters as it wasn't issued by the council or the police. So for a while that's what I did, until the debt collection agencies started to write threatening my with court.


After searching the net and finding this forum, I sent a the template letter of appeal to Springs and also a template letter from here to the debt collection agency.
The debt collection agency sent me a response fairly quickly some of which I have pasted below:
Internet templates
I must also stress that simply sending in standard template responses, most likely obtained from the internet, will not resolve the matter. In addition, I would recommend that professional legal advice be sought on this matter as an alternative.
Court action
I feel obligated to inform you that, under the Pre-Action Protocol of the Civil Procedural Rules, court action must only be viewed as a last resort. I am attempting to abide by this direction by trying to settle the matter amicably without court involvement.
Your actions may be viewed as obstructive to this aim and will be made clear to the court should the matter escalate to such a stage.


Then Springs sent a response including photographs of the car. The photographs are all close up and don't show the position in which the car was parked in relation to the signs. They have of course said that they are not going to cancel the charge, but did give me a POPLA number.


So now I'm unsure of what to do next. I have revisited the site and taken photographs of where my car was parked in relation to the signs, should I send the photographs to Springs with another request to cancel to charge?

Why does there always have to be something to do next? You are getting trashy debt collector letters, which you should have ignored! Of course they don't like forum templates; think about why that might be...because we know how to beat them!

You are replying at the wrong time - you should have appealed it at the outset, and won at POPLA (it would have been a cinch) but instead you ignored that stage, then started to reply when we say to ignore! STOP.

By all means see if the landowner will cancel, but you knew that anyway, as it's the first thing the NEWBIES FAQS thread tells you to do.

Post #4 of the sticky tells you to ignore debt collector stage.

Post #2 of the sticky tells you that you can find out a firm's likelihood of a court claim, with a simple Google search to find the BMPA Insight into the firm. This is not a firm to worry about, as you will see.

trace6570

Just a quick update..... even though I thought it was too late and others have agreed, I went ahead and did a POPLA appeal. After sending in photographs of the area and the photographs that Springs parking sent me POPLA have decided in my favour!!!!


Really happy that I have won the appeal and thanks to everyone on here for their advice, only wish I had found it sooner.

Coupon-mad

Well done - in fact if I'd realised you were still within the POPLA window that's what we would all have suggested you do! Sorry I misunderstood and thought you'd missed your POPLA deadline, because of the debt collector letter mentioned.

Nice result, Spring are easy to beat at POPLA, we've found, so I am very pleased you went it alone and won in your own right!