Equita letter

Lucym1981

Hi,
I’m hoping someone can help me here. I received a parking fine a couple of months ago from Parking Eye. When we were on holiday we pulled into a carpark look for directions, we stayed for 21 minutes and didn’t even go in a parking space. I’ve never had a parking fine or any type of fun in my life. My husband told me to ignore the letter, which I stupidly did even know having it hanging over me has been a nightmare. He told me that it would go away, but it hasn’t. I now have a letter from a company called Equita and the original fine for £60 is now £160. Please can someone advise me what to do, I have seen other threads on here saying the maximum they can claim if it goes to court is the original fine plus £25 court fees plus £50 Solicitor fees. I’m not sure whether to just go ahead and pay this or what to do really. Please help, feeling very stressed !

Quentin

Everyone is politely asked to read up on this in the Newbies faq thread near the top of the forum before starting a new thread

You were badly advised to ignore this.

Read up the faq now to understand the game you are now caught up in

You will see you are now in the debt collectors stage. PE do regularly take court action


But ignore everything now except Court correspondence or a letter before court action

Lucym1981

Oh dear, now I feel even worse! Sorry for posting a new thread I will have a look around the site. I did try, but only found bits from 2015. I’m rubbish at this! I do not wish to be caught up in any game, but if I pay now will that be the end of it? Thank you.

Quentin

Lucym1981 wrote: »

Oh dear, now I feel even worse! Sorry for posting a new thread I will have a look around the site. I did try, but only found bits from 2015. I’m rubbish at this! I do not wish to be caught up in any game, but if I pay now will that be the end of it? Thank you.

To answer your question yes.

But why not wait and see what happens??

Lucym1981

Thank you. Could it be that they issued the fine 28 days after I parked in there? I think I read somewhere it needed to be within 14 days, but then I couldn’t find the information again .

Lucym1981

I didn’t want to just see what happened as the letter says that it will affect my credit status and ability to obtain credit in the future . I thought I’d wait and see what happened after the first letter but it doesn’t seem to have done me any favours. Thank you for your advice I really appreciate it

Quentin

That's just scaremongering

You only get your credit status affected if you ignored a court claim or went to court and lost, then didn't pay within a month of getting the ccj.

If anyone gets a CCJ against them they get a month to pay!

You shouldn't have ignored the original letter but that's spilt milk now

Umkomaas

ParkingEye are litigious and rapidly progress a case to court if they have a good case. They rarely engage debt collectors.

Having Equita involved, rather than PE rushing to court, might be read as relatively positive news. It is only a judge who can tell you that you must pay this. So in your shoes I’d just keep all paperwork you receive from Equita, but do not pay anything.

Of late, PE have been having some problems in getting their paperwork out on time. So this might be one of those cases. If you can give us the following information we might be able to check if this might be the case here.

Date of parking event?
Date of the first letter letter sent to you by PE?
Date you received it?
Do you still have it?
Which car park, and where?

beamerguy

Lucym1981 wrote: »

I didn’t want to just see what happened as the letter says that it will affect my credit status and ability to obtain credit in the future . I thought I’d wait and see what happened after the first letter but it doesn’t seem to have done me any favours. Thank you for your advice I really appreciate it

Equita are acting as debt collectors
I am amazed that Equita has stooped so low in saying
" it will affect my credit status and ability to obtain credit in the future"

It has to go to court first and if you lost, only if you lost,
would you be ordered to pay within 28 days or so,
If you did not pay then and ONLY THEN do you get a CCJ

If this was me, I would respond to this rubbish saying
"I deny any debt and request all proof they will rely upon"

They must do this and then come back here with the
info and get the help you need.

You write ONLY AS THE KEEPER as that is the only
info they have from the infamous DVLA

PLEASE DON'T PAY THEM, THEY FABRICATE
IN THEIR FALSE STATEMENT

ONLY A JUDGE CAN DECIDE THIS ,,,, Equita or
Parking Eye do not have the authority and it's scare tactics

Lucym1981

Hi,
Yes I do still have original letter. The date of the event was the 03/08/2017
The fine was issued on
30/08/2017
It was issued for Parking at the holy Trinity Church in Newquay.
Time spent in the car park was 21 minutes. Thanks

Umkomaas

Lucym1981 wrote: »

Hi,
Yes I do still have original letter. The date of the event was the 03/08/2017
The fine was issued on
30/08/2017
It was issued for Parking at the holy Trinity Church in Newquay.
Time spent in the car park was 21 minutes. Thanks

There you go! Holy Trinity Newquay is a honeypot site, especially in the holiday season. As PE are using ANPR cameras to record your entry/exit, in order to hold the keeper liable (they can’t know who the driver is unless the keeper tells them), they have to get the Notice to Keeper (NtK) out to you within the 14 days following the parking event.

As you’ve not responded to them with the driver’s identification, they might just have decided to no longer pursue themselves, but to shunt it off to Equita.

Would you mind just checking their NtK to see if there is any reference to ‘The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012’ and is there a paragraph that commences ‘If after 29 days .....’? Both references will be on the back of the letter.