PCN from CEL after 14days - POPLA appeal advice needed

ronnyd

Hello,

I have received a PCN from Civil Enforcement Ltd (CEL) for parking in customers car park at a post office. I was parked at the post office for 15 min as I needed to purchase a couple of things from them. As it was a customers car park I thought it was ok to park there. I received a PCN from them after 20 days asking me to pay £60 for unauthorised use of the car park.
So I visited the post office again to double check the signage and enquire about the parking restrictions. I was told that there is tab in the post office where I'm supposed to enter my car reg. number if i use the car park which I obviously wasn't aware of earlier when I first went there. Also checked the signage in car park and there are 2 of them. 1st one is a big one to say 'Post office customer car park only, Unauthorised use £100 fine, Please read terms and conditions' and the 2nd one is much smaller which says 'Parking conditions, Permit holders only, All drivers must register for a permit to park inside the post office'. I'm not sure if the 2nd one wasn't there when 1st visited the PO or if I completely missed it, but I ended up not registering my car reg. no. on the tab in the post office.
So I did appeal against the CEL PCN just on the basis that I was genuinely a customer of the PO and submitted purchase receipts as a proof. This was rejected straight away by them saying I didn't register in the post office. Now, I would like to make an appeal to POPLA based on below 2 points and need advice if this stand any chances of success :
1) Its a customers car park and I was PO customer. Attach PO receipt as a proof of purchase. Admit that it was not clear to me that I had to register in the PO.
2) PCN was sent to me after 14 days (received on 20th day). The only risk with this point is that when making the first appeal to CEL I've admitted that I was the driver and as I understand from all other threads that 14 day rule in POFA 2012 applies to registered keepers not drivers.
Could you please advice if I should go ahead with the appeal to POPLA? and if so, would you suggest any other points to base the appeal on?

nosferatu1001

1) Use the sign with only "customer car park..." on it. You complied with the terms on that sign, therefore the charge was not lawfully issued (which is what POPLA rule on, sort of)
2) POFA is only concerned with Keeper liability, and nothing else. So this is an irrelevant point.

Yes, newbies thread, loads of links to POPLA appeals. Signage, standing, amount is a penalty. If it really DOES state that it is a "fine" then state that this is a breach of the CoP anyway - you cannot call it a "fine", as that is NOT something a private firm can dish out.

ronnyd

Thanks a lot for your advise I will check the newbies thread and draft an appeal.
Just to make sure I've understood point 2 correctly - I'm the registered keeper of the vehicle but the POFA 14 day rule would not apply to me as I was the driver as well in this case?

nosferatu1001

No, you are not correct

They never know who drove unless you tell them. While the Keeper and Driver CAn be the same individual, they CANNOT presume they are the same - this is the Henry Greenslade comment you wil see all over the place.

The ONLY reason you cannot use keeper liability or rather, their failure to invoke it, is because you blabbed about the drivers identity.

Umkomaas

All drivers must register for a permit to park inside the post office

Did it literally say this? You need to get photos of all the CEL signage on the car park as well as signs within the PO (we need to be able to read the wording), including a snap or two of where the input pad was located. Let us see them.

ronnyd

Yes, that's the exact wording. I tried attaching the images but it says I'm not allowed to do as I'm a new user. Could you please let me know the correct way of sharing images?
Regarding the signage -
I just want to highlight that there was no signage in the PO near the input tab during my first visit when the incident happened (I'm pretty sure about this). But when I visited the PO later to take some snaps after receiving the PCN, I noticed that they have now put number of hand written notes all over the till, doors and windows of the PO asking to register the car reg. no into the input pad. When I asked about when they had put this notice they refused to tell the truth and said they had them from the beginning. I'm sure that wasn't the case as the number & location they have the hand written notices in is impossible to miss. I was a genuinely a customer of the PO (do have a receipt as a proof) and there is no reason for me not to register my car reg. number if I knew I had to do so. I'm sure they must have put up all the notices in the PO after receiving a number of complaints. But unfortunately I do not have a proof that the hand written notices have been put up after the incident.

Redx

host the pics on tinypic or a similar web hosting site , then add a dead url in your reply , changing http to hxxp

ronnyd

Thank you nosferatu1001, Umkomaas and Redx for your help so far. Please find the attached images. I've tried following your instructions for sharing image, please let me know if you can see them.
[IMG]hxxp://i65.tinypic.com/23uzmyq.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]hxxp://tinypic.com/r/1z4khmb/9[/IMG]
Please share your thoughts. Your advise is highly appreciated.

ronnyd

Hello,
Did you get a chance to see below message and the images I sent ? Any further advise would be highly appreciated.