Private Parking Company/SCS LAW- £000's being demanded for Residential parking

waamo

Sharing information is a big no no. There are laws against it in this country so go ahead and make that formal complaint.

pustit

Has your new permit been issued to you yet ?
From which date is it valid ?

nosferatu1001

Housing trust - so when you say "private owners", what do you mean?

Are you on a teancy? Short term lease (say, 1 year)? Longer? Have you purchaedd the Leasehold for the property, usually on a MUCH longer term - 99 years or so?>

You *must*, and I mean *must*, fully a) state here and b) understand precisely your current legal situaiton as regards the property. If we go off half cocked it will not help you.

francgatz

Hi all;

To answer your questions so far:!

The current residential parking permit has now been renewed after having long elapsed. It can be read on the website of the Housing Trust that there’s supposedly a process that exists whereby The Parking Company issue a renewal form prior to the expiration of existing permits - never has one of these been received by the keeper.

Re: the next question about the current legal situation as regards the property: the keeper has purchased the leasehold for the property. There are about 90 years left on the lease…!

The below complaint has been compiled to file with Housing Trust as soon as possible. If you could please read and comment on it if it’s strong and exhaustive enough it would be greatly appreciated.

This draft complaint does not make reference to any legal matters as yet so as not to appear combative and prematurely escalate things, and also because of a current lack of knowledge of certain details caused by not having access to the lease at present. In any case, please share your thoughts on the below and if you think there are any glaring omissions or things that ought not to be included at this point.!

Thank you:

- - - - -

Dear Sir/Madame;

This letter constitutes a formal complaint about parking fines incurred as a resident on your estate. A letter has been received apparently from the private parking company’s solicitors on their behalf demanding that a horrifying cumulative total of [£xxxx] is paid for [x number of] parking ‘contraventions’ which date as far back as 5 yers. This is of course a sum of money which is unreasonable to expect the average person to possess or even have access to. It is sought that this time-sensitive issue is be resolved swiftly, by [NAME OF HOUSING ASSOCIATION], i.e. the landowners who contract The Private Parking Company, instructing the latter to cancel all charges being pursued and to cease with immediate effect all of the distressing correspondence that is being sent, including the threat of legal proceedings.!

The alleged contraventions detailed within the letter dated July 10 and titled ‘Debt owed to [NAME OF PRIVATE PARKING COMPANY]’ occurred during periods whereby the existing parking permit for vehicles registered to the keeper had expired prior to my receipt of a new, (free!) replacement, or when there have been awkward interim periods whereby particulars have been required to switch over previous permits to reflect their new Vehicle’s Registration. Initially worried about having received these tickets, and seeking to prevent the escalation of the existing penalties or the imposition of new ones, the keeper spoke to a [NAME OF HOUSING ASSOCIATION] representative about whether any sort of exemption could be organised. The advice was not to worry about them as a legitimate resident, and to rest in the confidence that they could be safely ignored. The advice to ignore was taken, although the keeper as a precaution still sought to prevent any further incident by endeavouring to use daily the yellow visitors permits issued by the Housing Trust. Despite these preventative measures, tickets would still on occasion be imposed when patrolling wardens would deem the keeper’s writing on the permit illegible, or on the few inevitable occasions when they couldn’t physically update the time/date on the temporary permit.!

There’s regrettably neither evidence of the phone conversations referred to in this letter nor paper/email trails of specific dates when the process of acquiring a new permit were initiated - apart from the fact that enquiries were most frequently made in person at the [NAME OF HOUSING ASSOCIATION] Offices, such meticulous documentation processes never even occurred to the keeper as necessary: it was never imagined that a housing association like [NAME OF HOUSING ASSOCIATION] which which has its roots in social justice and publicly takes pride in making housing ‘affordable’ and ‘sustainable’ for underprivileged Londoners, would ever allow such exploitative practice by a Private Parking Company to culminate in a situation as distressing for a resident as this. Indeed, the system with expiring permits where the very company that issue new ones, also issue PCNs, is not fit for purpose in a residential estate and is designed to extract penalties unfairly, from the very people the parking policies purport to support.!

Correspondence from The Private Parking Company about some of these historical fines has not been received by the keeper years - if it was known that this situation was escalating further in the background, steps would have been taken to resolve matters via [NAME OF HOUSING ASSOCIATION] much sooner. Your website contains an interview with one of your staff members which states that 'residents are the priority', the importance always putting residents' 'satisfaction first' and listening to them, and a desire to 'sort things out at source', so that they 'don't escalate’. In light of such claims, the expectation is that this complaint won’t be dealt with detachedly with blunt references to problematic policy, but that a named individual will sustainedly liaise with, or even consult in person, the resident, that the nuance of this case will be considered and that a [NAME OF HOUSING ASSOCIATION] member of staff with sufficient seniority will instruct the private parking company to cancel the charges accordingly. (The hope also would be that this case would prompt [NAME OF HOUSING ASSOCIATION] to reconsider their parking policies more broadly so that they sincerely do uphold the convenience and interests of residents residents rather than provide a means for an exploitative body such as this Parking Company to extract as much income as possible from them. The reason why management companies introduce most of these schemes is to deter non-residents from using residents' parking spaces. The reality is that most charges are issued to residents.)!

Sincerely,

nosferatu1001

If your parents own the lease, then that document is of critical importance. It will define within it your actual rights.

Before going off half cocked on the MA ? HT / whomeever, sort your OWN uncertainties out first.

Get that lease.

KeithP

To whom this may concern;

Are you not writing to a known entity?

"Dear Sirs" is the correct salutation for a formal letter.

Coupon-mad

If you own the flat you possibly have primacy of contract pre-dating MET even being there, and if the leaseholders have never been properly consulted and voted on this with 75% or more in favour and not less than 10% dissenting, then the Housing Trust have failed to legally vary your leases.

If not then at the least you may have a legal 'easement' arising from you and previous owners' unfettered use and right to enjoy the servient land for access/egress and parking, before MET were inflicted on you all

You need to dig out the lease, as others have said, so your complaint is fired at them with knowledge and facts and relies upon the Landlord & Tenant Act.

francgatz

Hi all;

The preceding posts re: this thread have been edited to make the case less identifiable. It doesn’t seem that there are [many] cases on the internet involving the Private Parking Company in question and it seems wise to avoid the prospect of their representatives deducing the particulars of the case and pre-empting any arguments if they do indeed trawl through forums such as this. The other posts will be sanitised as soon as possible also.

The most recent lease pertaining to the property has been obtained. It will be in due course scanned and converted to a searchable PDF file so it can be perused more thoroughly for stuff about rules and regulations to be added by the landlord, rights of third parties, etc. but for now, what seems to be the only mention of anything related to parking is as follows: “The lessee shall not cause or permit the parking of a motor or other vehicle (other than a perambulator or pedal cycle) in or upon any part of the dwelling or within the curtilage thereof or in or upon any part of the lessor’s premises and land adjacent thereto)”.

Is this to be interpreted to mean that the lessee has no parking rights whatsoever?! That would throw any defence of primacy of contract out the window, right? (The following clause in the least is that “the lessee shall not ride or permit the riding of any cycle (including a motor scooter a power-assisted bicycle or motor-cycle!upon any part of the Estate or in or upon any land of the Lessor adjacent thereto”. So the riding of even pedal bikes is not permitted anywhere on the estate either?! How ridiculous, especially considering that the roads on the estate are open to the public who cycle through casually, that this stipulation has never ever been adhered to by any of the residents and has never been enforced by the HT - but the understanding is that this is all inarguable in legal frameworks and therefore besides the current point.)

Alas. From research, it seems research that there may still be valid ways to challenge the Housing Trust to intervene from now and stop things escalating, or lines of defences that could possibly be taken should this indeed eventually manifest in a hearing:

⁃For context, the keeper has resided in the house outside which the vehicle was parked since 1995 when it was still owned by the Local Authority - the lease documentation from that time *may* still be knocking around somewhere. After it was acquired by the Housing Trust in the year 2000, a new lease was obviously established - the keeper definitely has a copy of this paperwork, which it’s understood was the last authoritative document prior to our purchasing the flat. In signing a new lease upon mortgaging the property, would the keeper have relinquished entirely any easements of egress or anything like that which may have been acquired during the many years that they resided there prior to the purchase?

⁃One relevant stipulation about parking in the former lease read: ‘You must abide by any parking restrictions or the rules of any parking scheme introduced by the Housing Trust after consultation with all tenants’. As per the advice of Coupon-Mad, it’s understood that the Housing Trust would have been required to consult all tenants with at least 75% of tenants voting in favour and not more than 10% dissenting. I’m guessing the HT would have a responsibility to prove that this scheme was introduced legally? Could this be addressed in the formal complaint that will be written to the HT to try to persuade them to instruct the Parking Company to cancel all charges? (Separately, and it’s obviously early days yet, but it seems wise to think about what happens if the battle which might ensue with HT becomes long and drawn out, with them delaying to produce evidence of proper consultation etc., while the Parking Company proceeds separately with litigation. Could it still be argued in argue in court that the parking scheme was introduced illegally altogether if the HT isn’t actually implicated in the proceedings and mandated to produce anything?)

⁃ The authority of the Parking Company to bring a claim against the keeper could be undermined by scrutinising any contract or agreement they have with the Housing Trust. This current Parking enforcement arrangement came into place around 2013, it’s been deduced from examining signage on google maps. Prior to the current company administering Parking Management, it was LPC Parking Solutions from as early as 2008. It's not known at present what conditions were in effect before this. Perhaps there was some error in establishing the scheme which means fines aren’t enforceable?

Failing these arguments, unless some other defences can be thought of, it would probably just be damage control…

⁃ The keeper would obviously request copies of all documentation they have of any alleged contraventions including PCNs and Notices to Keepers (many were originally discarded, some may never have been received), and of site signage maps and the signs themselves. Hopefully, the wardens won’t have been as meticulous as required in properly photographing contraventions, or the Parking Company’s record-keeping will be as abysmal as their ethics, or the NTKs aren't worded in line with statute. Hopefully then this would invalidate many of the charges they are claiming for. Is it advisable to wait until an actual claim is received before requesting this documentation from the Parking Company or their solicitors?

⁃Finally, in the worst case scenario, could the inflated fines they are endeavouring to extract from the keeper be assaulted as penalties to be dismissed as unjustified?

Thanks for your time and assistance so far. Hopefully nothing ever actually materialises, but as mentioned, it’s possible they’ll try their luck with the dispute being over a figure so substantial.

Coupon-mad

for now, what seems to be the only mention of anything related to parking is as follows: “The lessee shall not cause or permit the parking of a motor or other vehicle (other than a perambulator or pedal cycle) in or upon any part of the dwelling or within the curtilage thereof or in or upon any part of the lessor’s premises and land adjacent thereto)”.

Is this to be interpreted to mean that the lessee has no parking rights whatsoever?!

Yes. Seems like the HA has negligently re-used template wording that makes no sense for an estate with roads where residents are permitted to park, and the general public also use the roads to pass and re-pass.

Unless the definition of 'dwelling curtilage' and 'land adjacent thereto' are given as just the flat/house itself and the walkway next to the front doorstep!

Negligence then, interference with the lease rights and derogation from grant!

That would throw any defence of primacy of contract out the window, right?

Maybe not, under your circs, given the older ownership/lease background.

(The following clause in the least is that “the lessee shall not ride or permit the riding of any cycle (including a motor scooter a power-assisted bicycle or motor-cycle!upon any part of the Estate or in or upon any land of the Lessor adjacent thereto”. So the riding of even pedal bikes is not permitted anywhere on the estate either?! How ridiculous, especially considering that the roads on the estate are open to the public who cycle through casually, that this stipulation has never ever been adhered to by any of the residents and has never been enforced by the HT - but the understanding is that this is all inarguable in legal frameworks and therefore besides the current point.)

It all adds to painting a picture of negligence and interference with rights & easements.

⁃For context, the keeper has resided in the house outside which the vehicle was parked since 1995 when it was still owned by the Local Authority

24 years ago.

When were MET introduced? There may be scope (including the rights of the previous occupants pre-19950 to argue a parking/right of way 'easement by prescription'.

Bear in mind I'm not legally qualified, but Google it. 20 years uninterrupted use, where parking a car had become established allowed practice, without MET in place, can lead to that legal argument. It can include the years before 1995 (other residents before you) if the estate was built before that. Easements by prescription can't be trampled all over:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6172095/Neighbours-ten-year-war-30-inch-parking-space-ends-warring-parties-paying-bills.html

- the lease documentation from that time *may* still be knocking around somewhere.

Urgent to find that - ask a neighbour who has been there forever, or send a SAR to the Local Authority's Data Protection Officer specifically asking for all data held and the old lease wording for that property, relating to your leasehold ownership, all letters/emails stored and the lease itself.

Needs to come from the actual data subject family member whose lease it was in 1995.

After it was acquired by the Housing Trust in the year 2000, a new lease was obviously established - the keeper definitely has a copy of this paperwork, which it’s understood was the last authoritative document prior to our purchasing the flat. In signing a new lease upon mortgaging the property, would the keeper have relinquished entirely any easements of egress or anything like that which may have been acquired during the many years that they resided there prior to the purchase?

Like I said, that can't happen. Rights & easements can't be stamped all over.

How about trying to get a free 30 minute chat with a local property law specialist solicitor firm, and not concentrate on the MET parking PCNs in your 30 mins (we can deal with them and shoot them down better than most solicitors!) but use it to show him/her your rights/easements argument and the old LA lease compared to the new HA lease. Seems to me it has attempted to create new obligations and restrictions in the small print without ever drawing them clearly to the signatories' attention, and that the terms about not parking a car at all are clearly in error from an old template, and unenforceable.

But get both leases first. You need to compare one with the other & get advice. Would be great to get one solicitor's letter sent, might cost you a few quid (can you find other neighbours with PCNs who will join you and share the cost of a solicitor's letter to fire across the HA's bows)?

it’s understood that the Housing Trust would have been required to consult all tenants with at least 75% of tenants voting in favour and not more than 10% dissenting. I’m guessing the HT would have a responsibility to prove that this scheme was introduced legally? Could this be addressed in the formal complaint that will be written to the HT to try to persuade them to instruct the Parking Company to cancel all charges?

Yes - something to tell the solicitor, that you have never been consulted.

I would not wait for a claim, even though this PPC doesn't usually sue people maybe the quantum here will encourage the to try one. They need slapping down.

in the worst case scenario, could the inflated fines they are endeavouring to extract from the keeper be assaulted as penalties to be dismissed as unjustified?

Certainly the £60 added to each parking charge is fake and made up out of thin air. The actual £100 charges are arguably nor recoverable either, given your position and rights that I hope the old LA lease allowed you, and the easement established at the estate over the years.