Lex Autolease has invoiced me for a private parking notice that was 'in appeal' without warning

MistyZ

The_Deep wrote: »

I would certainly threaten Lex with a court claim if this is not resolved to your satisfaction.

Well yes, there's a lot of things to say and to do. But in addition to the slightly more complex stuff, also point out their error to them in words of few syllables, as if speaking to a 3 year old.

Someone at Lex has messed up. They are seeking to wear you down through obstinacy and obfuscation but you are not showing signs of giving in to that. I think they will cough up if you persevere.

AnnoyedLesee

Update

I've escalated to the CEO of Lex Autolease, who has delegated back down to a Senior Manager (who is currently looking into my response). My response was along the lines of:

• Misinformation around liabilities under POFA2012 and lessor's liability
• Onus on providing evidence of challenging a parking charge
• Negligent behaviour that could subvert the appeal process (i.e. paying it without allowing the hirer to appeal it)

Meanwhile I responded to the POPLA appeal within the deadline and have now received the parking companies response (which follows).

Notably, they have not attempted to comment on the two key points:

• Non-compliant Notice to Hirer
• No Evidence of Period Parked; PoFA 2012 requirements not met

Their response was as follows:

==============================================
Rules and Conditions
This site is a patient only free stay car park when a patient enters their registration into the terminal at reception as clearly stated on the signage (enclosed). We have included a signage plan showing that there are signs situated at the entrance, exit and throughout the car park displaying the terms and conditions of the site.

Evidence G
System generated print out showing that the motorist vehicle registration number does not appear in our systems on the date of the event.

Authority
ParkingEye can confirm that the above site is on private land, is not council owned and that we have written authority to operate and issue Parking Charge Notices at this site from the landowner (or landowner’s agent).

It must also be noted that any person who makes a contract in his own name without disclosing the existence of a principal, or who, though disclosing the fact that he is acting as an agent on behalf of a principal, renders himself personally liable on the contract, is entitled to enforce it against the other contracting party. (Fairlie v Fenton (1870) LR 5 Exch 169). It follows that a lawful contract between ParkingEye and the motorist will be enforceable by ParkingEye as a party to that contract.

Grace Period
ParkingEye operates a minimum grace period of ten minutes or more on all sites which gives the motorist time to enter a car park, park, and establish whether they wish to be bound by the terms and conditions of parking.

A grace period of 10 minutes or more is in place at this site which is fully compliant with clauses 13.2 and 30.2 of BPA code of practice which states ‘If the parking location is one where parking is normally permitted, you must allow the driver a reasonable grace period in addition to the parking event before enforcement action is taken. In such instances the grace period must be a minimum of 10 minutes.

Further Information
ParkingEye ensures that all its signage is clear, ample, and in keeping with the British Parking Association (BPA) regulations.

The signage at this site demonstrates adequate colour contrast between the text and the backgrounds advised in the BPA Code of Practice, you will note the colour contrast at this site is black text on white background.

As you are aware, ParkingEye monitor St David's Hospital Patient & Visitor 2 by the use of ANPR cameras and any motorist wishing to make use of the site must adhere to the terms and conditions displayed on the signage in situ. A parking contract is formed when the motorist enters the site, considers the terms and conditions on the signage, and chooses to remain. A Parking Charge will thereafter be issued should the terms and conditions of this parking contract be breached, and it is our position that a motorist is bound by such a contract provided the terms were sufficiently brought to their attention.

It is ParkingEye’s position that the signage in place on site at this location is sufficient for this purpose and that sight of the signs on site, even if their presence was a purported planning breach, would result in the motorist concluding that parking was subject to certain conditions. Motorists would also be placed on notice that breaching the same would reasonably result in enforcement action and ParkingEye contend that the terms of any such enforcement action are clear.

Initially, ParkingEye would like to state that we are a leading user of ANPR Technology. We ensure that our cameras, technology and processes are of the highest quality, and have built up this expertise with almost 10 years of experience of using ANPR cameras. We ensure that we use the best cameras, and that these are expertly configured. We have also developed a robust process for handling the data and ensuring the accuracy of the system. ParkingEye is regularly required to provide data taken from these ANPR cameras for Police investigations. Once ParkingEye has installed the cameras, signage and other technology at a site, we will test the system extensively before Parking Charges are issued on site. This involves allowing the site to function normally without Parking Charges being issued, to ensure that the system is functioning correctly. The British Parking Association Code of Practice contains guidelines for the use of ANPR cameras at Section 21. We comply fully with this;

21.1 – You may use ANPR camera technology to manage, control and enforce paring in private car parks, as long as you do this in a reasonable, consistent and transparent manner. Your signs at the car park must tell drivers that you are using this technology and what you will use the data captured by ANPR cameras for.

21.2 – Quality checks: before you issue a parking charge notice you must carry out a manual quality check of the ANPR images to reduce errors and make sure that it is appropriate to take action 21.3 – You must keep any ANPR equipment you use in your car parks in good working order. You need to make sure the data you are collecting is accurate, securely held and cannot be tampered with. The process that you use to manage your ANPR system may be audited by our compliance team or our agents.

21.4 – It is also a condition of the Code that, if you receive and process vehicle or registered keeper data, you must:
• be registered with the information commissioner
• keep to the Data Protection Act
• follow the DVLA requirements concerning the data
• follow the guidelines from the information Commissioner’s Office on the use of CCTV and ANPR cameras, and on keeping and sharing personal data such as vehicle registration marks.

21.5 – We have an expectation that when Operators are using cameras to manage parking, they will sign up to the Surveillance Camera Commissioners Code of Practice and adopt the Guiding Principles which are detailed in appendix F of the Code. We have passed both our British Parking Association and DVLA audits and follow all DVLA requirements concerning the data that we obtain. Images recorded by the ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) systems are time-stamped at source. The ANPR servers use NTP to regularly verify the accuracy of the local time clock with any adjustments being logged thus ensuring that all images are captured and stamped with an accurate time and date. Network Time Protocol (NTP) is a widely used standard to accurately synchronise computer time over wide area networks. We firmly believe that these time-stamped images are accurate. Any time deviance detected on the ANPR servers generates an automatic alert monitored by the Technical Support Team at ParkingEye Head Office. If at any stage of the process the ANPR cameras are found to be deviating, Parking Charges are not issued. There are automated and manual checks to ensure that the cameras are accurate. It is important to note that cameras and ANPR servers are directly attached as an integrated solution situated on-site therefore ensuring the accuracy of the ANPR read and associated date-timestamp. Transactional data and images are recorded locally before batch transfer to our central systems. There is no evidence to suggest that a Parking Charge has been issued incorrectly, and ParkingEye goes to great lengths to ensure that all Parking Charges are issued correctly. The data taken from the Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras is sent to ParkingEye, where it undergoes a checking process of up to 19 stages. This ensures that no errors have been made. There are various other procedures in place to ensure that Parking Charges are issued correctly, and there is no reason to believe that an error has occurred in this case.

The signage on site clearly sets out the terms and conditions and states that;

"By parking, waiting or otherwise remaining within this private car park, you agree to comply with these terms and conditions and are authorised to park, only if you follow these terms and conditions"

"If you fail to comply, you accept liability to pay the fee for unauthorised parking"

All signs that pertain to the general terms and conditions of parking contain text which explains that, “[…] by entering this private car park, you [each motorist] consent, for the purpose of car park management, to: the capturing of photographs of the vehicle and registration by the ANPR cameras […] and to the processing of this data […]”. In turn, consent is also provided so as to allow ParkingEye to make a request for registered keeper from the DVLA “where the Parking Contract is not adhered to”. The wording used clearly details that the Parking Contract in question commences when the motorist “enters” the car park and that the data from the ANPR system will be used to enable ParkingEye to take enforcement action against those who breach the parking terms and conditions in operation.

ParkingEye operates a grace period on all sites, which gives the motorist time to enter a car park, park, and establish whether or not they wish to be bound by the terms and conditions of parking. These grace periods are sufficient for this purpose and are fully compliant with the BPA code of practice.

Insufficient evidence provided to cancel the charge.





Following this the response then contains the following:

[12 Pages - PDF scans of Welsh/English PCN Letters]
[1 Page - Summarising hirer details and PCN date]
[1 Page - Scan of ANPR Photos]
[1 Page - PCN Letter Scan - presumably returned to PE by lease company]
[9 Pages - Printouts of original appeal and email submission receipt]
[11 Pages - 6 x diagrams (but not photos) of signs with ParkingEye branding, 1 x photograph of a pre-GDPR sign from 2016 that is in Welsh and shows no contactual or charge details, 4 x photos that appear to be taken inside a building in 2017, one of which is a touch-screen terminal but is NOT the terminal in St David's hospital in 2019]
[14 Pages - Signage plan and corresponding diagrams of signs (though no actual signs are installed at the site entrance where the plan purports them to be)]
[1 Page - A "whitelist lookup" showing only some spreadsheet headings but no lookup criteria or database query.]
==============================================

Coupon-mad

Did your POPLA appeal argue 'no landowner authority'? If so then your comments need to point out if P/Eye have failed to show the contract.

But your main POPLA comment needs to be to point out this (use this exact wording as it is copied from a successful POPLA decision where the Assessor got it right):

POPLA will see that a PCN and a reminder was sent to the hire company, however, the operator has failed to provide any evidence of the hire agreement or statement of liability. POPLA will be unable to determine that the operator has complied with the requirements set out in paragraph 13 of PoFA 2012, making the appellant hirer/lessee liable for the charge. Section 14(2)(a) requires the documents named above to be sent together with a notice to hirer, thus POPLA would expect the operator to demonstrate that it has provided the relevant documents to the hirer (which it did not). On this basis, POPLA therefore cannot consider the PCN to have been issued correctly and must allow this appeal.

ihelp

I have read the post on here with interest it does appear strange the lex has invoiced you when liability has been transferred this should not happen but it is a matter between you and them and not parking eye

It’s has been proven in high court that the parking charge is not excessive as councils charge the similar amounts and send bailiff in, so thank your lucky stars you didn’t use a council parking space.

The problem you have is your car hire company getting involved and adding admin charges.

I’m pretty sure your agreement with them will state the you agree to pay any parking fines / charges

Parking Eye go to great expense installing cctv etc and have successfully pursue offenders in court .

I’m not sure if they would have pursued you for a single ticket violation but if they did you could have had your day in court.

Your hire company has made the matter more complicated that it should have been you need to resolve it with them first over liability and your agreement with them, before you seek to resolve the matter with parking eye or your hire company will pay the charges and bill you for it with cost attached.

Best of luck writing to MP it’s them that selling of council car parks not building more to represent the increase in traffic. we all using private car parks as can’t park on streets these days without permit

Anyway best of luck I would want to be taking on Parking Eye let us know how you get on

MistyZ

ihelp wrote: »

I’m not sure if they would have pursued you for a single ticket violation but if they did you could have had your day in court.

Very ill-informed. P.E. would pursue people for sneezing if they could. They most certainly do pursue all the way to court for 'single ticket violations'. The vast majority of people who come here needing help with the court stage received just the one PCN.

The_Deep

If this this goes to court do not forget to include this

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5972164/parking-eye-signs-oxford-road-reading

AnnoyedLesee

Thanks for the 'Notice to Hirer' pointer Coupon-mad. My rebuttal to the above is as follows, using your NtH suggestion and my response regarding land-owner authority where they've ignored the request for the current contract (which was in the original POPLA submission).

Non-compliant Notice to Hirer
POPLA will see that a PCN and a reminder was sent to the hire company, however, the operator has failed to provide any evidence of the hire agreement or statement of liability.
POPLA will be unable to determine that the operator has complied with the requirements set out in paragraph 13 of PoFA 2012, making the appellant hirer/lessee liable for the charge.
Section 14(2)(a) requires the documents named above to be sent together with a notice to hirer, thus POPLA would expect the operator to demonstrate that it has provided the relevant documents to the hirer (which it did not).
On this basis, POPLA therefore cannot consider the PCN to have been issued correctly and must allow this appeal.

Rules and Conditions
ParkingEye has not provided sufficient evidence of any signage at the site.
The photographs used by ParkingEye do not show current signage at the site. None of their submissions are recent (dated 2016 and are pre-GDPR), nor do they show signage as it would appear as viewed by a person at ground level. Six of the images are not photographs at all, but are diagrams or PDF mock-ups of generic parking signs.
The lack of signage at the entrance to the car park is evidenced in my original POPLA submission.
On this basis, POPLA therefore cannot consider the PCN to have been issued correctly and must allow this appeal.

Evidence G
ParkingEye has not provided any evidence for their “Evidence G” section.
There is a page titled “Whitelist Lookup” which does not contain any further information; no location or date range for said lookup. This shows no evidence of date ranges or a database lookup and as such, evidences nothing. It is merely a list of titles that could have been mocked-up in a spreadsheet editor as it shows no data.
On this basis, POPLA therefore cannot consider the PCN to have been issued correctly and must allow this appeal.

Authority
ParkingEye has declined to provide evidence in the form of a current contract between themselves and the landowner despite being asked to provide “strict proof that they have the necessary authorisation at this location in the form of a signed and dated contract with the landowner, which specifically grants them the standing to make contracts with drivers and to pursue charges in their own name in the courts.”
Furthermore, ParkingEye makes reference to the case of Fairlie v Fenton [1870] in an attempt to establish that they can bring actions in their own name, however that case does not assist the operator at all, stating in its preamble ‘a broker cannot sue in his own name upon contracts made by him as a broker’.
On this basis, POPLA therefore cannot consider the PCN to have been issued correctly and must allow this appeal.

Grace Period
ParkingEye acknowledge they have a minimum grace period ‘of 10 minutes or more’ for the driver to agree to the parking terms and conditions.
In this case, 3 minutes were taken by the driver before being able to park and read the signs.
ParkingEye have not however acknowledged there is an exit grace period; outlined in BPA CoP (s13.2 & s13.4) which states that there is an exit grace period (minimum of 10 minutes) for the driver to leave the car park after the parking contract has ended.
In this case, 10 minutes were taken before leaving the car park.
Furthermore, POPLA assessor Carly Law (June 2016) confirms the BPA CoP grace periods on entering and existing the car park.

Carly Law (June 2016): “The BPA CoP states in section 13.2 ”You should allow the driver a reasonable ‘grace period’ in which to decide if they are going to stay or go. If the driver is on your land without permission you should still allow them a grace period to read your signs and leave before you take enforcement action”.
…
The BPA CoP goes on to state in section 13.4 You should allow the driver a reasonable period to leave the private car park after the parking contract has ended, before you take enforcement action. If the location is one where parking is normally permitted, the Grace Period at the end of the parking period should be a minimum of 10 minutes”.
From the evidence provided, I can see that it has taken the appellant 10 minutes to leave the site. I am satisfied that this falls within the grace period allowed at the end of a contract. As the total amount of the overstay has equated to 11-minutes, I am satisfied that the overstay falls within a reasonable grace period, as detailed by the BPA CoP. As such, I can only conclude that the PCN has not been issued correctly. Accordingly, I must allow this appeal.”

Further Information
The “Further Information” section has already been covered by and refuted by the points above, namely:

• ParkingEye has declined to provide evidence in the form of a current contract between themselves and the landowner despite this being requested.
• There is a lack of signage at entrance contrary to signage plan provided by Parking Eye. Other signage is obscured by shrubs/bushes or is insufficient as evidenced in my original POPLA submission.
• The grace period is not compliant with BPA CoP (or previous POPLA findings such as the one quoted from POPLA assessor Carly Law in June 2016.)
• ParkingEye have provided no evidence that the ANPR system is reliable.

KeithP

Is that your challenge to PE's response to your PoPLA appeal?

If so, it needs to be drastically trimmed - down to 2,000 characters.

It is currently over 5,200 characters.

AnnoyedLesee

Can I not submit it by email as a PDF?

If not, I can reduce it by stripping out some of the 'lesser points' though just the 'key points' would still be over 2000 chars...

Ralph-y

sadly .... thank POPLA ..... the response to a PPC POPLA appeal is limited to 2,000 characters.




Ralph:cool: