They had a contract demonstrating landowner authority - now what?

wasdwasd1

Hi all,


Received a PCN from Civil Enforcements Ltd. The driver at the time (not myself), arrived late one night at a 24hr Starbucks in Manchester, near the Trafford Centre. Apparently, they did not realise that this car park had a 90min limit. I received a PCN a few days later from CEL asking for £100 (reduced to £60) for an alleged overstay of the limit by 15 minutes.


I have appealed to CEL and now to POPLA, and am at the stage of now being allowed to comment on CEL's evidence.



CEL's evidence uploaded here (remove spaces from link): drive (dot) google (dot) com/file/d/1LNPwNUe8xWrwmwUXNIH6Zc3RRzNqiTOP/view?usp=sharing

I am concerned at the fact that CEL have in fact included in their evidence a copy of a contract between themselves and Starbucks which seemingly grants them authority to manage this car park.


Would I be correct in saying that this does not constitute landowner authority, since the (unidentified) landowner has not been demonstrated to be involved in this contract? Or do they have me !!!!!!ed to rights?

Umkomaas

Is this related to your other thread? Please keep everything on one thread - forum etiquette, one incident, one thread.

Please PM a Board Guide (links at foot of forum list page, one back from this one) and ask them to merge please.

wasdwasd1

Hi - yes, this thread is in reference to the same incident. I have PM'd a forum guide to delete my previous thread, because this one is more concise and pertinent to the question I that I would like answered

Fruitcake

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LNPwNUe8xWrwmwUXNIH6Zc3RRzNqiTOP/view

The purported contract between the scammers and the landowner/landholder fails to meet the requirements of the Companies Act 2006.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/46/section/44

See here the requirements set out in the above act.

44 Execution of documents

(1) Under the law of England and Wales or Northern Ireland a document is executed by a company—

(a) by the affixing of its common seal, or
(b) by signature in accordance with the following provisions.

(2) A document is validly executed by a company if it is signed on behalf of the company

(a) by two authorised signatories, or
(b) by a director of the company in the presence of a witness who attests the signature.

(3) The following are “authorised signatories” for the purposes of subsection (2)

(a) every director of the company, and
(b) in the case of a private company with a secretary or a public company, the secretary (or any joint secretary) of the company.

In order to comply with the requirements of the above Act, two signatories from each company must sign the contract. In this case there is only one signature from one company, thus the requirements of paragraph 2 have not been met.

In addition, the signatories must be authorised as defined by paragraph 3 of the above Act. The position within the parking company of the only single signatory on the purported contract has not been stated thus failing the requirements of the Act.

No signatories of the landowner/landholder have been provided at all, therefore there is no proof that a contract actually exists between the two parties.

There are two entries for Starbucks Coffee Company (UK) Ltd registered at Companies House. CE Ltd are put to strict proof that the company mentioned on their alleged contract has landowner/landholder rights at the location stated in their PCN

I require strict proof that any contract exists between the landowner and Civil Enforcement Ltd, and that any such purported contract has been executed in accordance with the Companies Act 2006.

The_Deep

Nine times out of ten these tickets are scams so consider complaining to your MP.

Parliament is well aware of the MO of these private parking companies, many of whom are former clampers, and on 15th March 2019 a Bill was enacted to curb the excesses of these shysters. Codes of Practice are being drawn up, an independent appeals service will be set up, and access to the DVLA's date base more rigorously policed, persistent offenders denied access to the DVLA database and unable to operate.

Hopefully life will become impossible for the worst of these scammers, but until this is done you should still complain to your MP, citing the new legislation.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/8/contents/enacted

Just as the clampers were finally closed down, so hopefully will many of these Private Parking Companies.

fisherjim

As fruitcake states that scrappy piece of paper is hardly a contract and signed by an assistant on site manager who probably doesn't have much authority above ordering more tasteless coffee beans:


https://uk.linkedin.com/in/colin-masefield-956728aa

Umkomaas

fisherjim wrote: »

As fruitcake states that scrappy piece of paper is hardly a contract and signed by an assistant on site manager who probably doesn't have much authority above ordering more tasteless coffee beans:


https://uk.linkedin.com/in/colin-masefield-956728aa

It really does cast doubt as to just who is signing 'authorities'. I suspect as long as the PPC has any form of employee signature, they'll ask no further questions, then they're up and away and penalising. It would take a very determined motorist to unearth everything on this; even if they did, the PPC will have pocketed tens of thousands!

Castle

Fruitcake wrote: »

There are two entries for Starbucks Coffee Company (UK) Ltd registered at Companies House. CE Ltd are put to strict proof that the company mentioned on their alleged contract has landowner/landholder rights at the location stated in their PCN

The latest accounts for company number 02959325 shows they only have short leasehold property and therefore they, (Starbucks), are not the landowner.

Question for the OP
As this appears to be a "drive-thru" did the driver use it? (Because that's not parking).

DoaM

Castle wrote: »

Question for the OP
As this appears to be a "drive-thru" did the driver use it? (Because that's not parking).

Given that the PCN was for being on site for 15 minutes beyond the 90 minutes allowed limit ... I doubt the driver spent 105 minutes in a drive-thru.

fisherjim

Castle wrote: »

The latest accounts for company number 02959325 shows they only have short leasehold property and therefore they, (Starbucks), are not the landowner.

Question for the OP
As this appears to be a "drive-thru" did the driver use it? (Because that's not parking).

The vehicle was well over the 1.5hrs free parking period as DoaM says, however in their evidence the PPC states:


“90 MINUTES MAXIMUM STAY – STARBUCKS
CUSTOMERS WHO WISH TO STAY LONGER MUST OBTAIN A PARKING PERMIT INSIDE THE RESTAURANT.


As such after the free period has expired surely unless the driver obtained a permit they were trespassing and as such only the landowner can take this further?

wasdwasd1

The purported contract between the scammers and the landowner/landholder fails to meet the requirements of the Companies Act 2006.

This is extremely helpful, thank you!

I suspect as long as the PPC has any form of employee signature, they'll ask no further questions

My concern is that POPLA may do the same :rotfl:

As this appears to be a "drive-thru" did the driver use it? (Because that's not parking).

Yes. However, I am not sure how relevant this is to the appeal, given that the signage indicates a 90 min maximum STAY. I wanted to make the argument that there was no indication that this limit applied to the drivethru as well as the car park, but I ran out of characters on my POPLA appeal and I wasn't clever enough to have created a PDF document with a full appeal to submit as evidence

The vehicle was well over the 1.5hrs free parking period

The vehicle was 15 mins over - this falls within the grace period if both grace periods set out in the BPA CoP are allowed.


HOWEVER - one thing I noticed was that CEL, in their evidence pack, repeatedly claim (by mistake?) that the vehicle exit time was 03:45 (instead of 03:35, as recorded by ANPR). They still claim that the overstay was of 15mins, even though 03:45 would make for a 25min overstay. Should I spend some of my precious 2000 characters in raising this point to POPLA? I'm not sure if it is relevant, since they clearly include ANPR images showing the vehicle leaving at 03:35 and not 03:45.