Parking company randomly enforcing rules on a private estate

olczu

Hi everyone

I have a question whether we have a fighting chance against a developer/UKPC for randomly enforcing parking rules on one of the housing estates.

Long story short we have bought a new development house in south east London built by Orbit around 5 years ago, we had an option to either buy a house with a front garden and a driveway for £10,000 extra OR get a house without a driveway and then drive around the block to find a parking space. There are four roads on the estate itself, each road has around 30-40 homes (2/3 which have a driveway) and 2 guest open car parks each for 6 cars to park - these carparks are managed by UKPC and 5 years ago there was a "guest parking" sign by each car park. After around a year or two those signs disappeared and the car park was literally open to anyone, people from block of flats nearby used to park on our road because they didn't pay the extra money for a spot by their apartments. As you can imagine after a while the roads got VERY busy, when you came home after 4pm it was impossible to find a parking space, people were blocking each other because there was nowhere to park, especially after UKPC decided to paint double yellow lines all over the estate.

Couple of days ago I wake up to a PCN on my windshield because UKPC decided to enforce the car park and now you need to have a valid permit to park, they put up sign at random without informing anyone. It was strange because some cars got a PCN and some don't so I spoke to a neighbour and it turns out that the decision to enforce the car park was made some while ago and the only people that were informed were those that do not have a parking space in front of their house and only these people are eligible to apply for a FREE (!!!) permit so that they have a place to park - those that have a driveway can't do anything about it. Keep in mind that this only happened on our road, the other 6 car parks do not have the same rules! Now one of the carparks is half empty because whenever you park there you get a PCN and the UKPC guy drives around each morning around 5am and night around 11pm because then people don't move their cars (just to get the ££££). The funny thing is that the houses with a driveway were sold for even more money because of the FREE quest parking that we meant to have (Orbit representative assured us of this many many times)

We currently have 3 cars in our household and everyone needs a car to get to and from work. I drive to my office in Brighton each day, another household member works in central London and another in Kent. We have a driveway which was originally made for one car, but there was a bit of grass which we didn't want so we put some tiles so that we can park 2 cars. The 3rd car was being parked on the "guest parking" until recently.

So here is my question - can we do anything about this? Is this even legal? We spoke to Orbit multiple times and they either said "I don't know" or "Speak to UKPC as we don't manage the car parks". Before I speak with UKPC I want to make sure if I have a valid case.

Many thanks,
Adrian.

knightstyle

First find out who owns the road and read the documents you got when you purchased the property. Then read the stickies on here  https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/parking-tickets-fines-parking
Then read them again and follow the advice from posters on there with lots of thanks.

Uptown_Boy

PM a board guide and ask them to move this to the Parking board where you'll get much better help. In the meantime look at the NEWBIES FAQ thread for further info, and search in there the Parking board for own space to find related threads.

MSE_ForumTeam5

Hi there 
We've moved this from the Motoring to the Parking board

olczu

Thanks for your replies. It's not about challenging a PCN, I've been following this forum for years and know what to do when I receive this type of ticket. I think this case is a bit different than getting a ticket (I don't really care about that),  I wanted to find out if I have a shot of challenging UKPC for not allowing me to park on a car park that was originally intended for our household guests, or if I can at least legally get a free permit like others.

The roads are owned by council. They were the ones that that painted yellow lines all over the estate.  You have a road big enough to fit one vehicle each way and the car parks owned by UKPC are fairly small, it's like a layby allowing 6 cars to park there. Now one of the car parks is half empty, I would understand if they won't allow people from different streets park there, but this should at least be open to anyone living on the same road.

Uptown_Boy

The car parks are owned by UKPC? Really? Or are they actually managed (🙄) by UKPC on behalf of the estate management company? (Which is what you implied in your OP).

Your rights and responsibilities will be covered in your title deeds / lease - check what's said there in respect of parking.

KeithP

Where exactly is this? Road name and postcode please?

Coupon-mad

The funny thing is that the houses with a driveway were sold for even more money because of the FREE quest parking that we meant to have (Orbit representative assured us of this many many times).

This sounds like a derogation from grant, by whoever contracted with UKPC (Orbit?  Managing Agents?) and you should send that party and UKPC a cease and desist letter, citing Sultana v Plustrade (Google it).  Also do as advised and find your documents and letters from Orbit from when you moved in, see if you can prove the grant.

Also read Roger Davey v UKPC (Google it).

You may have to club together as a group of neighbours to send Orbit a solicitors' letter telling them none of you were consulted and this is in breach of s37 of the Landlord and Tenant Act in that it is causing a private nuisance that interferes with your lease and you (leaseholders/freeholders) did not agree to UKPC being inflicted upon you all and never would have accepted a thug ex-clamper firm that was banned by the DVLA for falsifying images, to maraud around your cars at home.

Order them to cancel the PCNs.

As a group, tell Orbit to sack UKPC and not to replace them, you just need a key-fob gate, not a thug.

Also get your MP on board to lean on UKPC and Orbit or whoever the landowner of the estate now is.  Of course you don't have to put up with this.

When you say you know what to do about the PCNs I assume you mean the latest advice about waiting till day 25 then appealing as keeper?

Uptown_Boy

Coupon-mad said:

As a group, tell Orbit to sack UKPC and not to replace them, you just need a key-fob gate, not a thug.

The problem with that is it would cost the MC money, whereas UKPC will (probably) be paying the MC a kick-back from each PCN paid.  

Le_Kirk

Then the OP needs to find out.  OP are you on the leaseholders board or anyone that you know?  Do you get minutes of the management company meetings?  You can at least ask for the minutes of the meeting when the MC decided, after having conducted the consultation and vote amongst tenants/residents/leaseholders, to introduce the parking scammers.

olczu

yes the carparks are managed by UKPC.. I will take a deep look in regards to the contract we got from Orbit, but from looking at it before I didn't see anything regarding the guest car parks.

I believe it's the Orbit people that contracted UKPC because they managed the car parks and all roads at first, I even got a ticket around 4 years ago because I parked on the road and there was "no marked bays" (no yellow lines or anything either). Around 3 years ago I think council took over the roads because all the UKPC sign disappeared (including the guest parking sign) and they painted double yellow lines. 

We called Orbit and they want nothing to do with it. It's strange though because we spoke to one person over the phone and he said that we should have been notified at least 6 months prior to the change, whereas 2 other people we spoke to the next day said she doesn't know anything and that we have to speak to UKPC. It looks like all they care is to get ££, we've been getting a yearly bills of few hundred pounds for a "service charge" (as a freehold, on top of council tax they want us to pay for street lighting, rubbish collection, street cleaning [this only happened once or twice] and for a guy that trims the grass two roads down once a year).  I'm just thinking if we have a chance with Orbit because like with the service charge they apparently can do anything and charge anyone on the estate because they are the "owners" of the land, even if we are a freehold.