BW Legal / Link Parking Court Summons on Resident Parking Permit Land (I have a Permit!)

D_P_Dance

IT IS FURTHER AGREED that, prior to the commencement of the tenancy, the Tenant shall supply to the Landlord his car registration,

I have been a landlord for over 40 years, I have never seen this wording in ASTs before.  How do you know what the VRN will be of the visiting British Gas man?  Ridiculous 

marketsqhero

Fruitcake said:

marketsqhero said:

Coupon-mad said:

marketsqhero said:

Umkomaas said:

You need to check what your legal documents outlining your residency say about the car parking conditions. Often they say nothing - that's pretty powerful!

Were Link installed on site before or after your occupation of the property?

The only thing I was ever sent was a summary of the conditions via email from the letting agency. Copied below:

Residential Parking Spaces

Dear Residents,

I am pleased to advise that the parking management at The Brewery Apartments will come into effect shortly. As soon as signage is ready to go up and the remaining details have been finalised the official start date will be confirmed but we expect this to be 1st November 2017. Below is a summary of the system & how it will work:

Please note the system will be strictly enforced. Once tickets have been issued, details go straight to DVLA electronically and enforcement action follows within prescribed timescales. Tickets will have the headline charge of £100, reduced to £60 for payment within 14 days.

• Parking spaces 1-22 on the attached plan have been earmarked for residential use. 

• Bennington Street residents with a right to park (“authorised residents”) may park in any of these 22 spaces. They may not park in spaces 23 or 24 or any of the other spaces further along Oxford Passage which are allocated for Brewery Quarter staff and contractor use. 

• Link Parking will shortly issue a Parking Permit for each authorised resident, which will be available for collection from Hamptons upon notification.

• The Permit will simply be numbered (no names or registration numbers).

• The Permit is to be displayed on the dashboard of the car being parked in the residential spaces. Windscreen Permit cases will not be supplied.

• Residents may transfer the Permit to another car temporarily. For example if a new car is bought they can use it straight away rather than wait until their new registration details have been passed to Link Parking. Or if a resident has a visitor, you can let the visitor use an available space by placing your Permit in the visitor’s car. The resident cannot park in a residential space as well while the visitor is using their Permit.

• Any car parked in a residential space without a Permit properly displayed will receive a ticket. Likewise any resident parking in the staff parking spaces will be ticketed, whether displaying a Permit or not.

• There will be no exceptions so if an authorised resident does not display their Permit, they will receive a ticket. We will not enter into discussions about cancelling tickets because the resident forgot/the Permit fell off/the Permit has been lost etc. A Permit must be displayed and parking must be in the right location for it to be allowed. 

• Lost Permits should be reported to Hamptons by email as soon as possible so that Link parking can be notified. There is normally a £10 fee for replacing a lost permit but we will waive this for the first loss. The resident will have to pay £10 each time thereafter – Link parking will organise this charge directly with the resident. Whilst a new Permit is being organised, arrangements will be made with Link Parking so that the resident can continue to park from the time the Permit was reported lost until the new Permit is received. Tickets issued before the Permit has been reported as lost will not be cancelled and must be paid.

Please make arrangements to park away from the development if you do not have an agreed right to park. If you would be interested in arranging parking please do not hesitate to contact me as a matter of urgency as all parking is provided on a first come first served basis.

Why on earth would any residents accept that?  What is the matter with people that they read that and thought ''OK then''.

As an addition, I've just dug out my Tenancy Agreement, the only mention of parking in there is this paragraph
7.6  Parking

1. IT IS MUTUALLY AGREED BETWEEN THE PARTIES, that the Landlord will supply one parking space only. IT IS FURTHER AGREED that, prior to the commencement of the tenancy, the Tenant shall supply to the Landlord his car registration, and for subsequent vehicles changes. The Landlord may issue a parking permit which must be on display in the registered vehicle, at all times. FOR THE AVOIDENCE OF DOUBT the Landlord may withdraw the parking space whereupon any misuse has taken place.

Unless it is mentioned anywhere else, there is no mention of an unregulated parking scammer infesting the site, nor paying PCNs, nor court claims. There is no mention that the landlord shall or must issue a permit, only that they may do so, nor any conditions or actions regarding non display of a permit by the landlord, let alone by an unregulated scammer who is a stranger to the lease/AST.

Any changes to your rights will require a ballot of all parties to be conducted in accordance with Section 37 of the Landlord and Tenants Act 1987. 

Having said all that, I wouldn't have touched the place with a 3,2m bargepole just from that section of the lease alone. The email from the letting agent would have caused me to dump them fifthwith, and told them why.

When do you plan to move out? I am serious.

Correct, there is no mention of a PPC in the AST, the “rules” were sent in a separate email after the AST was signed.

As for moving out, well the AST is due to renew in March, however accommodation in Cheltenham isn’t cheap, and town centre accommodation very rarely comes with any kind of parking. To park daily elsewhere would cost upwards of £200 pcm.

I will look at options in a month or so but tbf the location is perfect for what I need as I work within walking distance.

The whole permit thing doesn’t really bother me apart from when they refuse to be reasonable with regard to tenants who have permits and try to scam them!

marketsqhero

Umkomaas said:

marketsqhero said:

I’m aware it’s the holiday period, but I’ve had no response from Link regarding the SAR, not even an email to say they’ve acknowledged receiving it. Does this affect anything re court dates / defence etc?

But you only sent that on 21 December, just 11 days ago, and around half of those days will have seen the PPC closed for Christmas/NY.  Add in COVID delays in the system too. Your expectations are totally unrealistic. Expect a reply by 20 January. 

PPCs don't acknowledge a SAR, they just respond with the information by the deadline. They're going to do absolutely nothing to help you. 

That’s fine, I was just curious as to whether they had any obligation to provide the information before the court deadline date. Although thinking about it, once I’ve filed my defence I guess it will be months before any hearing in which time they will have had to respond under the 30 day rule.

what happens if they ignore the SAR?

Umkomaas

what happens if they ignore the SAR?

7-day chaser, then complain to the ICO. And do it, don't just threaten it.

Le_Kirk

marketsqhero said:

Umkomaas said:

marketsqhero said:

I’m aware it’s the holiday period, but I’ve had no response from Link regarding the SAR, not even an email to say they’ve acknowledged receiving it. Does this affect anything re court dates / defence etc?

But you only sent that on 21 December, just 11 days ago, and around half of those days will have seen the PPC closed for Christmas/NY.  Add in COVID delays in the system too. Your expectations are totally unrealistic. Expect a reply by 20 January. 

PPCs don't acknowledge a SAR, they just respond with the information by the deadline. They're going to do absolutely nothing to help you. 

That’s fine, I was just curious as to whether they had any obligation to provide the information before the court deadline date. Although thinking about it, once I’ve filed my defence I guess it will be months before any hearing in which time they will have had to respond under the 30 day rule.
what happens if they ignore the SAR?

They are not allowed to ignore the SAR unless you failed to prove who YOU are and why YOU are legitimately asking for YOUR data.  If they do not respond within the 30 days, you send one more request, including the fact that if they fail to respond this time, you will report them to the ICO, give them 7 days to provide YOUR data and then report them to the ICO.

nosferatu1001

A SAR has nothing to do with the courts process. None. I have no idea why people think the two have any dependency at all.  They don't. 

As regards your court case, them Ignoring the SAR is unlikely to be someth8ng the court gives much concern over. Or, to be clearer, it would be unwise to think that them failing to comply with a sar is any form of "gotcha" that is an auto win for the claim. It's entirely possible for them to fail to respond to the sar and for you to still lose the court claim because, again, the two are not linked. 

Coupon-mad

As for moving out, well the AST is due to renew in March, however accommodation in Cheltenham isn’t cheap.

Is it different there than everywhere else at this time?  For example, my kids rent in London and the pandemic has driven rental prices down in 2020, such that one of them moved to a better place for less money.  Neither of them would even look at a place with a parking scammer and nor would they accept one being foisted upon them.

pustit

D_P_Dance said:

I have been a landlord for over 40 years and have never seen anything like that before in an AST.  Why should a landlord be interested in a tenants VRN?  

A genuine reason would be, to add them to a white list.  No use to a PPC though

D_P_Dance

Why would a landlord have a white list?

marketsqhero

Hi;
I've now prepared my defence statement to be sent via email as mentioned on the newbies thread. I have altered 2 and 3 as mentioned, could you advise if this is suitable please? I'm undecided about putting in 3.4 and also the section in 3 which states "or the requirement to display a parking permit" as my AST actually states "may issue a parking permit". This has been adapted from the following link
UK CPM PCN received - Page 3 — MoneySavingExpert Forum

The facts as known to the Defendant:

2.  It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle in question but liability is denied. 

3.  It is denied that the Defendant or lawful users of his/her vehicle were in breach of any parking conditions or were not permitted to park in circumstances where an express permission to park had been granted to the Defendant permitting the above mentioned vehicle to be parked by the current occupier and leaseholder of 25 The Brewery Apartments, whose tenancy agreement permits the parking of vehicle(s) on land. The Defendant avers that there was an absolute entitlement to park deriving from the terms of the lease, which cannot be fettered by any alleged parking terms. The lease terms provide the right to park a vehicle in a relevant allocated bay, without limitation as to type of vehicle, ownership of vehicle, the user of the vehicle or the requirement to display a parking permit. A copy of the lease will be provided to the Court, together with witness evidence that prior permission to park had been given.

3.1.  The Defendant avers that the operator’s signs cannot (i) override the existing rights enjoyed by residents and their visitors and (ii) that parking easements cannot retrospectively and unilaterally be restricted where provided for within the lease. The Defendant will rely upon the judgments on appeal of HHJ Harris QC in Jopson v Homeguard Services Ltd (2016) and of Sir Christopher Slade in K-Sultana Saeed v Plustrade Ltd [2001] EWCA Civ 2011. The Court will be referred to further similar fact cases in the event that this matter proceeds to trial.

3.2.  Accordingly it is denied that:

3.3. there was any agreement as between the Defendant or driver of the vehicle and the Claimant

3.4.  there was any obligation (at all) to display a permit; and

3.5.  the Claimant has suffered loss or damage or that there is a lawful basis to pursue a claim for loss.