URGENT DEADLINE ONE PARKING SOLUTION APPEAL HELP NEEDED

Redx

InaHaze said:

Fruitcake said:

As an aside, how did you get on with the previous cases/PoPLA appeals from three years ago?

Gosh Fruitcake, I can’t remember to be honest, I certainly appreciated everyone’s help, I know my daughter has a hefty fine that she is still paying off deducted directly from her disability monies, but she did manage to keep her licence. I’m wracking my brain, I think I had to get a local solicitor to deal with it because they listed it in a court miles away for whatever reason and I gave him proof of posting etc. I was just reading it myself a minute ago and it brought back some painful memories of the stress I was under at the time, albeit nothing has changed 🙄 one day!? 

For private parking companies it changes in summer next year , 2022 , when the new mandatory DHULG CoP comes into force ! ( The dept currently under Michael Gove MP )

If you are a company administrator and have company vehicles in the company name , then one of your tasks is to understand the details regarding laws and appeals and responsibilities

Owner = the legal owner of the vehicle , be it a finance company or a lease company or a person

Registered keeper = the name on the V5C , logged with the DVLA database

Keeper = the day to day keeper , who is either a hirer or lessee or company employee or employees

Driver = the person at the wheel who committed the alleged contravention


Parking companies would ALWAYS want to know the name and address of the driver , meaning POFA goes out of the window and the case could be much stronger with the actual driver as the defendant

Le_Kirk

ParkingMad said:

Here is an article about this car park -

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/one-parking-solutions-sucker-punch-didnt-knock-me-out-vcttbnjzt

Thank you @ParkingMad for putting the transcript of the article in your post because yet again a link (not your fault) to a newspaper article that requires you to go through the stupid cookie setting rigmarole, clear all the adverts and then read a few sentences before being offered a "free trial".

InaHaze

ParkingMad said:

Here is an article about this car park -

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/one-parking-solutions-sucker-punch-didnt-knock-me-out-vcttbnjzt

One Parking Solution’s sucker punch didn’t knock me out

Tracked down via his number plate, a boxing coach had the evidence to fight his corner.

Most mornings, boxing coach Neil Donohue would stop at his favourite coffee shop in Worthing, West Sussex, on his drive to work. Neil, 52, who owns a boxing and bodybuilding gym in nearby Lancing, would regularly leave his vehicle in a six-space private car park operated by One Parking Solution, paying the minimum 50p for a ticket while he popped into Starbucks for five minutes.

And a few days later, more often than not, Neil would get a £100 fine in the post.

One Parking Solution, a private firm, operates CCTV cameras to record the number plates of cars entering and leaving the car park, which included Neil in his Volkswagen Tiguan. In his case, the company would then go onto a government database, lawfully, to find his home address and issue him with a fine for, it claimed, failing to pay and display.

Neil assumed that the fines — 30 in total, which began arriving in 2015 — were a mistake and ignored them, but he did keep all his paper tickets and would staple the relevant one to the notice for each fine. On occasions when the ticket machine was not working, he would print out a picture of the broken dispenser, taken on his phone, storing all the evidence in a folder.

Then he was landed with a bill for £3,000: 30 “unpaid” tickets at £100 a time.

“One Parking’s behaviour is farcical,” said Neil, who has previously contacted Citizens Advice and Trading Standards in an attempt to report the firm.

“If this is happening to me, who else is One Parking doing it to? It could be people more vulnerable than myself.”

Neil’s case highlights again the tactics used by parking firms to chase drivers who claim to have done nothing wrong. Money has been inundated with complaints since we first started shining a light on the industry last year.

In April this year, One Parking Solution raised the stakes by instructing a solicitor and threatening to take Neil to court over four of the unpaid fines, imposed between January and June 2018. Each fine was originally for £100 but One Parking Solution had incurred extra costs, so the total amount being claimed was £463.72 for one fine, relating to January 13, and a combined £695.93 for the other three on April 14, June 1 and June 29.

Neil said this was what he had wanted all along: his day in court with One Parking Solution. “I think it’s a scam,” he said. “The firm knows that hardly anyone keeps their paper ticket — they just throw away the evidence [that they paid].”

Neil wrote to the court asking for a few extra days to prepare his defence, and the parking firm agreed that he had until May to argue his case. On April 23, however, a week earlier than the agreed deadline, One Parking Solution made a request to the court for judgement on its £695.93 claim — without Neil’s knowledge.

“I hit the roof,” said Neil, who only discovered what had happened when he received the judgment against him in the post. “Of course the court found against me — I’d failed to give it any evidence.”

One Parking Solution agreed to withdraw the case after Neil accused the firm of breaking their agreement. The company has now said it will not be pursuing him for the other fines.

Neil is one of nearly 7 million drivers who will have their personal details, including their home address, shared with private parking firms this year.

The DVLA hands out drivers’ details to private parking firms for a £2.50 fee. The companies do not have to provide a reason or prove they are in the right, but they must be registered with either the International Parking Community or the British Parking Association.

The parking companies have been able to buy these details since legal changes were made seven years ago, and the practice has become highly lucrative for them. Industry insiders said that about half of the people issued with the fines — typically for £20 to £100 — tend to pay them without question.

“Private parking companies shouldn’t see motorists as a meal ticket,” said Paul Tilley at solicitors Wannops. “Neil parked in accordance with the rules. He shouldn’t have been ticketed when he went about his business lawfully.”

It is hoped a new parking bill, which became law in March, will stop these companies from profiting from innocent drivers through the creation a code of conduct. If firms break the code, now being drawn up by ministers, they will be blocked from accessing driver details through the DVLA — in effect, putting them out of the business of issuing fines.

It will also prevent firms from issuing fines that imitate the look of official penalty tickets from local authorities or the police — when, in fact, they are merely invoices for alleged breach of contract.

Greg Knight, the Conservative MP who spearheaded the bill, said: “We want the wording of fines to make it clear the parking charge notice is an invoice from a company and not a fait accompli. The new parking code will also, I expect, stop invoices from copying the colour, wording and format of official penalty tickets.”

One Parking said: “The driver had numerous opportunities to correspond with us and provide evidence. He failed to do so.”

Thank you for that, interesting reading!

InaHaze

Redx said:

InaHaze said:

Fruitcake said:

As an aside, how did you get on with the previous cases/PoPLA appeals from three years ago?

Gosh Fruitcake, I can’t remember to be honest, I certainly appreciated everyone’s help, I know my daughter has a hefty fine that she is still paying off deducted directly from her disability monies, but she did manage to keep her licence. I’m wracking my brain, I think I had to get a local solicitor to deal with it because they listed it in a court miles away for whatever reason and I gave him proof of posting etc. I was just reading it myself a minute ago and it brought back some painful memories of the stress I was under at the time, albeit nothing has changed 🙄 one day!? 

For private parking companies it changes in summer next year , 2022 , when the new mandatory DHULG CoP comes into force ! ( The dept currently under Michael Gove MP )

If you are a company administrator and have company vehicles in the company name , then one of your tasks is to understand the details regarding laws and appeals and responsibilities

Owner = the legal owner of the vehicle , be it a finance company or a lease company or a person

Registered keeper = the name on the V5C , logged with the DVLA database

Keeper = the day to day keeper , who is either a hirer or lessee or company employee or employees

Driver = the person at the wheel who committed the alleged contravention


Parking companies would ALWAYS want to know the name and address of the driver , meaning POFA goes out of the window and the case could be much stronger with the actual driver as the defendant

Thank you for the clarification, I will make sure she knows the distinction & to watch out for the new rules when they come out, me too of course, albeit I probably won’t remember, can’t remember what I did this am 🙄

InaHaze

Update:

As I haven’t got my head around the response yet & their new deadline has expired, a new invoice arrived for the inflated £100 parking charge!

InaHaze

This is entitled Final Demand, is dated 19th and is for the inflated £100. 

D_P_Dance

Have they added unlawful sums for dent collection, if so read this.

Excel v Wilkinson

At the Bradford County Court, District Judge Claire Jackson (now HHJ Jackson, a Specialist Civil Circuit Judge) decided to hear a 'test case' a few months ago, where £60 had been added to a parking charge despite Judges up and down the country repeatedly disallowing that sum and warning parking firms not to waste court time with such spurious claims.   That case was Excel v Wilkinson: G4QZ465V, heard in July 2020 and leave to appeal was refused and that route was not pursued.  The Judge concluded that such claims are proceedings with 'an improper collateral purpose'.   This Judge - and others who have since copied her words and struck dozens of cases out in late 2020 and into 2021 - went into significant detail and concluded that parking operators (such as this Claimant) are seeking to circumvent CPR 27.14 as well as breaching the Consumer Rights Act 2015.   DJ Hickinbottom has recently struck more cases out in that court area, stating: ''I find that striking out this claim is the only appropriate manner in which the disapproval of the court can be shown''.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/16qovzulab1szem/G4QZ465V%20Excel%20v%20Wilkinson.pdf?dl=0

Also read this

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6279348/witness-statements-2-transcripts-re-parking-firms-false-costs-recorder-cohen-qc-judgment-2021/p1

InaHaze

This is the first draft, all comments much appreciated:

Further to your email trying to circumvent the law by refusing to accept my appeal because I had not supplied a personal name and address, I would like to point out that as you are alleging a contract exists, the alleged contract would come under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. I would like to turn your attention to Para 35, Subsection (2) which makes clear that a trader is a person acting for purposes relating to their trade, business, craft or profession. It makes clear that a trader acting through another person acting in the trader’s name or on the trader’s behalf, for example a trader which subcontracts part of a building contract or a company for which the employees make contracts with customers, is liable for proper performance of the contract. A “person” is not just a natural person but can also include companies, charities and arms of government (and the reference to a “person” can also include more than one person). So where these types of body are acting for purposes relating to their trade, business, craft or profession, they are caught by the definition of trader. Subsection (7) makes clear that a ‘business’ includes the activities of government departments and local and public authorities, which means that these bodies may therefore come within the definition of a trader. Therefore, the appeal sent in within the appropriate timescale allocated is a valid appeal and I expect it to be treated as such.

I would like to clarify that I did not breach the terms and conditions of the alleged parking contract as no parking was carried out. For the avoidance of doubt as mentioned in xxxxx(I need to go back and find the case judgment) the Shorter Oxford Dictionary has the following definition of parking:  “To leave a vehicle in a carpark or other reserved space” and “To leave in a suitable place until required”. The concept of parking as opposed to stopping, is that of leaving a car for some duration of time beyond that needed for getting in or out of it, loading or unloading it, and perhaps coping with some vicissitude of short duration, such as changing a wheel in the event of a puncture. Merely to stop a vehicle cannot be to park it’ otherwise traffic jams would consist of lines of parked cars. “

Even if the terms and conditions were found to be in breach, which they cannot be as no parking took place, you are obliged by the compulsory Code of Practice of your own Accredited Trade Association to apply a Grace Period, which would cover the time it took for the vehicle to be driven in and out. 

 🙏🏼

InaHaze

D_P_Dance said:

Have they added unlawful sums for dent collection, if so read this.

Excel v Wilkinson

At the Bradford County Court, District Judge Claire Jackson (now HHJ Jackson, a Specialist Civil Circuit Judge) decided to hear a 'test case' a few months ago, where £60 had been added to a parking charge despite Judges up and down the country repeatedly disallowing that sum and warning parking firms not to waste court time with such spurious claims.   That case was Excel v Wilkinson: G4QZ465V, heard in July 2020 and leave to appeal was refused and that route was not pursued.  The Judge concluded that such claims are proceedings with 'an improper collateral purpose'.   This Judge - and others who have since copied her words and struck dozens of cases out in late 2020 and into 2021 - went into significant detail and concluded that parking operators (such as this Claimant) are seeking to circumvent CPR 27.14 as well as breaching the Consumer Rights Act 2015.   DJ Hickinbottom has recently struck more cases out in that court area, stating: ''I find that striking out this claim is the only appropriate manner in which the disapproval of the court can be shown''.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/16qovzulab1szem/G4QZ465V%20Excel%20v%20Wilkinson.pdf?dl=0

Also read this

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6279348/witness-statements-2-transcripts-re-parking-firms-false-costs-recorder-cohen-qc-judgment-2021/p1

Thank you DPD I will read and see what else I can add to the response. 

Fruitcake

Make sure you quote the correct and relevant parts of the Act and the Notes.

It's para 35 of the explanatory notes, not para 35 of the Act itself.

You also need to be careful where you say, I did not park as, because if you put your name to that response, then that reveals the driver's identity and blows an appeal from the company out of the water.

The appeal/response must either come from The Company or if from a named person it should be someone like the compony owner/director/secretary who was not driving.

Either way, the keeper/appellant should be using words like, The driver did not park, the driver did not breach parking terms and conditions.