Private parking ticket issued on land not owned by the property!

Coupon-mad

I'm not a dude but happy to help!

WesAslan

Coupon-mad said:

I'm not a dude but happy to help!

Please accept dearest apologies. Thanks so much again. 

Trainerman

The fact that it is self ticketing is part of the problem , IMHO. Someone is getting £xx per ticket, (10%, according to their website), and seem to be not too bothered about whether they are going outside their zone in order to achieve that.

From all that you say re Land Registry titles, it would seem that you have been parking on the public highway and therefore the PCNs are not valid. I would proactively pursue the parking company on that point and that therefore they have asked for your data without good reason. Generally, follow Fruitcakes advice about the DVLA etc from 31st March at 8.11.

You want to become too hot to handle for these scammers.

WesAslan

@Trainerman @Coupon-mad So I contacted the DVLA their response in short was: it's not a matter for the Agency to decide on the merits of individual cases or to arbitrate in any civil disputes between motorists and private car park enforcement companies.

I contacted the parking firm who were trying to get a answer from the property owners who clearly don't have the answer. So now they're in the logic of saying HM land surveys could be erroneous - or there are margins for error due to hypothetical thing such as a hedge, fence or wall which none exist... 


They clearly are going the route of trying to make me prove their hypothetical claims (instead of them proving it), which they know it would be expensive to hire a legal representative who is familiar with the matter or call in a surveyor (as they claimed the land registry may or may not be wrong )

My point here is this, it's not as if the plot is in a empty space of land where there is nothing in the surrounding which could be used as an axis or a reference point, it literally is encapsulated by surrounding properties and roads so any margin or error or offset would cause it to overlap other properties or part of the main road, also if its wrong in one direction technically it is possibly wrong in all planes. 

The registry is so crystal clear they could literally take the main road entrance as a reference point, so they would be no error, also it is a flat piece of land, it's not like this is the Swiss alps, they claimed the land may not be flat ... or shall I say may or may not!

I'm going to attach their full response below: 

Our legal department has investigated this matter in full with the landowner and we are satisfied that the area within CC is covered within the areas of patrol. Whilst we can understand the confusion with the land registry map we do have to bring to your attention that the land registry maps are not completely accurate with boundary lines.  

We would like to refer you to the official Land Registry website which advises: A red line on the HM Land Registry title plan shows the general boundary, not the exact legal position of the boundary. These lines show the general location of the property in relation to physical features on the ground such as walls, hedges, rivers, and roads as marked on the Ordnance Survey map. 

The legal boundary may or may not be somewhere within that feature or along one side of it. For most people, the general boundary rule meets their needs. 

Although title plans are drawn to a specific scale, you cannot use them to find the precise boundary location. This is because: measurements between features shown on the Ordnance Survey map may not match the exact distance measured between the same features on the ground the land may not be level you cannot be certain where features were measured from a feature may be shown as a straight line on the title plan but may not be straight on the ground. 

Some title plans or deed plans might refer to measurements about the boundary position but the title plan will still only show the general boundary. 

As a general guide, the width of a line on a 1:1250 map roughly represents 0.3 metres and on a 1/2500 map, 0.6 metres. As such, scaled measurements cannot be relied upon. The black lines are used to show that natural or manmade features exist. These lines may represent: 

a wide hedge 

a narrow fence 

a single feature like a wall 

more than one feature, for example, a fence and a hedge that are close together 

See practice guide 40: supplement 1 - the basis of HM Land Registry plans for more information. 

To put this in more practical terms, if at a scale of 1:1250 the distances between well-defined points of detail 60.0m apart were measured on the ground, there would be an expectation that 95 percent would be represented on the Ordnance Survey map by scaled distances of between 59.1m and 60.9m. Similarly, at 1:2500 resurvey the measured distances between points of detail 100.0m apart there would be an expectation that 95 percent would be represented on the Ordnance Survey map by scaled distances of between 98.1m and 101.9m. 

Our legal team then looked into If the land was unadopted. They have concluded that even if the land was unadopted, this would still show as another mapped area within the land registry map, there is no other area mapped in-between the CC land and the next tillite deed: NGL163.  

This satisfies us and the landowner of CC that this area does in fact belong to them and is under the parking enforcement remit.  

Please feel free to seek legal advice to verify the contents of this email should you be unhappy with our response.   

Fruitcake

It is not up to you to prove your case. You state that the PPC is not contracted to operate on the land where the alleged event occurred, as confirmed by the Land Registry entry ref number XXXX, and require them to prove that the contrary is true.

That's it. Don't overthink it. If it ever got to court, the PPC would have to show a boundary map and a contract with or flowing from the landowner to prove they had the authority to operate at the specified location.

If it were me I would appeal every NTK then make an IAS appeal for every ticket just to cost the PPC time and money. 

Nobody is asking for your personal details or your address, so as already stated, it would be really useful to know the location of the alleged events. 

Coupon-mad

And the signage is inadequate anyway.  Under the CRA, terms must be 'prominent' especially where they are onerous.  There are no signs at or beside that kerb at all, and nothing in view of a driver.

Castle

As above and tell the PPC to write to HM Land Registry if they believe the official registry is wrong:-
Your property boundaries: Correct a boundary mistake on a title plan - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

fisherjim

Oh so you are supposed to believe a load of old ramblings from a two bit parking firm that can't even comply with their own parking club's COP against HM Land Registry? Tell em what for, Muppets.

Fruitcake

fisherjim said:

Oh so you are supposed to believe a load of old ramblings from a two bit parking firm that can't even comply with their own parking club's COP against HM Land Registry tell em what for Muppets.

Well of course we are, even though the Land Registry refers to errors such as the thickness of a wall or hedge or uneven ground, not the width of a roadway which by my reckoning would be about 5m wide. That's one hell of a measurement error; especially as the map details individual garages that are shown as being narrower than the width of that road.

Using the PPC's logic, someone could claim they own or have rights to use two adjacent garages simply because the Land Registry entry is not that accurate.
I have a LR entry that defines an individual parking space at a domestic property. Using the scale on the map, the measurements are not that far out from the real thing.

nicestrawb

You have provided enough evidence to suggest they don't own the land. They have provided nothing to suggest that they do, other than waffling on. There is nothing more you need to do. They can try to take you to court if they like but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out what would happen.