ECP overstay parking charge

Horus_lupercal

Good morning folks.

I received a parking invoice from ecp yesterday for a car park overstay.
The letter contains photos of entry and exit with time and date stamps.

The driver of this vehicle has contested these invoices before, but is unsure about this one. They have read the newbies thread, but feel that the only line of dispute may be landowner liability. The land is just a patch of waste ground in a town centre, and they are unable to find the landowner to contact to dispute the invoice.

 I will attach photos of the invoice.
Does anyone have any advice on the course of action? For example could the driver make the case that the photos are too vague and don't actually prove that the car was parked for the duration stated, or that the invoice does not contain the grace period specified by the landowner etc?

They are worried that their case may be a little too thin.

Thanks.

Horus_lupercal

photos of stated invoice

Le_Kirk

Is it actually a carpark with signs that lay out terms and conditions or is it just a patch of land"? If the former, are are the signs clear? Consideration period comes before the parking event but has no value if you parked but a grace period (to leave) comes afterwards and should be a minimum of 10 minutes. Entry and exit times are just that and isn't parking. Best place to find landowner is probably asking the council who pays the non-domestic business rates.

Horus_lupercal

It is a car park with signage. 

Coupon-mad

Even if you lose an appeal, you can ignore ECP.

There are two other ECP threads near yours on the first page of this board right now, both ahead of you. Nothing will happen.

Umkomaas

Get this to POPLA, then (among other points) appeal on the basis of inadequate signage, particularly the amount of the PCN was not similar in legibility to the ParkingEye signage, as in The Supreme Court appeal case ParkingEye v Barry Beavis. 

If you look over the latter pages of the POPLA Decisions Announcement near the top of the forum thread list you will find a number of ECP cases where the POPLA Assessor has found against them. Read them, look to their linked threads where you will find the more detailed individual POPLA appeals, use the detail therein to formulate your own. 

Let us see your draft before submission. 

Horus_lupercal

Ok sound. I will send a generic appeal initially then. 

On the signage point, looking through the popla appeals, they seem to mention signage in relation to appeals on the grounds of not being genuine estimations of loss. I'm a little confused as to why this is relevant, as some others say gpeol is not a grounds to challenge since beavis. Could someone clarify this?

Coupon-mad

Ah, no they don't.  No-one uses that phrase in their appeal!

That's just POPLA's pig's ear of an interpretation of the Beavis case; POPLA's words not ours.

B789

No one is saying anything about GPEOL. It is the difference in the signage that is important. In Beavis, it is mentioned that the charge is very obvious, invoking the "red hand" rule.

Compare the difference between the charge in a PE sign compared to the one you've shown us in your post:

Horus_lupercal

Appeal is in. I shall await the inevitable rejection.

Horus_lupercal

So it's been over 60 days now and I've heard nothing reference this appeal. Has anyone had this before? Is it possible the company has just decided not to carry on with their claim but not tell me via the appeal? Seems strange, but I've had no further bribe letters either which I did last time.