Car lease company paid private parking company's parking charge & sent me the invoice to pay them.

sjs2013

The car leasing company received a parking charge notice (speculative invoice) from one of the private parking companies. The leasing company paid them £60 & sent me an invoice of £90 (admin fee £25 + £5 VAT + £60 PP's fine) and they will automatically take it out as direct debit.

This is the part of the rental agreement they're referring to as their authority to act on my behalf.

 All charges and legal costs for any congestion charge, road-traffic, parking offences or any other offence involving the rental vehicle, including costs from the vehicle being clamped, seized or towed away. You will accept that we will pay and recharge with a reasonable administration fee.

The above agreement section is vague at best & does not cover private parking scenarios.

They're also telling me if I want to appeal I need to appeal it with parking company. However the parking company's online appeal is closed as they received the money & they don't care anymore.
I don't want to start writing snail mails to PP & wait for indefinite amount of time for them to come back or just ignore my mails.

The leasing company also breached BVRLA Memorandum Of Understanding where it tells the leasing companies to pass the driver details to the relevant authorities.

Then the driver can directly deal with them. In my previous leases the lease company did this when I had parking charges only for a £10 admin fee.

Will BVRLA be interested about their breach of memorandum?
Can I block the direct debit so they can't take the money?
Blocking the DD will also block the monthly rental which I don't want to block as it might get into genuine legal pickle.

So what are my options at this stage?
Will FCA be interested as the lease company has a FCA number on their site.

(Location is England.)

Olinda99

the agreement is anything but vague - they say that they will pay any parking charges you incur and pass them onto you with a small admin fee

Undervalued

sjs2013 said:

The car leasing company received a parking charge notice (speculative invoice) from one of the private parking companies. The leasing company paid them £60 & sent me an invoice of £90 (admin fee £25 + £5 VAT + £60 PP's fine) and they will automatically take it out as direct debit.

This is the part of the rental agreement they're referring to as their authority to act on my behalf.

 All charges and legal costs for any congestion charge, road-traffic, parking offences or any other offence involving the rental vehicle, including costs from the vehicle being clamped, seized or towed away. You will accept that we will pay and recharge with a reasonable administration fee.

The above agreement section is vague at best & does not cover private parking scenarios.

They're also telling me if I want to appeal I need to appeal it with parking company. However the parking company's online appeal is closed as they received the money & they don't care anymore.
I don't want to start writing snail mails to PP & wait for indefinite amount of time for them to come back or just ignore my mails.

The leasing company also breached BVRLA Memorandum Of Understanding where it tells the leasing companies to pass the driver details to the relevant authorities.

Then the driver can directly deal with them. In my previous leases the lease company did this when I had parking charges only for a £10 admin fee.

Will BVRLA be interested about their breach of memorandum?
Can I block the direct debit so they can't take the money?
Blocking the DD will also block the monthly rental which I don't want to block as it might get into genuine legal pickle.

So what are my options at this stage?
Will FCA be interested as the lease company has a FCA number on their site.

(Location is England.)

Aa a matter of interest, are you rather glossing over whether you did actually park somewhere you shouldn't have or overstayed the time limit? You seem to have had this problem in the past!

noitsnotme

Olinda99 said:

the agreement is anything but vague - they say that they will pay any parking charges you incur and pass them onto you with a small admin fee

It actually says “parking  offences”.  Does “offence” relate to a speculative invoice by a private company?

Olinda99

yes I believe penalties for parking on private land are permitted and legal it has been tested in court. 

you can always appeal of course - that is your right - you appeal to the parking company to cancel your ticket giving your other reasons

noitsnotme

Olinda99 said:

yes I believe penalties for parking on private land are permitted and legal it has been tested in court. 

you can always appeal of course - that is your right - you appeal to the parking company to cancel your ticket giving your other reasons

I’m  not the OP, I was just interested if a private parking ticket was classed as an offence or not.

Undervalued

noitsnotme said:

Olinda99 said:

yes I believe penalties for parking on private land are permitted and legal it has been tested in court. 

you can always appeal of course - that is your right - you appeal to the parking company to cancel your ticket giving your other reasons

I’m  not the OP, I was just interested if a private parking ticket was classed as an offence or not.

I think breaches of rules can be called "an offence" but obviously not a "criminal offence". For example in employment there is often reference to a "sackable offence" which may well not be a criminal matter.

The parking company are presumably claiming (rightly or wrongly) that the car was parked in contravention of the rules at the location. They can only obtain the name and address of the registered keeper, which in this case is a leasing or hire company rather than a private individual.

user1977

I would think it a reasonable interpretation that the clause is intended to cover private parking charges too.

I think you need to accept the risk if you're not the registered keeper that you're going to lose control of how such things are dealt with.

Fruitcake

I suggest you take this over to the parking forum, a sub-forum of the motoring forum.

Parking tickets, fines & parking — MoneySavingExpert Forum

To be clear, no offence has occurred, and no fine was issued. Unregulated private parking companies are not permitted to impersonate any kind of authority, and are not permitted to use words such as fine, nor offence, nor penalty.

The lease company has breached your hire/lease agreement by paying the charge and then adding an admin fee, and by doing so, has denied you the right to appeal the charge with the parking company. This is unfair and breaches the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

As you are already aware, the BVRLA has instructed all its members not to pay these charges, but to pass the hirer/lessee's details to the parking company and inform the hirer/lessee they have done so. They are permitted to make a reasonable admin charge for this, but £25 plus VaT for sending two emails seems unreasonable to me.


I suggest you put the charge, the whole £90, in dispute with both your card/bank/financial provider, and with the lease company. Warn the lease company that since they failed to inform the parking company of the hirer/lessee's details, they remained liable for the charge as per Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act (PoFA) 2012. It was entirely their decision not to transfer liability to you, but instead pay the charge. All they had to do to discharge their liability was to complete the tear off strip at the bottom of the notice to keeper and send it to the parking company.

Warn the lease company that if they take the money, you will be within your rights to make a claim against them in the county court to recover your loss, plus permitted court costs.

You cannot now appeal the charge, and as well as being denied your right to appeal the charge with the parking company, you have also been denied your right to alternative dispute resolution which is a breach of the ADR Regulations 2015, which is also unfair and a breach of the Consumer Rights Act.
You are however still able to complain to the landowner where the alleged event occurred, and complain to your MP.

See you on the parking forum. Please read the sticky Announcement for NEWBIES before starting a new thread, and provide the name of the parking company plus the location of the alleged parking event.

As an aside, had the lease company passed the hirer/lessee's details to the unregulated parking company, it is extremely unlikely that said parking company would have been able to hold the hirer/lessee liable because they would undoubtedly have failed to comply with paragraphs 13 and 14 of Sch 4 of the PoFA 2012.  

Jenni_D

The above from @Fruitcake is 100% the correct answer. This was an invoice for an alleged breach of contract - no offence has occurred, and the lease T&Cs as reproduced here do not entitle the lease co. to take the action they did.

@sjs2013 which lease co. was this?

Fruitcake

user1977 said:

I would think it a reasonable interpretation that the clause is intended to cover private parking charges too.

I think you need to accept the risk if you're not the registered keeper that you're going to lose control of how such things are dealt with.

It is not a reasonable interpretation at all, but it would be up to a judge to confirm that. Other hire/lease companies specifically refer to parking charge notices from private parking companies, but even then they can still be considered as being unfair contract terms.
Since the terms and conditions quoted by the OP specifically omit reference to parking charge notices from unregulated private parking companies, then those charges are specifically excluded from the contract, and the lease company therefore had no legal right to to invoke a clause that does not exist.