Parking ticket for parking in own residential space

Le_Kirk

Kotic said:

Thanks all. I have appealed already and admitted I was the driver, so that should be covered (the appeal was rejected by De Vere the same day, essentially just saying there are thousands of these schemes around the country, but no reference to law or any response to my arguments on law). 

I would love to get De Vere removed, and the management company who are completely useless, but I know these are longer term aims and not immediately solutions to the PCN.

I will complain to the freeholder if I can find who they are, but I imagine they are mainly there to hold the investment (as a relatively new build property we are stuck with escalating ground rent terms) and so will have limited interaction with this if any.

I understand the derogation of lease point. There was no consultation here, I just received a letter telling me that the scheme was being introduced. However, I imagine that the point they will bring up is that the management company can make regulations. To be devils advocate, the argument is that this gives them the right to introduce this scheme and the requirement to display a permit is a reasonable regulation ( I completely disagree, but I know that the law doesn’t always follow common sense). Coupon Mad, were you saying that this term is enough to allow the scheme to be introduced? If so it feels like I have a relatively weak case here.

on the leasing company paying, I see this as a separate issue and I know there is already a thread hundreds of pages long discussing this. The car is a company car, so the charges get deducted from payroll (therefore no way to block the payment). I’ve been in touch with the leasing company to ask them not to pay these, got a rejection saying that this is the term my employer agreed to, and if I don’t like it I need to take it up with my employer. I will investigate this further separately, following the advice above, but at the moment I’d like to focus on the charge that has come to me.

What is your status? Leaseholder (in which case you should know the freeholder, ask your solicitor) or tenant, in which case, you landlord should know.
Whatever the case, a PPC cannot just rock up and install signs, either the freeholder (if they own the whole block) or individual leaseholders can ask the management company many or agent about the ballot.  What do your fellow residents think?
Just because there are thousands of these schemes does not make your scheme right.

Kotic

Thanks all again. 

Coupon mad, I thought that was what you might have meant, thanks for the clarification. I will take your advice and stand firm here, and will keep this updated. 

Le Kirk, I am a leaseholder. In this case the ppc (de Vere) were appointed by the management company. There was no consultation or ballot of residents (or if there was I was not involved in it). It may have been approved at an AGM of the block, but due to the property managers being useless residents often don’t get notified of when these will take place. 

H2g2 thanks also for your response. To my unqualified legal mind I think it makes sense. If it comes that far I will also make similar arguments.

Le_Kirk

Have a read of this and in particular this, selection below, the MA cannot just pass matters at an AGM because it would fail the act requirements: -

Any such application shall only be made if—

(a)in a case where the application is in respect of less than nine leases, all, or all but one, of the parties concerned consent to it; or

(b)in a case where the application is in respect of more than eight leases, it is not opposed for any reason by more than 10 per cent. of the total number of the parties concerned and at least 75 per cent. of that number consent to it.

nopcns

Note that it is "all" the leaseholders, not just those that attend a "meeting".

eddddy

Le_Kirk said:

Ask the MA/MC when, NOT IF, the consultation of all residents took place and what was the date and outcome of the ballot.  This is in line with the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, where 75% of the residents must be in favor and not more than 10% against any changes.

This is a misrepresentation of the Landlord and Tenant act.

What the Landlord and Tenant act actually says is that one way of varying the terms of leases is by making an application to a tribunal.

The tribunal will decide whether to grant or refuse the application.

The lease variations would not take effect until the tribunal approves them, and the solicitors draft variations, and leaseholders sign them. 

This type of application must be supported by at least 75% of leaseholders and opposed by no more than 10% of leaseholders - but no "meeting" or "ballot" is required to ascertain this. 

What the Tribunal actually ask is:

When setting out the grounds for an application under section 37, please give details of the number of persons consenting to or opposing the proposed variation together with evidence establishing these numbers.

So sending emails, sending letters, returning a tear-off slip, adding your name to a list, etc would all be valid forms of evidence. (Names and addresses would almost certainly be required.)

And I assume all the mortgage lenders would need to approve the lease variation variation as well.


Varying the lease would be a "big deal" - letters from solicitors; letters to and from mortgage lenders; legal docs to sign; and probably legal bills of hundreds of pounds to pay. So it's hard to imagine all this could happen without a leaseholder knowing.


So it's not a case of asking "When was the meeting/ballot?", it's a case of saying "The lease doesn't allow this (and no lease variation has been done to allow this.)"

nopcns

Thank you for the clarification. I think it is more of a question to put to the PPC and whoever contracted them, usually the MA/MC, and see what answer they give. 

So the question for the PPC/MA/MC/landlord should be: "Please tell me the date that a tribunal approved an amendment to the lease as required by section 35(a) or 35(b) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987".

eddddy

nopcns said:

So the question for the PPC/MA/MC/landlord should be: "Please tell me the date that a tribunal approved an amendment to the lease as required by section 35(a) or 35(b) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987".

The relevant part of the process would be...

• An application is made to a tribunal to vary the leases
• Let's assume the tribunal approves the variation of the leases
• Then the solicitors do all the legal stuff - and the leaseholder signs the deed that varies the lease
• (Then the variation comes into effect)

So a leaseholder would know if they'd signed the deed - they don't need to ask anyone.



(As an aside, if the leaseholder refused to sign the deed, the freeholder might apply for a court order forcing the leaseholder to sign. Then refusing to sign would be 'contempt of court')

(As another aside, if the leaseholder couldn't be traced/contacted, the freeholder could probably apply to a court to sign the deed on the leaseholder's behalf. But the freeholder would have to show the court that they had made substantial efforts to trace the leaseholder.)


But taking a step back...

• A lease is granted

• Then the lease might be changed 0, 1 or more times using lease variations

• There are a number of ways that a lease variation can come about - one way is as discussed above

So the question to the freeholder is simply "Which terms in the lease do you believe allows you to hire a PPC, issue PCNs, etc?"

Or if you want to be really pedantic "Which terms in the lease (taking into account any/all lease variations) do you believe allows you to hire a PPC, issue PCNs, etc?"

But I'd say that this bit "(taking into account any/all lease variations)" is redundant and unnecessary. As any variations would have become part of the lease.

Kotic

Just as an update to this, after I refused to pay, De Verne sent the invoice to the car leasing company (including an extra £30 collection fee, so £140 including the leasing company’s own ‘admin fee’) which the leasing company just paid and will recharge to me in my next payslip. This is despite De Vere being aware of me being the driver from my previous corespondence with them (Meaning that what they put on the notification to the leasing co of not knowing the driver is a lie). 

Looks like I now need to read through the long thread on leasing co’s paying parking charges and what my next step is. Sigh

Coupon-mad

You will have to tell the Leasing firm that you won't pay for their error. Refuse. 

Kotic

I would but as I have a company car it gets automatically deducted from my salary.