ParkingEye PCN on a hire car at a hotel on business

Edelweiss1979

Hello All,

I'm a Brit whose been living in Canada for the last 5 ish years, but was back over there for work at the beginning of the month.  We had a hire car from Hertz at the time, and were staying in a hotel near our work site on the outskirts of London.

Just in the last couple of days I started receiving Parking Charge Notices via Hertz from a company called Parkingeye due to me not paying for parking in the hotel car park during our stay.  We were there 5 nights and so far I've received 3 PCNs, so I'm assuming there are at least 2 more to come.

The car was registered at the hotel on arrival, and the barrier to the car park was letting us in and out without issue during our stay, so I was under the impression that either parking was included for hotel guests, or that I would be charged on departure.  I wasn't issued a ticket on entry for the car park. 

I have appealed the 3 PCNs I've received so far with Parkingeye (I understand that may not have been the best way forward, but I hadn't found this forum at the time).  Each PCN is for GBP100, I didn't receive the notice from Hertz until outside of the 14 day window in which it would have been cheaper, and Hertz are charging GBP42 for each PCN they forward to me, so if I end up with 5 or 6 of these, it's going to add up pretty quickly!!

Does anyone have any advice on how to proceed from here?

Half_way

Is/was parking included in the hotel stay?

 Where is this hotel  name/loaction?

Edelweiss1979

It was the DoubleTree in Ealing.  On my reservation it says that the facilities include Parking.  If I go on to the hotel website it says there that there is a charge for parking.  There was no specific parking charge on the invoice I received after my stay.

Gr1pr

You should be finding out what the rules are at that hotel, plus you should be trying to get the hotel to cancel all of the PCNs if parking was included when you registered, but maybe it wasn't included and maybe you failed to pay for the parking. ?

I stayed in a hotel in Leeds last summer when I attended a wedding nearby, parking was available in their underground car park but had to be paid for when we checked out, it wasn't free parking for hotel guests 

So the parking rules are crucial to your case 

Coupon-mad

If the Hotel chain won't cancel these, just give ParkingEye your Canadian address as your only address for service, and tell them to 'do one' because you are permanently domiciled outside of English Court jurisdiction.  They will give up.

You could easily have won all of these at POPLA appeal had you not appealed as driver but that ship has sailed.  You won't win these at POPLA now if you implied who parked. Never appeal a private PCN without checking here how to do it.

Anyway the above is your way out.

Edelweiss1979

So if I likely have a couple more of these to come for the same stay, is it worth going the POPLA route for those rather than appealing them with Parkingeye?

Gr1pr

You cannot appeal to the second stage POPLA until you have completed the first stage and appealed to Parking Eye and been rejected with a Popla code included in that rejection, each one being done separately, so 5 PCNs would be 5 appeals to P Eye and 5 rejections containing 5 different Popla codes

At the moment we have not seen a valid reason that would be a reason to appeal to either 

Getting the facts first is what you should be doing, plus trying to get the hotel to cancel every PCN, if that is possible 

Using your address abroad was a last ditch option to try to head them off at the pass

Coupon-mad

Edelweiss1979 said:

So if I likely have a couple more of these to come for the same stay, is it worth going the POPLA route for those rather than appealing them with Parkingeye?

That's not how it works.

But what you should have done with each PCN is appeal as hirer.  NOT AS DRIVER.

This is fully explained already in the NEWBIES FAQS thread with a section with a template appeal specifically for hired vehicle appeals.  Very easy.