Likelihood of successful action

WinnerWinner69

Hi, looking for some legal advice or information based on anyone else's previous experience; I recently parked at an Excel Parking Services Ltd run private car park - bought 3hrs for £4.20 via the ticket machine and unavoidably overstayed by 30 minutes. I have received a PCN for £100 / £60 if paid within 14 Days. No dispute as to overstaying but given this occurred on an evening, when there were over 90% of spaces unoccupied and the charge for 1 hour is £1.80 I would like to see wether I would be able to successfully defend any court action if I were to pay Excel the 90p covering the additional time I actually used their service/facility for.
Has anyone previously used the unfair contract act as a defence - between the private parking operators' actual loss for service/facility provided ie the time charge vs their exhorbitant penalty fee they impose?

Thanks in advance

powerbarge

Hi there

I had the unfortunate experience of losing my case recently with similar circumstances

Due to the Beavis vs. ParkingEye case, this argument unfortunately is no longer valid (google). The ruling was that the charge had to be sufficient as to discourage abuse

I overstayed 13 minutes of a 30 minute "free" session (very much wasn't free in my case!)

I treid to argue based on frustration of contract (I was queuing for a toilet) and poor signage and this was denied

If the signage was incredibly insufficient, and/or maybe your car had broken down, that might've been successful..

To be honest, based on my experience, I would just pay the £60. In my particular circumstance I didn't receive any correspondance until it had passed to a debt collection robolawyer and it had already become 3 times that, so at that point I felt I was past the point of paying it.

I probably was dealt a somewhat unlucky hand as many others on here have successfully defended similar cases, or had no further action, or even had last minute discontinuation/no shows at court, but I wouldn't risk it.

Hope this helps

Leftynotreety

Newbies thread as first port of call. Might be able to nip it in the bud well before it gets to any small claims court.

nopcns

No one who comes here for advice pays Excel/VCS a penny. Have you thoroughly read the Newbies/FAQ thread yet?

Just because someone drew the short straw and had a defective judge that continued without reading a witness statement and who allowed the fake add-on damages, doesn't mean that you should not defend a claim by extortionists.

However, that is a long way off should it ever get that far. GO read the Newbies/FAQ thread and them come back if your questions are not already answered in that thread.

Coupon-mad

I would never tell anyone to pay Excel unless a Judge tells you to.  But you cannot use points of law already kicked into touch 9 years ago by the Supreme Court in ParkingEye v Beavis.