PCN - Select Parking Ltd

Couldey

Honestly KeithP, I havn’t approached them…

Get in touch with them next? Presumably Mark Thomas is the land owner?

KeithP

Now back to the PoPLA appeal...

Select Parking Ltd in their PoPLA submission state...

 ...the sign are hard to ignore because they are at 3 m apart around the car park as per photographs 

Three metres?? That means a sign every ten feet (in old money).

They're obviously are using a different measure of a metre to everyone else.

Counting the bricks in this picture...

I make those parking signs to be over six metres apart.

Their other pictures with more than one sign on them show the signs even further apart.

Coupon-mad

I initially thought I was parked for 10-15 minutes, but thinking back I could have driven out then back in. 

What points can be used for the next stage?

The errors, omissions and gaps in their evidence are for you to spot because only you know the car park and circumstances first hand.  Make some notes.

Surely you haven't admitted to being the driver? Assuming not, you certainly don't blow it now but talking about "I was parked"

Grizebeck

All you need to say is this 
As advised appeal is non keeper liability 
Operator has not proven liability as appealing as the keeper not the driver 

Couldey

Hello all and thank you for your replies. 

"Surely you haven't admitted to being the driver? Assuming not, you certainly don't blow it now but talking about "I was parked" - Nope, only mentioned in this thread. 

Couldey

So the next stage is to apply my comments via the portal by 07/10/2024.

Reading the recent advice from KeithP, Coupon-mad and Grizebeck, the advice given varies from how I'm understanding things.

KeithP - Complain to the land owner and still draft my comments to send to Popla by the deadline date. 

Coupon-mad - Draft my comments to send to Popla by the deadline date. 

Grizebeck - Send the following to Popla "As advised appeal is non keeper liability. Operator has not proven liability as appealing as the keeper not the driver".

Am I understanding the above correctly? Would Grizebeck's advice resolve this or am I mis-interpretating this?

I will be reading the SECOND STAGE APPEAL - POPLA OR IAS section in the newbies thread tonight. 

Thank you. 

Castle

Couldey said:

Honestly KeithP, I havn’t approached them…

Get in touch with them next? Presumably Mark Thomas is the land owner?

Haven't they included a copy of the Landowner contract in their evidence.

Couldey

Castle said:

Couldey said:

Honestly KeithP, I havn’t approached them…

Get in touch with them next? Presumably Mark Thomas is the land owner?

Haven't they included a copy of the Landowner contract in their evidence.

Hi Castle, not that I could see. I listed everything they sent on page 4 of this thread, only thing I didn't upload was a couple of pictures of the car in the dark showing the registration and time stamp. 

Coupon-mad

Are you sure? That's unusual.

If you raised the issue of Landowner Authority in your appeal and they didn't include a Witness Statement from the landowner, then you win.

And @Grizebeck is right with his advice IF YOUR PCN IS NON-POFA, of course.  

Couldey

Hello, so the following was sent so far in this process and a quick summary.

Received a PCN towards the end of August which was for parking on land on 2xth May 2024.

Appeal via Parkdubbo.com at the end of August and sent the below:

I am the Keeper of the vehicle and I dispute your 'parking charge'. I deny any liability or contractual agreement and I will be making a complaint about your predatory conduct to your client landowner.

As your Notice to Keeper (NtK) does not fully comply with ALL the requirements of PoFA 2012, you are unable to hold the Keeper of the vehicle liable for the charge. Partial or even substantial compliance is not sufficient. There will be no admission as to who was driving and no inference or assumptions can be drawn. PPC has relied on contract law allegations of breach against the driver only.

The Keeper cannot be presumed or inferred to have been the driver, nor pursued under some twisted interpretation of the law of agency. Your NtK can only hold the driver liable. PPC have no hope at POPLA, so you are urged to save us both a complete waste of time and cancel the PCN.

Then Parkdubbo replied back a few days later with a PDF attachment from Select Parking Ltd:

Vehicle Registration: xxxx xxx

Parking Charge Notice Reference: xxxxxxxx

Date of this Notice: 0x/09/24

Date of Parking Event: 2x/05/2024

POPLA CODE: xxxxxxx

TOTAL AMOUNT DUE: £60.00 if paid by 16/09/2024 or £100.00 if paid by 30/09/2024

Dear xxxxxxx

Thank you for your appeal against the above Parking Charge Notice (PCN). We have carefully considered your appeal, however on this occasion the appeal has been rejected for the following reason(s):

NO VALID PARKING PERMIT

You have now reached the end of our internal appeals procedure and therefore you now have two options; you can either pay or appeal to POPLA - you cannot do both: 

1. You can pay the total amount due as shown above via the following payment options: Pay online at: www.parkdubbo.com

2. Or, you can appeal to an Independent Appeals Service, POPLA (Parking on Private Land Appeals) using the POPLA Reference code provided above. Please note, should you decide to appeal to POPLA, the option to pay a discounted amount will no longer be available and the full amount of the PCN will become due if you are unsuccessful.

If you decide to appeal to POPLA, you will need to visit their website, www.popla.co.uk, where further details of how to appeal (either online or by downloading the relevant forms) can be found. If you are unable to access their website, please call us for further information on how to obtain the forms. Please ensure that your POPLA Reference Number as noted above is quoted on all correspondence to POPLA. You have 28 days from the date of this letter to submit an appeal to POPLA; if you appeal to POPLA we will suspend recovery activity on the PCN and the charge will not increase past the full amount until the appeal has been determined.

By law we are also required to inform you that Ombudsman Services (www.ombudsman-services. org/) provides an alternative dispute resolution service that would be competent to deal with your appeal. However, we have not chosen to participate in their alternative dispute resolution service. As such should you wish to appeal then you must do so to POPLA, as explained above.

If you do not make payment or submit an appeal to POPLA within the relevant timeframe, the outstanding PCN may be passed to our appointed debt collection agency for further action. All costs associated with this process will be added to the amount outstanding.

Yours sincerely,

Select Parking Limited

Parking Charge Notice Department“

The following was submitted to Popla around the 10th of Sept:

Dear POPLA,

On the 19th August 2024, Select Parking Ltd issued a parking charge to myself (as keeper of the vehicle) highlighting that the above mentioned vehicle had breached the terms and conditions of parking at the location noted. There was no windscreen ticket on the vehicle - the notice to keeper was sent via post and received on the 30th August 2024.

As the registered keeper I wish to refute these charges and have this PCN cancelled on the following grounds:

1. The Notice to Keeper is not compliant with the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (POFA) due to the dates and the wording used.

Under schedule 4, paragraph 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, for the creditor to have the right to recover any unpaid parking charges from the keeper of the vehicle (myself), certain conditions must be met as stated in schedule 4, paragraphs 5, 6, 11, and 12. 

Select Parking Ltd have failed to fulfil the conditions which state that the keeper must be served with a compliant Notice to Keeper in accordance with paragraph 9, which stipulates a mandatory timeline: 

’’The notice must be given by— 

(a) handing it to the keeper, or leaving it at a current address for service for the keeper, within the relevant period; or

(b) sending it by post to a current address for service for the keeper so that it is delivered to that address within the relevant period.’’

The applicable section here is (b) as the Parking Charge Notice was delivered by post. Furthermore, paragraph 9(5) states:

“The relevant period for the purposes of sub-paragraph (4) is the period of 14 days beginning with the day after that on which the specified period of parking ended”

The Parking Charge Notice sent to me as Registered Keeper was issued on 19th August 2024. This is 86 days after the alleged event and is therefore outside the 'relevant period' of 14 days.

Please see the attached file from Select Parking Ltd with the ‘Contravention date’ of 25-May-2024 and the issue date of 19-Aug- (i.e., nearly three months later!)

2. The operator has not shown that the individual who it is pursuing is in fact the driver who may have been potentially liable for the charge

In cases with a keeper appellant, yet no POFA 'keeper liability' to rely upon, POPLA must first consider whether they are confident that the Assessor knows who the driver is, based on the evidence received. No presumption can be made about liability whatsoever. A vehicle can be driven by any person (with the consent of the owner) as long as the driver is insured. There is no dispute that the driver was entitled to drive the car and I can confirm that they were, but I am exercising my right not to name that person.

In this case, no other party apart from an evidenced driver can be told to pay. As there has been no admission regarding who was driving, and no evidence has been produced, it has been held by POPLA on numerous occasions, that a parking charge cannot be enforced against a keeper without a valid Notice To Keeper. 

As the keeper of the vehicle, it is my right to choose not to name the driver, yet still not be lawfully held liable if an operator is not using or complying with Schedule 4. This applies regardless of when the first appeal was made and regardless of whether a purported 'Notice To Keeper' was served or not, because the fact remains I am only appealing as the keeper and ONLY Schedule 4 of the POFA (or evidence of who was driving) can cause a keeper appellant to be deemed to be the liable party.

The burden of proof rests with Select Parking Ltd to show that (as an individual) I have personally not complied with terms in place on the land and show that I am personally liable for their parking charge. They cannot.

Furthermore, the vital matter of full compliance with the POFA was confirmed by parking law expert barrister, Henry Greenslade, the previous POPLA Lead Adjudicator, in 2015: 

Understanding keeper liability

'There appears to be continuing misunderstanding about Schedule 4. Provided certain conditions are strictly complied with, it provides for recovery of unpaid parking charges from the keeper of the vehicle.

There is no 'reasonable presumption' in law that the registered keeper of a vehicle is the driver. Operators should never suggest anything of the sort. Further, a failure by the recipient of a notice issued under Schedule 4 to name the driver, does not of itself mean that the recipient has accepted that they were the driver at the material time. Unlike, for example, a Notice of Intended Prosecution where details of the driver of a vehicle must be supplied when requested by the police, pursuant to Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, a keeper sent a Schedule 4 notice has no legal obligation to name the driver. [...] If {POFA 2012 Schedule 4 is} not complied with then keeper liability does not generally pass.'

Therefore, no lawful right exists to pursue unpaid parking charges from myself as keeper of the vehicle, where an operator cannot transfer the liability for the charge using the POFA.

Yours sincerely”

I received an email from Popla yesterday with a link to Popla’s portal with all the details on page 4 of this thread, showing the operators evidence which I have posted up on page 4.

Another forum user posted their debt collection letters in this thread on page 4 (ssm_mse) which I hope hasn’t confused things. I also have another thread/case ongoing with Parking Eye seperate from this concern.

Only part I can see about POFA being mentioned by Select Parking is in the Operator Information and Evidence that I posted on page 4:

“The keeper was sent in accordance to laws regulating Parking enforcement within non-pofa regulations”

So next and hopefully last stage is to give my comments to Popla. 

What do they mean by non-pofa regulations? 

This PCN is non-pofa right?