Cancellation from Landowner's perspective

MeteredOut

il--ya said:

h2g2 said:

Just to check: are the parking spaces part of the demised properties?

If they are you likely can't act on behalf of the landowner with regard to those spaces. The landowner is the "owner or occupier" of the land, and a demised parking space is occupied by the leaseholder. Barring explicit wording in the lease it seems to me that the freeholder gave up their rights as landowner when they demised the space to the leaseholders in question.

The parking spaces are not demised to individual flat owners; they are shared on a first-come, first-served basis. The RMC is the leaseholder for the entire site, making us the occupiers of the parking spaces and the access road.

The PCNs in question were issued for parking outside the marked bays, which is not allowed under the terms of the flat owner's lease. However, given that the resident was acting on poor advice from another director, and considering the ongoing practice of people parking there without issue, as well as the fact that this resident has never been advised otherwise and did not cause any obstruction, I believe it would be unnecessarily harsh to penalise them on this occasion.

Just wondering, are you this resident? (not that it makes any difference to the approach or outcome)

DullGreyGuy

Coupon-mad said:

I disagree.

You do not need a parking firm. Your own polite 'PRIVATE PARKING - RESIDENTS ONLY signs would work just as well.  Drivers can't tell the difference.

They didnt in our development near a train station @Coupon-mad, almost every day the 5 visitor and most the resident parking spaces were full with people not showing a permit despite signs. Every time we came back from a night away after 9am there would be some random car in our allocated space directly under the Private Property - Resident Only Parking sign.

We had electric gates which worked ok for two of the areas because you needed a fob to open them but to our section, because it had the visitors parking, was just weight sensitive. When we first moved in it was too bad but the pub next door introduced a parking management company and suddenly theirs were empty during the day and all those cars found they could get into our area.

Grizebeck

il--ya said:

Grizebeck said:

Put the link in without the www etc 😀

drive.google.com/file/d/13iW85bKIhJTsokzPWUJy9Voahju23cLU/view

thanks got it

il--ya

MeteredOut said:

Just wondering, are you this resident? (not that it makes any difference to the approach or outcome)

No, that was not me 😂

LDast

Annexe B clause 4 is interesting. Have EPS tried to recover money from you? There is a huge incentive for EPS to issue PCNs as that is their only revenue from the operation to cover their equipment and installation costs.

Clause 3 of the contract... EPS simply don't issue any PCNs in the first month and then start collecting £20/PCN that the company tries to cancel thereafter. It's almost as though EPS saw the mugs approaching and ambushed them.

Was any consideration given to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, specifically section 37 before this agreement was entered into? Is there any mention in the head lease about permits being required for residents to park their vehicles at the location?

il--ya

LDast said:

Annexe B clause 4 is interesting. Have EPS tried to recover money from you? There is a huge incentive for EPS to issue PCNs as that is their only revenue from the operation to cover their equipment and installation costs.

All values in Table A are 0, so there is nothing for them to recover. I haven’t dealt with them directly until now, but to my knowledge, they have never charged us (as a company) anything.

LDast said:

Was any consideration given to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, specifically section 37 before this agreement was entered into? Is there any mention in the head lease about permits being required for residents to park their vehicles at the location?

The lease is flexible enough that we don’t need to update the leases themselves. There is a "Regulations" schedule that the RMC could modify. However, it hasn’t been updated, so this is certainly something that needs to be addressed if we decide to employ a parking company moving forward.

il--ya

After I sent another email to them threatening to terminate the agreement, they actually cancelled the PCNs. They also promised not to issue PCNs to vehicles with valid permits, regardless of where they are parked. However, I suspect they may have made similar promises before, which has led to this confusion.

I will now wait for the upcoming AGM, where we hope to retire the problematic director and appoint a better parking company with a new board.

I would appreciate any suggestions, although I realise this forum might not be the best place to seek recommendations for good parking companies. 😀

Umkomaas

I will now wait for the upcoming AGM, where we hope to retire the problematic director and appoint a better parking company with a new board.

I would appreciate any suggestions, although I realise this forum might not be the best place to seek recommendations for good parking companies

A very rare bird! 

'Better' and 'parking company' rarely appear together in the same sentence. Oh, wait, I do have an example ..... 'We'd better get rid of XYZ Parking Ltd '. 😄

Fruitcake

il--ya said:

I would appreciate any suggestions, although I realise this forum might not be the best place to seek recommendations for good parking companies. 😀

I had a similar conversation with the owner of a local hardware store who said he introduced an unregulated private parking company (there are no regulated parking companies at present) because people were taking the mickey and causing problems for genuine customers and residents of adjacent flats that shared the car park.
He chose Horizon, who are not the worst, but not a company I would have chosen if I were a landowner in this situation.

If you do decide to engage with a different unregulated private parking company, make sure the contract is watertight.

You could get them to pay the MA an annual fee that could be used for the benefit of the residents, negotiated such that the unregulated parking company will still be able to generate a reasonable profit.

Make sure the MA AND residents have the ability/right to cancel charges unfairly or incorrectly issued for residents and genuine visitors.

No charge to cancel PCNs

Ensure the contract requires the PPC to comply with the law. (The PoFA if used, and Advertising Consent for signs greater than 0.3m2, The Equality Act 2010, The Companies Act 2010).

No requirement for motorists with a disability to display a blue badge because the scheme does not apply on private land.

No ANPR

No MNPR

Foot patrols only

Make sure the parking company offers a second stage appeal that complies with the Alternative Dispute Resolution for Customer Disputes Regulations 2015 (which will be a requirement once the mandatory parking code of practice is introduced). At present, none of them comply, but there is no reason why such a clause could not be written into the parking contract. 

Information on NTDs such that genuine visitors/delivery/service drivers/companies/medical staff can contact the landowner or a designated agent to request cancellation before a NTK is issued. This will save the parking company time and money so that it is in their interests to agree to this.

Use an electronic permit system/whitelist/exempt list such that residents can update it if they change vehicles or borrow/hire a different vehicle.

Non-litigious parking company so that genuine residents are not dragged through the courts.

As for the problems you are having with the current parking company, did they obtain advertising consent for any signs greater than 0.3 m²? Not having it is a criminal offence. If they haven't, you could report them to the council and ask that they be charge for carrying out an illegal for-profit operation, and without a valid contract.
Alternatively, you could suggest the PPC removes any signs and ceases operations if the don't have consent. Do you/the other directors have the right to take action by removing illegal signs (and safely storing them for collection by the PPC), or to simply cover them up?

Grizebeck

The above seems very sound