Need help from anyone who lives/works in Worthing

Coupon-mad

Like I said, give POPLA a go - as NCP might well fold like in the linked case - but learn from this error because you had 100% win that you binned by not appealing as keeper.

Racxie

Coupon-mad said:

Nobody's telling you to pay this, BTW.

If you hadn't appealed as driver you could have won this at POPLA (no keeper liability) but it sounds like you've said who parked the car. But then again, so did this person and NCP didn't contest their POPLA appeal:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81355640/#Comment_81355640

POPLA stage is covered in the THIRD post of the NEWBIES thread. Worth a punt.

Paying the PCN or looking at the 'first 14 days' bribe is NOT worth thinking about. Nobody pays.

Unfortunately yes, as up until DW190's response I 100% believed I had done everything by the book, and even my appeal reflected this because I genuinely believed I had not overstayed for the amount that I had paid for.

As for that forumite, their situation is quite different from mine so I don't feel like I count that in my favour. My concern is though that if I do go via POPLA and they reject my case, then I'd essentially be liable for the full £100 instead of £60, and if I still refuse then they could take me to court in which case it could cost me even more in covering their legal fees if a judge were to side with them. Those are the risks I'm trying to weigh up, because £60 is already a hell of a lot just for an hour's parking alone, not to mention £100 or £100+ along with the stress involved especially if I weren't to win.

That's why I'd like to understand better what my chances are if I were to take it further instead of making rash decisions. Just utterly ridiculous to have to go through all of this for the sake of less than £2, and if I had paid via the app it would have been less than £1!

Coupon-mad

My concern is though that if I do go via POPLA and they reject my case, then I'd essentially be liable for the full £100 instead of £60, and if I still refuse then they could take me to court in which case it could cost me even more in covering their legal fees if a judge were to side with them.

You aren't liable for their legal fees if you lose at a hearing in small claims, except for a capped £50. The total they'd be awarded is likely £212. Including the PCN. So it's not a huge risk and surely worth a punt at POPLA.

I really wish you'd appealed as keeper. You'd have had a guaranteed POPLA win (assuming the NTK is non-POFA) but you can't use that point as driver so there's no point even looking at the NTK words/dates now.

Learn for next time. Appeal as keeper.

Gr1pr

You have summed up the wider issues there,  which we regulars are aware of and fully understand,  so to clarify popla 

A breach of Pofa2012 would usually win, if the driver wasn't revealed or disclosed, so the no keeper liability aspect,  but it appears that the appeal gave away who was driving 

No landowner authority would win it,  if true   ( possibly not with NCP car parks   )

Poor and inadequate signage might win,  if the terms and conditions are ambiguous,  causing confusion etc, as in your case, according to your account in this thread,  could win at popla if proven, hence your initial query I assume,  could win in court,  like the 2 recent Parkmaven ones at the same harbour  ( not NCP and not your location but the judges were satisfied so the Defendant victims both won in court   )

A breach of the joint CoP might or should win, if alleged and proven 

Mistakes,  mitigating factors,  excuses etc rarely,  if ever,  win 

A driver is expected to study the signs closely,  namely the parking contract,  then accept the contract and abide by every rule,  including the correct payment, otherwise the default tariff of £100 will come your way,  especially in this currently unregulated industry , the simple contract mantra is

Offer, consideration,  acceptance 

Regulation by the MHCLG cannot come soon enough,  but that mantra is common in various industries and services,  shopping etc

Racxie

Gr1pr said:

As above,  but its a gamble if you dont have a solid legal reason for the underpayment 

However,  if you lost at popla and front it out all the way to court,  you might win based on your account,  like the 2 victims similar stories and accounts in the following recent thread 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6547966/private-ticket-from-north-west-parking-ltd-pursued-by-dcbl-won-court-case#latest

Study their feedback regarding both cases, understand the underlying arguments   , bear in mind that judges have a wider leeway than the narrow margins at popla

As you can see,  far more to it than a simple mistake or lack of clarity, hence offering to pay the extra pound or 2 after the incident never works. They usually want their pound of flesh and each court case could have meant a loss of between £212 and say £312, typically around £280 is claimed on a claim form 

As CM says, we aren't telling you to pay, but to be aware of the issues and possible consequences, be aware , especially if we play judge Advocate

The simple truth is that admitting errors or mistakes wont win at popla, they won't even rule on the law named the Equality Act  2010, their remit fallback stance is that it needs a judge in court to decide,  like in the 2 cases I linked above 

I'm aware that there are risks, but as I've essentially said in my replies above I'm just trying to understand those risks first e.g. I can see in the thread you've linked above that you had mentioned that the prosecution rarely turns up, making it more common for a 'jobbing advocate'. That poster had also managed to make a reasonable contribution towards their administration fees, which is something I can't see as an option in my case and would have been more than happy to do as well.

I can however tell that you appear familiar with the posts in these forums, so I was hoping you might have an idea of probabilities e.g. roughly 80% of people who've posted have lost their appeals against POPLA, 45% of those have gone to court and 12% have won their cases in court. I of course am not expecting anyone to know actual figures, but again hoping someone such as yourself or CM would have a rough idea, because going by this thread https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4816822/newbies-private-parking-ticket-old-or-new-read-these-faqs-first-thankyou#latest (which I hadn't seen until now) it gives the impression that there's a good chance to fight these things, yet despite CM having said in it that most cases are the same, I've yet to see one similar to mine (where someone has just genuinely underpaid without realising).

I can also see in that thread  you linked that although they won the case, they were still "significantly out of pocket" so even if I had a good chance of winning how likely is that it would still end up costing me? Or is it just because they had paid the initial amount? I can't quite tell.

I'm also now unsure if it's even worth asking for further help here if I was to provide more info e.g. if I was to share all of the information I shared with them (without providing identifiable information of course), especially if the general consesus is "you're honestly better off taking it on the chin and paying the £60 now because your chances of winning are slim"

Also not relevant but I saw somewhere else that council's parking charges are only something like £25-50, which makes this whole thing even more predatory and ridiculous.

Gr1pr

We rarely if ever tell people to take it on the chin and pay, possibly once in 1000 cases, due to various factors or personal circumstances ,  no reply has told you to pay this pcn, definitely not myself or coupon mad  !

Those defendants may have incurred extracurricular costs, like wages, petrol , witness costs and sundries,  but they may have actually got a monetary award and possibly saved up to £500, plus cost the parking company hundreds of pounds in charges and fees and postage costs and paperwork etc 

Coupon mad or others probably have the percentage rates for popla wins, I an sure they are published annually 

There are plenty of victims cases on here regarding genuine underpayment mistakes,  confusing signageetc causing underpayment,  app issues causing it , etc, it's definitely not a rarity 

Until regulation comes alive by the MHCLG,  due to the Private Parking Bill 2019, currently stalled with the current government under Rayners purview, ridiculous or not, its been this way for the last 15 years or so, certainly 12 years since Pofa2012 

I first looked on here some 12 years ago to help family member victims, aided ever since by forum regulars like bargepole and coupon mad,  Fruitcake,  Umkomaas etc.  We are all still fighting for change,  especially coupon mad with the MHCLG 

Nothing will actually change until the mandatory regulatory MHCLG CoP is live and running,  plus a proper ADR in place,  better than POPLA or the IAS

Racxie

Coupon-mad said:

Like I said, give POPLA a go - as NCP might well fold like in the linked case - but learn from this error because you had 100% win that you binned by not appealing as keeper.

Apologies as I'm clearly being a bit slow in regarding to the responses you two and Gr1pr are kindly providing me with!

I'm definitely learning a lot already including to make sure I avoid their car parks whenever possible in the future! MSE is also the first place I go for any financial-related trouble, but as I was under the impression that this was such a clear cut-and-dry case of where they had clearly just made a simple error it didn't even cross my mind until the appeal was rejected.

Coupon-mad said:

My concern is though that if I do go via POPLA and they reject my case, then I'd essentially be liable for the full £100 instead of £60, and if I still refuse then they could take me to court in which case it could cost me even more in covering their legal fees if a judge were to side with them.

You aren't liable for their legal fees if you lose at a hearing in small claims, except for a capped £50. The total they'd be awarded is likely £212. Including the PCN. So it's not a huge risk and surely worth a punt at POPLA.

I really wish you'd appealed as keeper. You'd have had a guaranteed POPLA win (assuming the NTK is non-POFA) but you can't use that point as driver so there's no point even looking at the NTK words/dates now.

Learn for next time. Appeal as keeper.

Wouldn't in this example mean that I'd be liable for the full £212 instead of the £60? Because the thought of that is terrifying especially when £60 is already a lot considering I'm currently out of work (was made redundant last year and have yet managed to secure new employment).

Edit: not that I'm doubting what you've said as you clearly know a lot more about this than I do, but I just noticed (again) that the official MSE guide says the following:

If they do take you to court, for an amount of this size it's normally (though no guarantees) a small claims action, which means the worst that can usually happen is you're ordered to pay the charge and the company could also reclaim the court fees (which initially can be between £25 and £410 plus more if there's a hearing) but other costs aren't awarded.

So is the article outdated or is there a chance that I could end up paying more than £212? Or is it just so unlikely that it's not realistically going to happen?

As for appealing as a keeper, I appreciate you repeating it because I definitely need to drill it into my head, even though hopefully I'll never find myself in this position again!

Racxie

Gr1pr said:

You have summed up the wider issues there,  which we regulars are aware of and fully understand,  so to clarify popla 

A breach of Pofa2012 would usually win, if the driver wasn't revealed or disclosed, so the no keeper liability aspect,  but it appears that the appeal gave away who was driving 

No landowner authority would win it,  if true   ( possibly not with NCP car parks   )

Poor and inadequate signage might win,  if the terms and conditions are ambiguous,  causing confusion etc, as in your case, according to your account in this thread,  could win at popla if proven, hence your initial query I assume,  could win in court,  like the 2 recent Parkmaven ones at the same harbour  ( not NCP and not your location but the judges were satisfied so the Defendant victims both won in court   )

A breach of the joint CoP might or should win, if alleged and proven 

Mistakes,  mitigating factors,  excuses etc rarely,  if ever,  win 

A driver is expected to study the signs closely,  namely the parking contract,  then accept the contract and abide by every rule,  including the correct payment, otherwise the default tariff of £100 will come your way,  especially in this currently unregulated industry , the simple contract mantra is

Offer, consideration,  acceptance 

Regulation by the MHCLG cannot come soon enough,  but that mantra is common in various industries and services,  shopping etc

I have now seen that MPs have tried to fight against this in the past as well to no avail, and judging by the numerous t threads in this part of the forum I can definitely see I'm not alone (assuming they're all legitimate cases), and as I've just said to CM I've definitely learned my lesson about the appeal aspect and will be even more sure to always check MSE and ask in here first no matter how confident I think I am in a situation, because that line of thinking clearly hasn't worked out for me.

I also can't say that the signage wasn't clear because I didn't really pay that much attention, but looking at Google Maps that would probably be clutching at straws. The ticket doesn't have an expiry time on it which would have made the error far more obvious, but I don't know if that's exactly a strong argument either.

Edit: I've just shown someone else the tickets and they've pointed out that the expiry time is on the ticket in bold, which I hadn't even realised because I didn't even bother looking at the ticket after buying it and just put it straight into my car and now I feel even more stupid🤦‍♂️ now I'm really having doubts about it worth me trying to take it further, though I should probably try to find examples of others having gone through the same situation as me as you've suggested.

Racxie

Gr1pr said:

We rarely if ever tell people to take it on the chin and pay, possibly once in 1000 cases, due to various factors or personal circumstances ,  no reply has told you to pay this pcn, definitely not myself or coupon mad  !

Those defendants may have incurred extracurricular costs, like wages, petrol , witness costs and sundries,  but they may have actually got a monetary award and possibly saved up to £500, plus cost the parking company hundreds of pounds in charges and fees and postage costs and paperwork etc 

Coupon mad or others probably have the percentage rates for popla wins, I an sure they are published annually 

There are plenty of victims cases on here regarding genuine underpayment mistakes,  confusing signageetc causing underpayment,  app issues causing it , etc, it's definitely not a rarity 

Until regulation comes alive by the MHCLG,  due to the Private Parking Bill 2019, currently stalled with the current government under Rayners purview, ridiculous or not, its been this way for the last 15 years or so, certainly 12 years since Pofa2012 

I first looked on here some 12 years ago to help family member victims, aided ever since by forum regulars like bargepole and coupon mad,  Fruitcake,  Umkomaas etc.  We are all still fighting for change,  especially coupon mad with the MHCLG 

Nothing will actually change until the mandatory regulatory MHCLG CoP is live and running,  plus a proper ADR in place,  better than POPLA or the IAS

Sorry, it did initially kind of come across that way when you said it's unlikely I would win with POPLA and didn't initially suggest anything else. However I understand now that if I don't win with POPLA I could still take it to court and that's where things can get more risky, but that's what I'm still unsure about: if I were to go to court and were to lose, how much could I potentially be looking at paying? Because I get the impression that it could be more than the £60 and could even be as high as £212 - that's the part that worries me.

And what if I did go to court and lost, is there any other consquence aside from the debt e.g. would it go on my record somehow? Because I'm guessing it would only become a CCJ if they were to threaten to take me to court and I was to ignore it? (Not that I would, just trying to understand all the possible outcomes).

Again I really do appreciate you and CM taking the time to respond, because as you said you've been doing this for a long time and have clearly seen a lot of these already. I'm just not confident one way or another right now about what to do or how to move forward with this so just trying to understand as much as possible (and I'm fully aware that neither of you can tell me what to do).

Coupon-mad

What you're missing is that:

- not all cases go to court claims at all. Most don't, even when unpaid. NCP are not a common litigator.

- of those that do get a claim form, we win or see claims discontinued 99% of the time.

So, you have something like a 0.01% risk of ending up in a couple of years time, being told to pay £212.

POPLA is maybe 40-50% winnable. Worth a punt if you want. You DON'T then pay if you lose! Would have been 100% slam dunk win if you'd come here first but you know that now.