P4 Parking Ticket

7Thommo7

Hi All,

Making a thread for some advice as I feel there's a bit of nuance to this one and the FAQ I feel doesn't perfectly capture my circumstances. My wife has got a long-term lease from a large well-known company through a salary sacrifice programme, and we received a parking ticket from P4 Parking a while ago which I initially ignored. This ticket was given in a small residential parking area next to a large visa office we were attending. The visa office had 4 parking spaces in use which were wholly insufficient, and the only other place possible to park was in this car park immediately adjacent, as the road feeding the area was a tramline and there was no other options. The car park in question was also large with plenty spaces, but I guess that's not pertinent.

My wife has now received a message from the lease company that they have been contacted about this and they seemingly have passed correspondence over to us, which I understand is good as they haven't went ahead and paid it?

I'm wondering what the best course of action is here. I recall the car park was in fact quite well signposted at entry and throughout, but the car had to be reluctantly left there in order to meet an appointment time. Returning to the car I seen the parking attendant handing tickets out like hotcakes and it was already on ours. I understand as we're in Scotland the liability is on the driver and not the keeper, so unless they have some sort of evidence of who drove the car in, they can't prove liability? My issue is I don't know what my 'grounds to appeal' are. How do I approach this? Any advice is much appreciated! Please see attached the letter received from lease company and the PCN they passed on (reflecting the one we got on the windscreen I guess).

Regards

Coupon-mad

I would never ever ignore a windscreen PCN if you have a leased car. You got very lucky that your lease firm has transferred liability this time and not just paid it. Yet...

Wait for your NTH to arrive but do this NOW:

Email the lease firm telling them not to pay it even if they get another letter. Tell them once they have transferred liability they are not entitled to pay a parking invoice out of fear and you won't reimburse them if they do because this is your responsibility in law now, and you are disputing it. The lease firm have no interest in this invoice now.

My goodness this is a dangerous way to gave played it. If P4Parking play silly games then they'll send a £170 demand to the lease firm next month. And lease firms very often get spooked by debt demands and pay.

You must stop that. Really robustly tell the lease firm NOT to pay.

Next time if you get a windscreen PCN on this car, immediately appeal as driver, which keeps the lease firm out of the equation.

Le_Kirk

You, well your wife or whoever is contracted with the lease company, need to make sure that the lease company is told in no uncertain terms that they are not to pay it (as you won't be paying their admin fees).  They should use the tear-off slip at the bottom of the PCN to transfer liability to you (your wife) as HIRER and then you can deal with it when you/your wife receive a Notice to Hirer.  Look at the first post of the NEWBIE sticky and you will see: -
* COMPANY, LEASE OR HIRE CARS ANYWHERE IN THE UK
Scroll down and you will see three responses written by Edna Basher. 

7Thommo7

Coupon-mad said:

I would never ever ignore a windscreen PCN if you have a leased car. You got very lucky that your lease firm has transferred liability this time and not just paid it. Yet...

Wait for your NTH to arrive but do this NOW:

Email the lease firm telling them not to pay it even if they get another letter. Tell them once they have transferred liability they are not entitled to pay a parking invoice out of fear and you won't reimburse them if they do because this is your responsibility in law now, and you are disputing it. The lease firm have no interest in this invoice now.

My goodness this is a dangerous way to gave played it. If P4Parking play silly games then they'll send a £170 demand to the lease firm next month. And lease firms very often get spooked by debt demands and pay.

You must stop that. Really robustly tell the lease firm NOT to pay.

Next time if you get a windscreen PCN on this car, immediately appeal as driver, which keeps the lease firm out of the equation.

Thanks for the response. Yes it's a new thing for me to navigate so I'm probably quite naive. I think I did nothing as I read something online suggesting as I'm in Scotland I can probably get away with it and they won't bother trying to pursue, no doubt a reddit thread. To be honest it never even crossed our minds that it's a (our first) lease car, and how that might affect our circumstances. I'll get on that email to the lease company now. 

7Thommo7

Coupon-mad said:

I would never ever ignore a windscreen PCN if you have a leased car. You got very lucky that your lease firm has transferred liability this time and not just paid it. Yet...

Wait for your NTH to arrive but do this NOW:

Email the lease firm telling them not to pay it even if they get another letter. Tell them once they have transferred liability they are not entitled to pay a parking invoice out of fear and you won't reimburse them if they do because this is your responsibility in law now, and you are disputing it. The lease firm have no interest in this invoice now.

My goodness this is a dangerous way to gave played it. If P4Parking play silly games then they'll send a £170 demand to the lease firm next month. And lease firms very often get spooked by debt demands and pay.

You must stop that. Really robustly tell the lease firm NOT to pay.

Next time if you get a windscreen PCN on this car, immediately appeal as driver, which keeps the lease firm out of the equation.

Just to add, surely I should be appealing as keeper and not as driver? As as soon as they have a named driver they have a liable party? I understand in Scotland that no driver = no problem, is this untrue? 

Coupon-mad

"as I'm in Scotland"

Hmmm...I missed that it was in Edinburgh ...but on balance I would still advise appealing a windscreen PCN if you have a lease car.

Others may disagree because there's no keeper liability in Scotland yet, but that law changes next year. Obviously not retrospective.

I think the biggest danger is lease firms getting spooked by DRA letters and paying, then expecting you to bail them out for their error.

7Thommo7

One last thing (sorry I can't see any option to edit a reply), isn't the email from my lease company that I attached the notice to hirer (NTH)? You said to wait for it

Coupon-mad

No.