Car Parking Charge - what can I do?

impecunious

One of my jobs is that I am a caretaker/agent of a apartment that is used for holiday lets. In the course of work, I park my motorbike in the parking bay with a valid resident's permit. I have wrongly recieved a car parking charge. It states that I had to pay the charge and then claim for a refund! Yeah, right! What is my legal position with this? There is no phone number to contact them on, only a PO Box number. I feel that I am being made to prove my innocence, rather than they proving my guilt. Can I possibly seek legal redress for them wasting my time?

anewman

Some say you can ignore them, so do not send a letter or money till you have got the answers you need back.

http://www.pepipoo.com/ deals with these sorts of issues and there's many posts there already.

This doesn't sound like it's a council issued ticket. I would say don't pay, they have to take it to court to get any money out of you, and they are in no legal position to demand money. Leave them to it.

Wig

In my unprofessional opinion, I'd say write them a letter and the landowners - presumably this is a contracted parking enforcement company by the landowner (so the land owner should be made aware of any improper procedures.)

* It could be a scam, so don't pay it.

As I say write 2 letters explaining you are the owner of the vehicle & have a permit. and that you will not be paying the fine.

Alternatively, you could just write one letter to the landowner (you might not want to give your name and address to a scam artist) expressing your concerns that this is a scam, especially so because the format does not comply with the industry codes of practice and ask them to confirm if the ticket has been issued correctly, and why it was issued given that you have a permit.

The trade code of prctice can be found here
http://www.britishparking.co.uk/index.php?path=1,240

Funny, I thought I remembered something about they had to provide a proper address of contact and a phone number (which was not to be a premium rate number), both of which yours fails to do, but on reading that link, I couldn't find it saying that, I'm sure I read it like that before.

In any event from a legal point of view, if you are sure you have a valid permit. you could just ignore them and in the hghly unlikely event it went to court you could show the court your permit case closed.

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

If you pay up first, you'll never see your money again. I doubt it's a council PCN, being on private land.

Sounds like a cheap scam to me.

Go to pepipoo. I expect they'll tell you not to pay it.

Coupon-mad

I wouldn't pay it, have read too many scam stories and plenty of points of view stating that such tickets may be unenforceable.

There's some relevant views worth reading on this thread (starts in 2006 but still ongoing this week):

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=269814&page=10

Quite apart from the 'interesting' posts from bluelagoon on the thread, you should also find some good advice in the middle of it all, about defending non-Council/Police issued parking tickets. One or two knowledgeable people on there may be worth the OP sending a pm to?

impecunious

Thanks for info the guys! I am certainly refusing to pay any monies over to these people. I have have just got another letter today informing me that the original £60 'fine' has now increased to a whopping £180! I love some of the statements on the letter : It is our duty to inform you that the amount has now increased to £180 and continues to increase daily at a rate of £3.00 per day.

How do these people get away with this???? :mad:

The company is called UK P.A.O Ltd

Wig

Apparently (the internet legend among legal types) there has never been a case of a private car park company taking someone to court over a private issued ticket.

Wheel clamping is a seperate matter, they have done and have won in court on the issue of wheelclamping, On the other hand the public have beaten wheel clampers in court too. Wheel clamping is different because usually you have to pay to get your car back and then it has been members of the public taking the clampers to court to get the money back e.g. [SIZE=-1]Vine vs Waltham

[/SIZE]An exception would be the clampers who took a guy to court because he broke the clamp inorder to free his vehicle... the clampers won. I forget the case name.

impecunious

Wig wrote: »

Apparently (the internet legend among legal types) there has never been a case of a private car park company taking someone to court over a private issued ticket.

Wheel clamping is a seperate matter, they have done and have won in court on the issue of wheelclamping, On the other hand the public have beaten wheel clampers in court too. Wheel clamping is different because usually you have to pay to get your car back and then it has been members of the public taking the clampers to court to get the money back e.g. [SIZE=-1]Vine vs Waltham[/SIZE]

An exception would be the clampers who took a guy to court because he broke the clamp inorder to free his vehicle... the clampers won. I forget the case name.

Obviously see the connection with breaking a clamp (criminal damage), but am amazed that there hasn't been a single case of a private car park company taking someone to court over charges though! So if they aren't legally enforceable, why doesn't everyone then just not bother about them? Or is it the case that the majority of people are just gullible?

tiamai_d

Googling the company name brings up a few interesting items. One man was 'fined', appealed it and PAO claims it was a batch of tickets that were stolen...

Then you find there website http://81.137.241.84/index.shtml

They sell kits for £50, so anybody could have issued the ticket. Looks very dodgy. Also I never trust a website that uses only an IP address.... It is a registered company though.

I would speak to Trading Standards.

anewman

At least the site has a proper address..

UK PAO Ltd
38 Bradford Road
Stanningley
Leeds
LS28 6DD

And number 0113 2558080