Do I have to pay?

[ripple11]

I just read someone on a local London forum asking for advice on a private parking ticket. It seems a pivotal court case decision is pending.

This was a reply from someone:

there is an appeal outcome pending at the Supreme Court relating to whether penalties like yours can be enforced. Barry Beavis is the appellant against a decision that went in favour of the parking company Parking Eye. Parking Eye were trying to enforce an £85 penalty for an overstay of less than 1 hour, and the whole parking industry is awaiting the outcome of the appeal.

I've found a video Barry's campaign team have made his ticket and appeals:

 https://youtu.be/weY59fUaYRU

[cambridgealex]

I just read someone on a local London forum asking for advice on a private parking ticket. It seems a pivotal court case decision is pending.

This was a reply from someone:

there is an appeal outcome pending at the Supreme Court relating to whether penalties like yours can be enforced. Barry Beavis is the appellant against a decision that went in favour of the parking company Parking Eye. Parking Eye were trying to enforce an £85 penalty for an overstay of less than 1 hour, and the whole parking industry is awaiting the outcome of the appeal.

I've found a video Barry's campaign team have made his ticket and appeals:

 https://youtu.be/weY59fUaYRU

Yes, and sadly this case did not go in our favour.

In fact, it's been cited in my latest letter from them. I'll post the exchange for interest, but in effect they've seen me, and raised me...

[cambridgealex]

So this was my "ace in the pack" letter:

Dear sirs

PCN Number xxx

Please note, this is an open letter and I reserve the right to produce it to the court at the appropriate time, should the need arise.

Firstly, I do not accept liability for the above parking charge and I have no intention of paying the money demanded by your client. Specifically, I do not accept that the charge demanded is in any way shape or form a genuine pre-estimate of loss. Also, as it took 5 months for me to even receive the notice, and taking into account the harassment of the current owners of 62A Hinton Way, where your client has been sending bogus letters to (the costs of which I will be pursuing on their behalf), I believe render any charges even more absurd.

Further, I do not believe that your client has legal standing to pursue an action against me in its own name, since any loss (which is denied) would be the landholder's in any event. I am sure that you will have advised your client as to the recent cases in which parking companies have had similar claims dismissed owing to having no locus to bring a claim. For the above reasons, any court proceedings in connection with this matter will be vigorously defended.

Second, should it be your client's intention to start court proceedings, you must first provide a Letter Before Claim which complies with the requirements of Annex A Para 2 of the Practice Direction on Pre-action Conduct. Your letter clearly does not meet those requirements.

In particularly your attention is drawn to the Practice Direction requirement to utilise an appropriate form of ADR before starting court proceedings. In the circumstances I invite your client to refer this dispute to the Parking On Private Land appeals service ("POPLA"), which is the appropriate form of ADR set up by the parking industry for this precise situation. 

Please note: Notwithstanding the fact that any decision of POPLA is legally binding on the parking company, and not the motorist, in the spirit of exploring an amicable resolution of this dispute, I am willing to give an undertaking to be bound by the decision of POPLA, thus ensuring that this case will not proceed to court. 

A referral to POPLA will avoid your client incurring the fees and expenses set out in your letter, and perhaps more importantly will reduce the burden on the court (which, as you will be aware, is the reason for this Direction). Please do not seek to rely on any deadlines imposed by your client as POPLA has confirmed that it does not impose any time limit on an appeal to POPLA, and all that is required is for your client to issue a POPLA code.

I would also remind you that a failure and/or refusal by your client to agree to my offer of both parties abiding by a POPLA decision would be clear evidence of your client's failure to mitigate its alleged loss.

Should your client reject my offer to refer this dispute to ADR and instead chooses to instruct you to issue court proceedings, I shall invite the court to stay the case and make an order referring the case to POPLA. Further I shall strenuously resist any application for costs that your client may wish to make, owing to its failure to mitigate, and shall instead make an application for my own wasted costs according to the provisions of Schedule 4 of the Practice Direction and CPR 27.14.

In the meantime, and in the absence of a compliant Letter Before Claim, you should place a note on your file to the effect that this charge is disputed and your firm is required to cease and desist all further contact with me. For the avoidance of doubt, the same applies to the debt collection agency.

Finally, please also note that should your firm issue court proceedings on behalf of your client, without first complying with all steps set out in the Practice Direction on pre-action conduct, I shall make an immediate complaint to the Solicitors Regulation Authority for breach of the Principles contained in the SRA Handbook version 8, published on 1st October 2013.

I trust that I have made myself clear, and I suggest that you take your client's further instructions.

Yours faithfully

Alex Goulder

[cambridgealex]

But it appears they've pulled out a joker:

Dear Mr Goulder

Thank you for your email, the contents of which are noted.

We would confirm that on 1 May 2015, a vehicle with a registration mark ("VRM") of xx was issued with a Parking Charge Notice ("PCN") numbered xx, by our Client; London Parking Solutions, as the vehicle was observed as being parked on private land in a permit holders only parking space, without clearly displaying a valid parking permit. Upon the issue of this PCN, a physical copy was affixed to the vehicle, and the driver was given a period of 14 days in which to make payment of the reduced amount of £60.00, or 28 days in which to appeal against the PCN.

Whilst a PCN was affixed to the vehicle, this was ignored and so on 1 June 2015, an application was made to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency ("DVLA") under Regulation 27(1)(e) of the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002, in order to obtain the name and address of the registered keeper of the material vehicle. We would confirm that on 2 June 2015, the DVLA confirmed that the registered keeper was Mr Alexander Michael Goulder, of 62A Hinton Way, xx, and subsequently on 16 July 2015, a formal Notice to Keeper was sent to the registered keeper (you).

Whilst we note your comments, in respect of your not residing at the above address (and therefore not receiving the letter(s) in a timely fashion), as a 3rd party agency, we rely on the information that is provided to us by the DVLA to be accurate. In the event that there is an issue with the data which is held in respect of this vehicle, we would advise you to resolve this directly with the DVLA.

In terms of the points raised in your email below, whilst it is clear that you are now outside of the time frames in which to submit a formal appeal, for the purposes of completeness, we shall address each point that you have raised;

1) The amount claimed is not a Genuine Pre-Estimate of the Operators Loss

Loss is not relevant in this instance, as the claim is not for a breach of contract. The contractual terms make it clear that any driver parking in this area without clearly displaying a valid parking permit agrees to pay the charge. It is, in effect, the price that the motorist has agreed for parking in a manner which is not permitted. Once the driver has entered into an agreement with the Operator to pay the charge, the Operator does not have to subsequently show that the charge represents the amount that they have lost.

Even if the claim is for a breach of contract, the recent case of Beavis -v- Parking Eye; EWCA Civ 402 [2015] made it clear that such charges are legal if they are commercially justifiable, providing that the charge claimed is neither 'extravagant or unconscionable'. As the amount claimed here is similar to that allowed by the Court of Appeal, then the charge can be deemed as both reasonable and recoverable on the part of the Operator in our view.

2) No standing to issue or recover charges

The Operator has a signed agreement with the landowner, to operate and enforce parking control measures on their behalf. This agreement makes provision for the Operator (The Creditor) to issue legal proceedings against motorists who fail to resolve outstanding matters. At this stage you are not entitled to have sight of such agreement, as this is a commercially sensitive document. Furthermore, there is a clear privity of contract, insomuch as this agreement bears no relevance to the agreement between you and the Operator. Should this matter progress to litigation, we shall of course provide a redacted copy of the same as part of the Operators evidence bundle.

3) Letter Before Claim/Letter Before Action

Should we receive instruction from our Client to commence with litigation, we shall of course comply with pre-action protocol.

4) POPLA

In order for an Operator to provide a motorist with a unique Popla verification code, the motorist must have firstly made full use of an Operators internal appeals procedure. As this is not the case in this instance, we regret that we are unable to furnish you with a Popla code. It is also important to note, that the Operator; London Parking Solutions, are a member of the Independent Parking Committee and therefore any such referral to an Independent Appeals ​Body, would be to the IAS as opposed to Popla.

We trust that the above clarifies our position in respect of this matter and would urge you to contact us within 14 days to resolve this matter. In the absence of such a resolution, we shall be seeking a Client instruction to refer this matter to our solicitors with a view to issuing a County Court Claim.

5) Alternative Dispute Resolution

We would confirm that as a member of the Independent Parking Committee, our Client has the option to refer this matter to their accredited ADR system. Having reviewed this matter however, and based on the lack of an initial appeal, please accept this email as confirmation that we shall not be engaging with ADR in this instance.

Kindest Regards,
UCS Admin

[atdc21]

Get everyone in the thread who said ignore it to cough up a % imo....

[Graham C]

Have you looked/posted on Pepipoo? 

[buzzharvey22]

Christ, they've had your life.

My Gran got one of these for Parking in an Aldi car park when she went to the salon once.

I researched into it and asked on facebook and was met with "Don't pay, all they will do is send you more letters."

I instantly told my Gran to pay the £60 notes, as the hassle and worry it would have caused the poor mare over the weeks wouldn't have been worth it.

[exstream]

Christ, they've had your life.

My Gran got one of these for Parking in an Aldi car park when she went to the salon once.

I researched into it and asked on facebook and was met with "Don't pay, all they will do is send you more letters."

I instantly told my Gran to pay the £60 notes, as the hassle and worry it would have caused the poor mare over the weeks wouldn't have been worth it.

She told me her grandson is scum.

[david3103]

But it appears they've pulled out a joker:

Dear Mr Goulder

Thank you for your email, the contents of which are noted.

We would confirm that on 1 May 2015, a vehicle with a registration mark ("VRM") of xx was issued with a Parking Charge Notice ("PCN") numbered xx, by our Client; London Parking Solutions, as the vehicle was observed as being parked on private land in a permit holders only parking space, without clearly displaying a valid parking permit. Upon the issue of this PCN, a physical copy was affixed to the vehicle, and the driver was given a period of 14 days in which to make payment of the reduced amount of £60.00, or 28 days in which to appeal against the PCN.

Whilst a PCN was affixed to the vehicle, this was ignored and so on 1 June 2015, an application was made to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency ("DVLA") under Regulation 27(1)(e) of the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002, in order to obtain the name and address of the registered keeper of the material vehicle. We would confirm that on 2 June 2015, the DVLA confirmed that the registered keeper was Mr Alexander Michael Goulder, of 62A Hinton Way, xx, and subsequently on 16 July 2015, a formal Notice to Keeper was sent to the registered keeper (you).

Whilst we note your comments, in respect of your not residing at the above address (and therefore not receiving the letter(s) in a timely fashion), as a 3rd party agency, we rely on the information that is provided to us by the DVLA to be accurate. In the event that there is an issue with the data which is held in respect of this vehicle, we would advise you to resolve this directly with the DVLA.

In terms of the points raised in your email below, whilst it is clear that you are now outside of the time frames in which to submit a formal appeal, for the purposes of completeness, we shall address each point that you have raised;

1) The amount claimed is not a Genuine Pre-Estimate of the Operators Loss

Loss is not relevant in this instance, as the claim is not for a breach of contract. The contractual terms make it clear that any driver parking in this area without clearly displaying a valid parking permit agrees to pay the charge. It is, in effect, the price that the motorist has agreed for parking in a manner which is not permitted. Once the driver has entered into an agreement with the Operator to pay the charge, the Operator does not have to subsequently show that the charge represents the amount that they have lost.

Even if the claim is for a breach of contract, the recent case of Beavis -v- Parking Eye; EWCA Civ 402 [2015] made it clear that such charges are legal if they are commercially justifiable, providing that the charge claimed is neither 'extravagant or unconscionable'. As the amount claimed here is similar to that allowed by the Court of Appeal, then the charge can be deemed as both reasonable and recoverable on the part of the Operator in our view.

2) No standing to issue or recover charges

The Operator has a signed agreement with the landowner, to operate and enforce parking control measures on their behalf. This agreement makes provision for the Operator (The Creditor) to issue legal proceedings against motorists who fail to resolve outstanding matters. At this stage you are not entitled to have sight of such agreement, as this is a commercially sensitive document. Furthermore, there is a clear privity of contract, insomuch as this agreement bears no relevance to the agreement between you and the Operator. Should this matter progress to litigation, we shall of course provide a redacted copy of the same as part of the Operators evidence bundle.

3) Letter Before Claim/Letter Before Action

Should we receive instruction from our Client to commence with litigation, we shall of course comply with pre-action protocol.

4) POPLA

In order for an Operator to provide a motorist with a unique Popla verification code, the motorist must have firstly made full use of an Operators internal appeals procedure. As this is not the case in this instance, we regret that we are unable to furnish you with a Popla code. It is also important to note, that the Operator; London Parking Solutions, are a member of the Independent Parking Committee and therefore any such referral to an Independent Appeals ​Body, would be to the IAS as opposed to Popla.

We trust that the above clarifies our position in respect of this matter and would urge you to contact us within 14 days to resolve this matter. In the absence of such a resolution, we shall be seeking a Client instruction to refer this matter to our solicitors with a view to issuing a County Court Claim.

5) Alternative Dispute Resolution

We would confirm that as a member of the Independent Parking Committee, our Client has the option to refer this matter to their accredited ADR system. Having reviewed this matter however, and based on the lack of an initial appeal, please accept this email as confirmation that we shall not be engaging with ADR in this instance.

Kindest Regards,
UCS Admin

You're right, it's turned into a game of poker. The whole letter is designed to look like they are trying to decide how much value they can go for. The bolded para is the equivalent of assembling a big bet and fake pumping it looking for a read.

My first inclination would still be to let them get on with it if they think their case is so strong.

What's the worst that can happen? You have exit points at so many places along their process that you might as well play along for a while and wait to see if any of their 'shoulds' become 'ares'.

[strak33]

Good thread filled with information.

[buzzharvey22]

Christ, they've had your life.

My Gran got one of these for Parking in an Aldi car park when she went to the salon once.

I researched into it and asked on facebook and was met with "Don't pay, all they will do is send you more letters."

I instantly told my Gran to pay the £60 notes, as the hassle and worry it would have caused the poor mare over the weeks wouldn't have been worth it.

She told me her grandson is scum.

She can barely remember who her Grandson is, never mind his personality.

She'd be right though.

[StuartHopkin]

Arghh

If you don't intend on paying this then you should just ignore the letters, I definitely would not be responding to anything.

As David says there will be exit points along the way if needed, but just see what happens.

There will definitely be a clear change if they move from threatening letters to serious action.

[cambridgealex]

This is not going well guys.

They keep sending letters, now from debt collectors and solictors. A £60 fine is now up to £202! What's worse is that the address is out of date, and it's being forwarded to my Mum so she is opening the letters each time and fuming with me!

You really think this isn't legit? I really can't be arsed dealing with this stress, for the sake of £60 I should've just paid initially.

Laugh at them and tell em you will see them in Court.
Let the Courts laugh at them when they show that letter that has invoiced for a 'warrant'. Abso fucking joke they believe they can issue one

Why is it a joke? Why can't a company buy a car park, charge people to use it, then fine them for not paying?

Buying the car park is ok
Charging to use it is ok
Charging a little extra as a penalty for you overstaying or just not paying the standard cost is ok
What isn't ok, what they definitely can't do is fine you
Nor can they charge more than they have lost through your 'infringement'

Fundamentally Alex they can't charge more as a penalty than their loss. This is what is known as a 'punitive charge'; designed only to punish you. They are sometimes acceptable, but not in consumer contracts (which is what this is, you want to consume their car park)

One reason you might think of for legislating against punitive damages in consumer contracts is because it incentives one party to 'force' a breach by the counterpart.

For example, say I said you could park at my spot for £1 for the day, but the car had to be gone before 7pm or I'd fine you £1000. If this was allowed I'd be incentivised to make it hard or impossible for you to get the car out by 7pm, perhaps by letting the tires down at 6:55pm or locking a large gate, etc.

It is a long held principle of contract law that remedy for breach can only amount to the actual (and actually mitigated where possible) damages incurred.

The fact that these companies try to imitate councils and legitimate authorities who *can* impose 'punitive' damages so that they can scare people into paying is a disgrace. It should genuinely be legislated against and all of these private companies should be forced to append a note to each ticket pointing out what the law says they have to pay, or at least explaining how they have reasonably come to asses £60 in damages.

Mulhuzz, they seem to have countered your point with this paragraph:


Loss is not relevant in this instance, as the claim is not for a breach of contract. The contractual terms make it clear that any driver parking in this area without clearly displaying a valid parking permit agrees to pay the charge. It is, in effect, the price that the motorist has agreed for parking in a manner which is not permitted. Once the driver has entered into an agreement with the Operator to pay the charge, the Operator does not have to subsequently show that the charge represents the amount that they have lost.

Even if the claim is for a breach of contract, the recent case of Beavis -v- Parking Eye; EWCA Civ 402 [2015] made it clear that such charges are legal if they are commercially justifiable, providing that the charge claimed is neither 'extravagant or unconscionable'. As the amount claimed here is similar to that allowed by the Court of Appeal, then the charge can be deemed as both reasonable and recoverable on the part of the Operator in our view.


It seems I don't have a leg to stand on. Even if the claim is for a breach of contract, that case was ruled in the companies favour and the amount they originally claimed (£60) is similar to that allowed by the Court of Appeal. And they're saying the claim isn't even for a breach of contract.

I just still don't get why I'm in the right here and they're in the wrong. Have you googled this company and it says somewhere that they're bogus? I have, and they aren't as far as I can see. Some conflicting posts though.

And my question again to all those saying ignore - Stu, David etc, is, do you go round parking where you like and have a mailbox full of these letters? If not, how do you differentiate between the legit companies and the bogus ones?

[sonour]

Hi Alex,

I got a ticket from Parking Eye about two years ago. I googled them and the consensus was not to pay and eventually they would give up chasing me.

I received one letter from them and then nothing further.

Maybe you were unlucky or maybe they are perusing more now.

[david3103]

I pay the clearly advertised rate for parking, as I am sure you had intended to (assuming you were planning on buying a fresh monthly permit?)

Having fallen foul of the Haworth Highwayman and given no choice about paying because claiming was still legal, I would be even less likely to pay now if I were charged for some minor technicality.

http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/9707211.Haworth_joy_as_clamping_ban_law_gets_Royal_Assent/