Parking "fine"

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Piff

Piff

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Number 2 son works in a commercial unit on an industrial estate. Occasionally when his units carpark is full his and/or other staff menbers cars and company vans have parked on a wide grass verge adjacent to the unit. Having said this there is no admission that he was the driver of that car at the time of the claimed "offence" as occasionally staff members may move each others cars. No damage has been caused to the verge.
He has received a "Charge Notice" from an enforcement company stating that he has breached the terms of a contract between the land owner & the driver which are clearly displayed at the site ie no parking/stopping/waiting without due authority or permission. Additionally by parking/stopping/waiting on the verge the driver has committed an unauthorised trespass.

They invite the registered keeper to pay the charge (£150) or he must provide the name & address of the driver.

They claim that their "Charge" represents the damages suffered by the land owner by way of a pre-agreed contractural loss under the terms of an agreement with *** Enforcement Solutions.

They attach 3 undated/untimed photos of his car on the verge.

I have read through A210AMG's thread relating to a similar incident, but it is a couple of years old.

Is the advice in that thread still valid - ie ignore the letter?

Within that thread was a link to a money saving expert advice page which has a letter template to dispute the charge. Within that letter there seem to be a number of points pertinent to this situation:-
  1. There was insufficient signage - there probably are signs but he has not noticed them therefore they have not been brought to his attention therefore there is no contract
  2. The charge is disproportionate and not a genuine pre-estimate of loss ie the land owner or enforcement company have not suffered any actual financial loss
  3. The notice to the keeper is incorrect - the notice to the keeper arrived 25 days after the alledged offence (the notice was dated 22 days after the alledged offence)
But their main claim seems to be that he has committed an unauthorised trespass. If he is employed on the industrial estate he can hardly be trespassing during normal working hours, can he? Their website publishes the "Traffic Management Enforcement Protocol" for the estate - no mention of parking on verges..........

So, ignore this & subsequent "invoices"
or, dispute following moneysaving expert template:dk:
 
Ignore, make no attempt to contact them. You will continue to get letters with ever increasing amounts for around 3 months then nothing. - which at 1st is alarming.

Only people who can legally fine you are the police or councils. All it is, is an invoice with checkerplate border as a scare tactic. No more legally binding than if I posted one to you.

DVLA makes millions from selling our address details. It's shocking.

I had the very same thing happen to me, after 3 months nothing.
 
KillerHERTZ said:
Ignore, make no attempt to contact them. You will continue to get letters with ever increasing amounts for around 3 months then nothing. - which at 1st is alarming.

Only people who can legally fine you are the police or councils. All it is, is an invoice with checkerplate border as a scare tactic. No more legally binding than if I posted one to you.

DVLA makes millions from selling our address details. It's shocking.

I had the very same thing happen to me, after 3 months nothing.
Click to expand...

Same here, I had one my mrs had one, my parents, and her parents, all ignored and nothing has come of them!
 
KillerHERTZ said:
Ignore, make no attempt to contact them. You will continue to get letters with ever increasing amounts for around 3 months then nothing. - which at 1st is alarming.

Only people who can legally fine you are the police or councils. All it is, is an invoice with checkerplate border as a scare tactic. No more legally binding than if I posted one to you.

DVLA makes millions from selling our address details. It's shocking.

I had the very same thing happen to me, after 3 months nothing.
Click to expand...

Yup....absolutely correct. Very good advice.
 
As stated above, unenforceable as it hasn't been issued by the police or a local (council) authority..

Simply ball up the ticket and either eat it or swat it into the bin like as though you are "shooting hoops" :D
 
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I received one of these £60 "Tickets" in the post after stopping for 60sec at Humberside Airport. My mate dropped me off in my car and left immediately. We did not enter the Car Park but were caught on camera by some sloth in a white van as we were on yellow lines.

I replied to the letter stating I was unsure of who was driving and the usual template letter was sent.
2 weeks later another threatening letter raising the cost to £100.
Again, I sent letter number 2 telling them to stop harassing me and copied the 2nd part of a template from Parking Cowboys.

Another 2 weeks later the wife opens up a formal looking letter this time from a Debt Collection Agency.
I was Offshore so she panicked and paid the new amount of £136 !!

I was not too chuffed when I returned as I know they had no legal grounds at all!!
 
I'd recommend some more research before deciding, I have a feeling that there may have been some change in the law.
 
If you ignore the invoice and the company feels their argument is strong enough, they will take you to court. If they don't feel their argument is strong enough, they won't take you to court.

Use your own judgement. You've already highlighted things that are a bit iffy from the first letter. Imagine the scenario if it went to court and you pointed them out there. If I'm honest it probably wouldn't stand.

Also with the costs of taking court action, against the actual value of their invoice, it's not really cost effective to go to court, so they send you as many letters as they want and then they will probably go quiet.

If the photos are not date/time stamped, they also have no grounds to fine you.

Happy letter ignoring.
 
Yep - I understand there was a change in the law a year or two back allowing a bit more power to these private parking companies.

Just as everyone got their head around the 'ignore it' response I think the game has moved on.

Best advice I can give for the least hassle is to complain to whoever 'employs' the parking firm in question. I have had three 'PCN' type tickets cancelled in this way over the last few months (not on my own car!).

One was in local Homebase where the attendant actually lied (hand written and claimed car was seen in car park a good 1/4 hour before it was). Other was in a local supermarket who have a time restriction for length of stay (issued via reg number recorded by CCTV/ANPR) and the other was also by camera again on private land but from a large retail park place who had a dozen different shops.

First two were easily cancelled. Asked to speak to the manager and they sorted it all out.

Last one was tricky. If you've been to a retail park place like this, with numerous shops etc which one do you complain to? The 'charge' was for overstaying the 3-hour limit, which seems fair, but anyone who's been shopping on a Saturday with their girlfriend/wife etc will understand that it's easy if you spend 1/2 hour to 1 hour in a few different shops and stop for a coffee etc.

I just complained to the biggest retailer when I next was in there and again they just sorted it out. No hassle at all after all :)

Regardless of whether you can ignore them it's less hassle than being stressed by unwanted paperwork dropping through your letterbox!

So my advice would be - find out who owns the land and is responsible for employing the services of this company and complain to them asking for them to cancel the 'charge'.

I think if you decide to fight it they'll not get away with a charge as clearly as unreasonable as that but if you do nothing they can be awarded costs if you don't contest their court judgement or whatever it's known as.

Worth having a casual read up on it for anyone else. Not worth ignoring them if you can have them cancelled for free IMHO :)
 
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The law change simply banned clamping on private land and in return made the owner, not the driver, liable. The £150 is in no way a genuine estimate of loss. Oh, and you can't charge people for trespassing.

Ignore.
 
Under no circumstances ignore this. It won't go away.

Proserve have lots of previous at Ransomes EuroPark, and there is a court case where their charge was found to be unlawful that they have appealed. There are lots of anomalies regarding how they operate that are the subject of various actions by PePiPoo members, but they are litigious and will proceed to court if you don't put up a fight, and may still do so even if you do.

Search PePiPoo (linked by Neilrr above) for details, then join up and post details of the case there and someone will provide proper help.
 
Reading through their letter again and looking at their website, this seems to be more about unauthorised trespass than parking.
On their website there is a Parking Protocol, which whilst it details parking on roads/blocking free flow of traffic, the vehicle was parked on a verge, wide enough to take 2 to 3 vehicles. It was parked at least 1 car width away from the road.

To answer another point above, it seems from reading about other incidents on this site, contacting the land owner has no effect as they refer people back to their parking enforcement team.

We have photos of the verge taken today (date stamped) and there is no damage to the verge.

So I'm thinking, going back to the monysaving expert letter template, if it's a parking charge they have issued the notice too late.
If it's a trespass "charge" they cannot pre-determine the charge, it is for the court to decide, based on the loss to the land owner (zero) or the gain to the trespasser, again zero as the vehicle would normally park for free. Finally, if he is employed on that industrial estate, is he trespassing?
 
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A clear explanation here.

This extract is quite interesting. It states only a 'person in possession of the land' can bring a claim.

In order to bring a claim for trespass there must be direct and unjustifiable interference with somebody’s land. This can occur in a number of ways, with the most common example being jumping over a fence to retrieve a football, but can be as remote as interference from a low-flying aircraft so long as it is flying below a reasonable height.

A seemingly obvious point, but one which has been the subject of several legal battles, is the fact that only a person in possession of the land is able to bring a claim for trespass. Therefore, if you merely have a licence to occupy the property you cannot bring a claim for trespass.

More importantly, a common problem is the fact that a landlord cannot bring a claim for trespass when he has let out the property to a tenant. The tenant, by definition of a lease, will be in possession of the property and so it is the tenant that will be able to bring the claim for trespass.
Click to expand...
 
Best resolution would be to pay Dieselman £50 and forward all letters to him to deal with. They will soon give up.:rolleyes:
 
Piff said:
Reading through their letter again and looking at their website, this seems to be more about unauthorised trespass than parking.
On their website there is a Parking Protocol, which whilst it details parking on roads/blocking free flow of traffic, the vehicle was parked on a verge, wide enough to take 2 to 3 vehicles. It was parked at least 1 car width away from the road.

To answer another point above, it seems from reading about other incidents on this site, contacting the land owner has no effect as they refer people back to their parking enforcement team.
Click to expand...
Take a look at the Parking Prankster blog, which describes how Proserve's business model works, with the connivance of Ransomes. It makes interesting reading and will help you understand who you're dealing with.
 
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