Woman ordered to pay £24,500 in parking fines

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Stratman

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Woman ordered to pay £24,500 in parking charges

Court orders woman to pay £24,500 to private parking company

With the caveat it happened in Scotland, here's an extract

The sheriff said Ms Mackie had "entirely misdirected herself" on both the law and "the contractual chain" in the case.
He said: "The defender is bound by that contract and incurred the parking charge on each occasion.
"The defender refused to pay the parking charges not because she was unaware of the parking scheme or the terms of the notices or the financial consequences of parking at any time, but because she did not believe that the charges were valid in law.
"The parking charges flow from a valid contract between the pursuers and the defender and she is liable for them."
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This must have been going on for some time then... assuming that the average private parking 'fine' is £50 to £100? She would have had to park there for 6 month to one year on daily basis. I suppose she was ill-advised by Internet 'experts' to just ignore the notices?
 
As I understand it she was parking daily at some flats where she lives, she didn't want to register for a permit - principles I expect, you know the type.
 
No hiding place in the end.
 
DrFeelgood said:
As I understand it she was parking daily at some flats where she lives, she didn't want to register for a permit - principles I expect, you know the type.
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Where her father lives. - I suspect the belief was that she was on his drive (or parked in front of his garage) which she believed to be his space.

I have some sympathy for her because I probably would have assumed I didn't need a permit to park somewhere my father lives, but I'd like to think I'd have resolved it before it got to £24k
 
PobodY said:
Where her father lives. - I suspect the belief was that she was on his drive (or parked in front of his garage) which she believed to be his space.

I have some sympathy for her because I probably would have assumed I didn't need a permit to park somewhere my father lives, but I'd like to think I'd have resolved it before it got to £24k
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Step Father.

Actually, I have no sympathy. It turns out that she was parking in her step Father's space and was offered a permit but chose to reject it as she believed that the tickets were unenforceable, what a muppet!
 
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DrFeelgood said:
she believed that the tickets were unenforceable, what a muppet!
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The difference in Scotland is the parking companies can't chase the RK. The parking companies have to be quite careful how they tackle things.

The problem in this case I suspect is (a) her car was actually being physically ticketed which shifts the ground a bit (b) they clearly identified the driver and (c) the total amount involved made it more than worth pursuing in court.
 
Dryce said:
The difference in Scotland is the parking companies can't chase the RK. The parking companies have to be quite careful how they tackle things.

The problem in this case I suspect is (a) her car was actually being physically ticketed which shifts the ground a bit (b) they clearly identified the driver and (c) the total amount involved made it more than worth pursuing in court.
Click to expand...

It reads like she had options but chose to fight out of principle while continuing to ramp up the stakes, she lost.

She's not yet 30 but financially crippled to the tune of £24k plus 8% per annum.
 
Saw this on BBC News site today, apparently she just kept ignoring the fines and kept parking there as she lived there with her father

Apparently she thought they were unenforcable

Haha I guess she was wrong there
 
Frankly, the woman was a fool to fight such a high stakes case without a thorough defence founded in law rather than her assumptions. Apparently she was so convinced that she was right, her defence didn't even bother to dispute the amount claimed so it was automatically ruled by the Sherriff as accepted.

While she is undoubtedly a fool, if the private parking company are contracted to prevent unauthorised parking, it's hard to see how issuing daily tickets that were being ignored was an effective course of action. Why didn't they issue an injunction to stop the parking long ago? Oh, of course, silly me. That would have put a stop to their gravy train, wouldn't it?
 
Hell of a penalty for being stupid, though.
 
E55BOF said:
Hell of a penalty for being stupid, though.
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Indeed it is.

However, while the PPC's are busy gloating over it today, the debt (and it is a debt, not a fine) is so large as to be viewed by most people as wholly disproportionate. It's therefore likely to accelerate the case for effective regulation of predatory PPC's who have proved by their actions that the "management" of parking that they claim to provide is nothing but a smokescreen to cover their extortion activities.
 
st13phil said:
Frankly, the woman was a fool to fight such a high stakes case without a thorough defence founded in law rather than her assumptions. Apparently she was so convinced that she was right, her defence didn't even bother to dispute the amount claimed so it was automatically ruled by the Sherriff as accepted.

While she is undoubtedly a fool, if the private parking company are contracted to prevent unauthorised parking, it's hard to see how issuing daily tickets that were being ignored was an effective course of action. Why didn't they issue an injunction to stop the parking long ago? Oh, of course, silly me. That would have put a stop to their gravy train, wouldn't it?
Click to expand...

She missed a few tricks in court : under Scots law , signs such as those posted by the parking company are meaningless , unless the owner can prove they were brought to the attention of the defendant before any alleged contravention took place . Since the supposed contract is based on reading of and accepting the conditions outlined on the sign , no contract can have existed in the first place and therefore no case to answer .

I do agree she was a fool though , even if I can see where she was coming from .

She looks rather like the girl in the Human League 'Don't you want me' video - sure there's a joke in there somewhere .
 
Social Media (including this forum) is full of people telling you not to pay these tickets/fines/charges - call them what you will?

"Just ignore it - do not reply - throw the letter in the bin - they can't enforce it"

I wonder if she studied Facebook Law?

I suspect that she will appeal (hope fully with decent lawyer). She should at a minimum seek to appeal the amount. As said earlier on here that has been allowed to accrue without (presumably) adequate enforcement action being taken to stop the both the 'offence' and the debt from growing to the extent it did.

The very fact that it made the National press would suggest that it should be viewed as 'unreasonable'.

I am still unclear on the "exact" position of the law and enforcement on these various charges/fines/tickets which seem to vary from company to company and Country to Country, let alone town to town.

So what should she have done? The internet lawyers will say she should have done what she did.
 
It's a muddy situation, you might say murky.

It was accepted advice for years that you pay council tickets and ignore private ones as they were supposedly unenforceable. Then a year or two ago a private company managed to get a case through county court and win a judgement in their favour, at this point the more pragmatic of us started to urge caution regarding these tickets.

The occasional ticket might still be worth a punt but £24k worth is a massive gamble.

Incidentally, I wonder what the value of the tickets were originally? I imagine that the majority of the £24k is made up of fees and late payment charges (or even loss of discount for early payment). I'd bet that her next step will be to accept liability but try for a reduction of 'unfair' fees.
 
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brucemillar said:
Social Media (including this forum) is full of people telling you not to pay these tickets/fines/charges - call them what you will?

"Just ignore it - do not reply - throw the letter in the bin - they can't enforce it"

I wonder if she studied Facebook Law?.......

So what should she have done? The internet lawyers will say she should have done what she did.
Click to expand...

What she should have done, if she had any sense, was to pay the £40 a month for a parking permit which the enforcement company offered her. If the newspaper reporting is correct, it appears residents require parking permits.
 
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