Parking Eye lose case - have to pay parking!

[Who me ?]

10P- I'd suggest it not a lack of funds, but fear of the fairness of the UK legal system .The case is now that locally ( and possibly in a lot more stores) one major supermarket chain advised anyone getting a ticket from their ANPR system to discuss it first with customer services as most can be cancelled. That is after some very bad press over local problems revealed in local press .Another local store reigned in it's parking attendant after being told that they were loosing custom when the parking attendant went by the book. At the moment ,the PPCs ( supermarket style) can huff and puff, but lack any powers .Their gamble is that if they push ahead they gamble on any more power ,but if seen to be doing that, will either lose customers or give stores that are more lenient some free publicity.

[Chrisgr31]

The other issue is of course are those who are complaining about the parking rules being economical with the truth?

[will_]

10 Pence Short said:

to make a binding decision.

There's a good reason why they won't do that already.

They don't want a binding decision if it goes against them.

[nikaiyo2]

10 Pence Short said:

If they were charging for providing the parking service, it would attract vat, but it would also negate the need to sue for liquidated damages, as the loss would simply be the contractually agreed consideration for parking. The penalty argument would therefore be moot.

Do you honestly think that any landowner/ occupier in their right mind would give Parking Eye or similar a contract that allowed PE to effectively rent out the spaces?

Thats your biggest problem by far, NO landowner would demise their car park to another company, well they would but for a significant consideration, imagine the implications to any charge secured against the lease/ land.

The next issue to overcome; parking is normally a planning consideration, so if planning is granted with spaces for 400 cars with 3 hours free parking, that is what the occupier has to provide. They would need to go back through planning to alter that car parking provision.

The next issue is business rates, as soon as the occupier starts offering paid parking, the car park becomes rateable.

[Zeeky]

There doesn't need to be a demise of the freehold or leasehold to authorise chargeable parking. The benefit to the landowner of a contractual agreement that is not a legal interest in the land is that he achieves more of the parking he desires than he would without charging. The model for charging can be agreed between the parties. A minority subsidising the majority is a workable and enforceable model.

Any additional costs can, of course, be incorporated into the price.

Edited by Zeeky on Wednesday 19th March 10:51

[Martin4x4]

So, following the logic of Pi-Eye advocates, this is clearly the fault of the Ferrari driver for parking outside the bay.

Edited by Martin4x4 on Wednesday 19th March 10:53

[nikaiyo2]

Zeeky said:

There doesn't need to be a demise of the freehold or leasehold to authorise chargeable parking. The benefit to the landowner of doing so is that he achieves more of the parking he desires than without charging. The model for charging can be agreed between the parties.

Any additional costs, of course, can be incorporated into the price.

That would then put the charge firmly back into penalty territory, ie the charge is there to deter, it would no longer be a fee for goods or services.

[Zeeky]

You misunderstand the term 'penalty' as it is used in contract law. A charge applicable on breach of contract may or may not be a penalty.

A charge for an additional service used in accordance with the contract is not a penalty.

Arguably the charge is not to deter but to limit use on the basis of limited availability.

[austinsmirk]

FiF said:

austinsmirk said:

I have staff who reguarly park, all day in a city centre, parking eye operated car park (i.e 8-9 hrs worth in 3 hr bays)

I'm sorry but from the landlord's viewpoint they should receive a dose of VBRJ.

Freeloaders like this is why the private parking industry exists.

The alleged ineptness of Parking Eye does not make the behaviour acceptable.

EXCEPT: the city in question..... this is a massive retail park, from which you can walk into the city centre within a few mins. the agreement of it being built was residents/shoppers of said city could use the car park, LEAVE the retail area and shop in the city.

of course this is little known, parking eye have slapped signs up. in all honesty its so big, 3 hours isn't enough for shopping, especially if you had a lunch- at the retail park

however I totally agree about the behaviour of colleagues I know: they are not really playing the game are they. I feel they should be penalised.

I'b be more impressed if PE monitored the sheer abuse of parent/child and disabled bays, but of course they don't, theres no money in it.

[NH1]

So its a free car park with 2 hrs free parking and £75 for over 2 hrs, firstly how much over two hrs would £75 buy you? an extra hour or 2 or an extra decade or 2? so it already looks like a deterrent rather than a legit charge.

secondly if its a free car park presumably there wont be any pay machines of any sort, the driver decides that he wants to park for 2 hrs and 5 mins so agrees to pay the £75, just how is he supposed to pay it, how does the PPC find out who the driver was to send the bill to them at a later date, they would at least have to have provision on site to leave your name and address to send the bill to at a later date, so for the second time it looks like a deterrent to park longer than the original two hours.

Thirdly its an unfair clause in the contract, its a disproportionate charge, suppose you turn up at home one day to find bailiffs changing the locks to your house because your mobile phone contract said that if you were a day late paying the bill they can take your house off you. It would never stand up in court because its quite clearly an unfair term in the contract. Sometimes people need protecting from themselves.

[Observer2]

This is the paragraph from the judgment with the "judges of a higher standard" faux pas (or mis-transcription).

The other very revealing statement here is that the PE advocate admires in his own words that the charge is intended to be liquidated damages for breach. This fatally undermines the contractual basis because it is clearly not a genuine pre-estimate of loss. Or to apply the test framed in the way that Zeeky cites, it is intended to deter not to compensate. On either count it is a penalty so unenforceable.

PE v Collins-Daniel judgment said:

Mr Gopal: Sir, clearly given the fact that ParkingEye are the management company, they incur costs in managing that car park. The system of the automatic number plate recognition systems, all of that incurs charges, Sir, and if the contract that a customer is entering into with ParkingEye is breached, the enforcement of that contract itself incurs charges and therefore the £85 that’s being claimed is a reasonable sum, and, and has been decided by various judges to be, not only district judges but also judges of a higher standard, Sir.

The judgment also highlight that it is by no means easy to adequately frame, in the context and space available in a sign, all the contract terms that would be needed to credibly deal with all the possible infractions as a charge for services (so enforceable) and not damages for breach (so unenforceable).

That is the problem I had in mind in this thread:

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

It is not difficult to deal with the required drafting for one or two scenarios but to achieve drafting in the space available that successfully transmutes all potential breaches of terms (the contractual reality) into enforceable contractual charges is, IMO, impractical.

Edited by Observer2 on Tuesday 25th March 10:19