Parking Eye - What's the current advice for these?
Discussion
JoeNorton said:
It was a meeting with a client, I didn't see a single sign, all I wanted to do was get my car parked and get my head together for the meeting!
It's a freaking leisure centre, coffee shop and business park on the outskirts of Telford for goodness sake, I didn't for one minute think it'd be a paid car park.
Is it the relatively small one next to the ice-rink?It's a freaking leisure centre, coffee shop and business park on the outskirts of Telford for goodness sake, I didn't for one minute think it'd be a paid car park.
Strangely a friend put this on Facebook only on Friday -
"Parking Eye. You may recall, I sought advice from Facebook and real people as to the legality of these vultures charging me £100 to park in The Range for more than 2 hours.
I received many comments about how the fines are unenforceable and various pieces of advice, usually to ignore the letters and reminders.
Anyway, for anyone still interested ...
I ignored the letters until I received a notification from a central court that Parking Eye intended to take a civil action against me. I then instructed a solicitor (well, a mate who is a solicitor) to act for me in defending the case, as he felt it was worth giving it a go.
We tried to get the court and Parking Eye to agree to mediation (negotiation), but that failed and a court date was set for 1st September, where the charge was upheld and I lost.
We tried to say that there was no contract in place, the sign was not lit, no loss could be demonstrated etc, but it was rejected at Portsmouth Court.
So, the £100 fine (could have been reduced to £50 if paid in 14 days) ended up costing me £190. It is scant consollation that it has cost Parking Eye more than £190 to pursue me.
It's too late for me, but it might be worth bearing in mind if the same thing happens to YOU!"
Hope this helps.
"Parking Eye. You may recall, I sought advice from Facebook and real people as to the legality of these vultures charging me £100 to park in The Range for more than 2 hours.
I received many comments about how the fines are unenforceable and various pieces of advice, usually to ignore the letters and reminders.
Anyway, for anyone still interested ...
I ignored the letters until I received a notification from a central court that Parking Eye intended to take a civil action against me. I then instructed a solicitor (well, a mate who is a solicitor) to act for me in defending the case, as he felt it was worth giving it a go.
We tried to get the court and Parking Eye to agree to mediation (negotiation), but that failed and a court date was set for 1st September, where the charge was upheld and I lost.
We tried to say that there was no contract in place, the sign was not lit, no loss could be demonstrated etc, but it was rejected at Portsmouth Court.
So, the £100 fine (could have been reduced to £50 if paid in 14 days) ended up costing me £190. It is scant consollation that it has cost Parking Eye more than £190 to pursue me.
It's too late for me, but it might be worth bearing in mind if the same thing happens to YOU!"
Hope this helps.
When these cases reach court they are determined by District Judges of County Courts. None of their decisions bind any other court, and there may be inconsistent outcomes. The better view, I think, is that a £100 charge for parking in breach of private (that is to say contractual) rules is an unenforceable penalty clause, but some District Judges may be persuadable that there has been an agreement to pay that amount as a set fee. The amounts at stake are so small that these cases are unlikely to reach the Court of Appeal.
Petrus1983 said:
Strangely a friend put this on Facebook only on Friday -
"Parking Eye. You may recall, I sought advice from Facebook and real people as to the legality of these vultures charging me £100 to park in The Range for more than 2 hours.
I received many comments about how the fines are unenforceable and various pieces of advice, usually to ignore the letters and reminders.
Anyway, for anyone still interested ...
I ignored the letters until I received a notification from a central court that Parking Eye intended to take a civil action against me. I then instructed a solicitor (well, a mate who is a solicitor) to act for me in defending the case, as he felt it was worth giving it a go.
We tried to get the court and Parking Eye to agree to mediation (negotiation), but that failed and a court date was set for 1st September, where the charge was upheld and I lost.
We tried to say that there was no contract in place, the sign was not lit, no loss could be demonstrated etc, but it was rejected at Portsmouth Court.
So, the £100 fine (could have been reduced to £50 if paid in 14 days) ended up costing me £190. It is scant consollation that it has cost Parking Eye more than £190 to pursue me.
It's too late for me, but it might be worth bearing in mind if the same thing happens to YOU!"
Hope this helps.
I suspect that this went wrong because he ignored the letters. Ignoring is not the current advice, the current advice is a POPLA appeal."Parking Eye. You may recall, I sought advice from Facebook and real people as to the legality of these vultures charging me £100 to park in The Range for more than 2 hours.
I received many comments about how the fines are unenforceable and various pieces of advice, usually to ignore the letters and reminders.
Anyway, for anyone still interested ...
I ignored the letters until I received a notification from a central court that Parking Eye intended to take a civil action against me. I then instructed a solicitor (well, a mate who is a solicitor) to act for me in defending the case, as he felt it was worth giving it a go.
We tried to get the court and Parking Eye to agree to mediation (negotiation), but that failed and a court date was set for 1st September, where the charge was upheld and I lost.
We tried to say that there was no contract in place, the sign was not lit, no loss could be demonstrated etc, but it was rejected at Portsmouth Court.
So, the £100 fine (could have been reduced to £50 if paid in 14 days) ended up costing me £190. It is scant consollation that it has cost Parking Eye more than £190 to pursue me.
It's too late for me, but it might be worth bearing in mind if the same thing happens to YOU!"
Hope this helps.
Also the solicitor probably didnt cite the relevant precedents, there are lots of judgements against Parking Eye and mst of those hinge around: Contract with the landowner and genuine pre-estimate of loss
Breadvan72 said:
There are no precedents. There are decisions on individual cases that have no binding effect, but the pub lawyers of the parking websites don't comprehend this.
As I typed it, I realised it was the wrong term, fact is though, that if you read the transcripts the judges have looked at other cases where they have been presented and made similar decisions.I have researched this quite a bit as we own several thousand parking spaces which are managed by a parking management firm (not Parking Eye).
Where we cannot use barriers and have pay and display machines, we have spent quite a bit of time getting the contract right between us and the parking company. We have not lost a POPLA appeal to date, but then we have only had one because we dont take the piss.
Edited by blueg33 on Saturday 20th September 12:09
silverfoxcc said:
I would strongly suggest you look at the pepipoo website. there are guys on there who will help you out and you end up not paying anything 'IF YOU HAVE GOT A CASE'.
And as mentioned, MSE.Given that the OP is now quite far along the paper trail, not sure whether he'd be able to go down the POPLA route.
I did with Smart Parking and won. Pepipoo thread link.
Red Devil said:
@ Breadvan72.
PE is a particularly scummy operator whose slew of dubious and questionable tactics (which include trying to deliberately mislead the court) have been well documented by the Parking Prankster.
One private parking company was issuing false POPLA codes in an effort to delay proceedings so the driver would miss the POPLA appeal cut off!PE is a particularly scummy operator whose slew of dubious and questionable tactics (which include trying to deliberately mislead the court) have been well documented by the Parking Prankster.
Edited by g3org3y on Saturday 20th September 12:08
Petrus1983 said:
Strangely a friend put this on Facebook only on Friday -
"Parking Eye. You may recall, I sought advice from Facebook and real people as to the legality of these vultures charging me £100 to park in The Range for more than 2 hours.
I received many comments about how the fines are unenforceable and various pieces of advice, usually to ignore the letters and reminders.
You don't say when this was. I assume this was after PoFA 2012 came into force. If so, the advice to ignore was completely wrong. Using Facebook as a source of expert help is just silly. Its akin to him asking a bricklayer to fix defective house wiring. Your friend should have used POPLA (assuming he is the RK he would have received the relevant Notice). PE have been conspicuously unsuccessful there. Allowing it get as far as court proceedings was singularly unwise."Parking Eye. You may recall, I sought advice from Facebook and real people as to the legality of these vultures charging me £100 to park in The Range for more than 2 hours.
I received many comments about how the fines are unenforceable and various pieces of advice, usually to ignore the letters and reminders.
Petrus1983 said:
Anyway, for anyone still interested ...
I ignored the letters until I received a notification from a central court that Parking Eye intended to take a civil action against me. I then instructed a solicitor (well, a mate who is a solicitor) to act for me in defending the case, as he felt it was worth giving it a go.
We tried to get the court and Parking Eye to agree to mediation (negotiation), but that failed and a court date was set for 1st September, where the charge was upheld and I lost.
We tried to say that there was no contract in place, the sign was not lit, no loss could be demonstrated etc, but it was rejected at Portsmouth Court.
So, the £100 fine (could have been reduced to £50 if paid in 14 days) ended up costing me £190. It is scant consollation that it has cost Parking Eye more than £190 to pursue me.
It's too late for me, but it might be worth bearing in mind if the same thing happens to YOU!"
Hope this helps.
A solicitor is not necessarily the best option. Many don't have a clue about private parking matters. I am not saying his came into that category but he should have been able to persuade the court to order mediation (i.e. use POPLA, because that was what it was set up for). There are several extant rulings where the judge has ordered mediation instead of a trial. These could have been cited as persuasive and most sensible judges would rather this option than have hours of court time taken up.I ignored the letters until I received a notification from a central court that Parking Eye intended to take a civil action against me. I then instructed a solicitor (well, a mate who is a solicitor) to act for me in defending the case, as he felt it was worth giving it a go.
We tried to get the court and Parking Eye to agree to mediation (negotiation), but that failed and a court date was set for 1st September, where the charge was upheld and I lost.
We tried to say that there was no contract in place, the sign was not lit, no loss could be demonstrated etc, but it was rejected at Portsmouth Court.
So, the £100 fine (could have been reduced to £50 if paid in 14 days) ended up costing me £190. It is scant consollation that it has cost Parking Eye more than £190 to pursue me.
It's too late for me, but it might be worth bearing in mind if the same thing happens to YOU!"
Hope this helps.
Also, I do wish people would stop referring to these sums as a fine. It is nothing of the sort. It's a speculative invoice. A PPC has no power to fine anybody.
Breadvan72 said:
When these cases reach court they are determined by District Judges of County Courts. None of their decisions bind any other court, and there may be inconsistent outcomes.
True.Breadvan72 said:
The better view, I think, is that a £100 charge for parking in breach of private (that is to say contractual) rules is an unenforceable penalty clause, but some District Judges may be persuadable that there has been an agreement to pay that amount as a set fee.
Not many so far. The most high profile case in which a judge has been so persuaded is HHJ Moloney in PE v Beavis.In that case there were some very specific factors which the judge said would not necessarily apply to other cases.
Breadvan72 said:
The amounts at stake are so small that these cases are unlikely to reach the Court of Appeal.
On the contrary. That's exactly where Beavis is heading. The paperwork was lodged at the RCoJ on 9th June.Current state of play here - http://casetracker.justice.gov.uk/listing_calendar...
g3org3y said:
One private parking company was issuing false POPLA codes in an effort to delay proceedings so the driver would miss the POPLA appeal cut off!
- http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/uk...The fact is that PE has a financially unsustainable business model which one astute County Court judge has already commented on.
Richard Turpin at least had the decency to wear a mask.
Breadvan72 said:
Patrick Moloney's decision in Beavis is interesting in its approach to the penalty issue. I suspect that the Defendants did themselves no favours by disputing the existence of a contract.
If PE lose in the Court of Appeal, who affect will it have on parking? Will it mean that they have to stop sending out the letters? Surely once they know they are unenforceable asking people to pay is fraudulent. What do you think the chances are of the appeal winning?
I'm unsure about this. I don't like PE, but then I don't want a free for all with parking. They got rid of clamping which was good - but if they remove this, then surely there will be no way to stop people parking wherever they want...
The decision seems slightly heterodox in conclusion, but it is carefully reasoned, and the CA might uphold it. If I were betting, I would bet for the CA to reverse the first instance Judge. The problem is that the public policy in this is not well served by either side winning. A contest between rapacious parking companies and selfish gits is one in which it's hard to cheer either side.
blueg33 said:
Where we cannot use barriers and have pay and display machines, we have spent quite a bit of time getting the contract right between us and the parking company. We have not lost a POPLA appeal to date, but then we have only had one because we dont take the piss.
Hypothetical question- say there was a car park that charged £2.50/hour (not massive amounts, but if you went to a cinema showing, could be in the region of £10 which was the car park's daily cap).Edited by blueg33 on Saturday 20th September 12:09
You were cheeky and tried to get away with it and not buy a ticket. Come back and find a PCN on your windscreen.
Now we know the PPC's pick a number out of the air, double it, add 4 and divide by the national debt of South Korea to come to the penalty figure, from £50-£100 depending on how long you take to pay it. Which is what get's people's backs up as it is a rip off, and then they do the whole not paying, and the PPC's do POPLA, DVLA etc and it ends up costing them money.
If the PPC put on a modest charge of say £30, or £15 if paid with 14 days, would people be more inclined to pay it, as it would only be £5-£15 more than the longest time?
Breadvan72 said:
Patrick Moloney's decision in Beavis is interesting in its approach to the penalty issue. I suspect that the Defendants did themselves no favours by disputing the existence of a contract.
The mistake Beavis (and Wardley) made was letting it get to court. If they had gone the POPLA route instead of ignoring all correspondence the outcome might have been rather different.In the introduction to his judgement
HHJ Moloney said:
1.2 I should however emphasise:
a. that since I am a Circuit Judge not a High Court Judge, this decision has only persuasive force;
b. that it is based on one particular set of the Claimant's standard notices and terms, which may have varied from time to time, a point which should be checked in other cases;
The PE contract with the British Airways Pension Fund in respect of the Riverside Retail Park in Chelmsford has some features which distinguish it from PE's contracts with other landowners. Hence the judge's comment above.a. that since I am a Circuit Judge not a High Court Judge, this decision has only persuasive force;
b. that it is based on one particular set of the Claimant's standard notices and terms, which may have varied from time to time, a point which should be checked in other cases;
At this site PE pay the landowner (rather than the other way round for providing the service) a guaranteed weekly sum. So the only way it can make a profit is by penalising as many motorists as possible. Nothing could better illustrate the fundamental flaw in its business model.
it should be noted that the Moloney judgement is in direct contrast to that of DJ McIlwaine in the Ibbotson case who ruled that PE's contract gave it no standing to take legal action in its own name (rather than the landowner's).
Furthermore it is, imo, perverse for Moloney to find that PE was acting a principal given that the contract clearly stated that PE were acting as agent. I have this sneaking suspicion that he ruled as he did, including leave to appeal, with the express purpose of having the case escalated to the CoA. Even if it is upheld it may not be applicable to every case (per his introductory comment above).
The whole private parking industry is a pig's breakfast at the moment with a whole raft of unethical and unscrupulous companies operating within it. The BPA is nothing more than a trade (union) body which does
all to rein in its members. There is no independent oversight. London Councils will almost certainly lose the POPLA contract and be replaced by a body more beholden to the BPA. The entire industry is riddled with conflicts of interest which are plain to see for anyone who can be bothered to look beyond the pronouncements of Patrick Troy.If there are to be penalty clauses (because, make no mistake, that is what they are) which are in line with the LA statutory scheme then equally there should be a statutory appeals body similar to PATAS/TPT. The government was duped by the blandishments of the BPA into allowing self-regulation which simply doesn't work.
littleguy said:
the 'sensible' option would be to have a pay on exit barrier. Of course, they'll (largely) never do this as it stops them from invoicing customers for huge amounts.
Must be nice living where people don't vandalise other people's property regularly, and that includes barriers that are destroyed by people who can't be ar$ed going round like at Motorway Service areas. Petrus1983 said:
Strangely a friend put this on Facebook only on Friday -
"Parking Eye. You may recall, I sought advice from Facebook and real people as to the legality of these vultures charging me £100 to park in The Range for more than 2 hours.
I received many comments about how the fines are unenforceable and various pieces of advice, usually to ignore the letters and reminders.
Anyway, for anyone still interested ...
I ignored the letters until I received a notification from a central court that Parking Eye intended to take a civil action against me. I then instructed a solicitor (well, a mate who is a solicitor) to act for me in defending the case, as he felt it was worth giving it a go.
We tried to get the court and Parking Eye to agree to mediation (negotiation), but that failed and a court date was set for 1st September, where the charge was upheld and I lost.
We tried to say that there was no contract in place, the sign was not lit, no loss could be demonstrated etc, but it was rejected at Portsmouth Court.
So, the £100 fine (could have been reduced to £50 if paid in 14 days) ended up costing me £190. It is scant consollation that it has cost Parking Eye more than £190 to pursue me.
It's too late for me, but it might be worth bearing in mind if the same thing happens to YOU!"
Hope this helps.
Meaningless without transcripts and documentation. A cynic might say your friend works for parking Eye and would like to promote this kind of story. "Parking Eye. You may recall, I sought advice from Facebook and real people as to the legality of these vultures charging me £100 to park in The Range for more than 2 hours.
I received many comments about how the fines are unenforceable and various pieces of advice, usually to ignore the letters and reminders.
Anyway, for anyone still interested ...
I ignored the letters until I received a notification from a central court that Parking Eye intended to take a civil action against me. I then instructed a solicitor (well, a mate who is a solicitor) to act for me in defending the case, as he felt it was worth giving it a go.
We tried to get the court and Parking Eye to agree to mediation (negotiation), but that failed and a court date was set for 1st September, where the charge was upheld and I lost.
We tried to say that there was no contract in place, the sign was not lit, no loss could be demonstrated etc, but it was rejected at Portsmouth Court.
So, the £100 fine (could have been reduced to £50 if paid in 14 days) ended up costing me £190. It is scant consollation that it has cost Parking Eye more than £190 to pursue me.
It's too late for me, but it might be worth bearing in mind if the same thing happens to YOU!"
Hope this helps.
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