Beavis v Parking Eye procedural rules/reserved Judgement
Discussion
98elise said:
What about those of us that get unfair charges?
In my case I bought a weekly rail season ticket, and a weekly car park ticket. I parked in a season ticket bay and got a charge.
The company only class monthly parking tickets as season tickets, even though weekly rail tickets are season tickets. This oddity is only mentioned on a sign in 5mm writing that positioned at 90 degrees to the entrance road.
Bear in mind I paid for a 1 bay and parked in 1 bay. The season tickets bays are never full. In fact there is a whole season ticket car park that never has more then 25% of spaces filled.
Its simply a means of increasing revenue, why let a parking space for £5 per day when you can get £85 for it?
And how is it the parking operators fault that you failed to park in a correct space?In my case I bought a weekly rail season ticket, and a weekly car park ticket. I parked in a season ticket bay and got a charge.
The company only class monthly parking tickets as season tickets, even though weekly rail tickets are season tickets. This oddity is only mentioned on a sign in 5mm writing that positioned at 90 degrees to the entrance road.
Bear in mind I paid for a 1 bay and parked in 1 bay. The season tickets bays are never full. In fact there is a whole season ticket car park that never has more then 25% of spaces filled.
Its simply a means of increasing revenue, why let a parking space for £5 per day when you can get £85 for it?
Chrisgr31 said:
Have to say I support this decision. The reality is that had it been lost parking would have become a total shambles in every private car park in the land.
Parking Eye and other such companies exist because people abuse private car parks. Most businesses would prefer not to use companies to enforce parking controls because its a hassle not great for PR etc. however the misuse of their car park is an even greater problem
Parking eye exists because car park owners dont want to employ people to hand out tickets or install/maintain expensive barriers.Parking Eye and other such companies exist because people abuse private car parks. Most businesses would prefer not to use companies to enforce parking controls because its a hassle not great for PR etc. however the misuse of their car park is an even greater problem
If you don't want people parking in a car park then add a physical barrier. Easy.
sugerbear said:
Parking eye exists because car park owners dont want to employ people to hand out tickets or install/maintain expensive barriers.
If you don't want people parking in a car park then add a physical barrier. Easy.
No.If you don't want people parking in a car park then add a physical barrier. Easy.
Parking Eye exists because of the significant number of selfish drivers who refuse to abide by the parking restrictions in place.
Don't blame the solution, blame the cause ....
PurpleMoonlight said:
No.
Parking Eye exists because of the significant number of selfish drivers who refuse to abide by the parking restrictions in place.
Don't blame the solution, blame the cause ....
I'll ask yet again,why don't they exist in other countries? Is Scotland parking in chaos? Are you related to Renshawe-smith?Parking Eye exists because of the significant number of selfish drivers who refuse to abide by the parking restrictions in place.
Don't blame the solution, blame the cause ....
I can remember a time when pretty much every car park had either a barrier or a person at the entrance handing out tickets and taking money. There where also very few yellow lines so on street parking was possible, then things changed, big out of town retail parks which offered free parking and car park owners changing their business models to one that relied on the car owner buying a ticket and doing away with barrier and/or person handing out tickets. City/Town centres that had yellow lines painted everywhere to funnel people into town car parks (often council owned).
So the cause is a little more complex than it is all the fault of the nasty car drivers.
So the cause is a little more complex than it is all the fault of the nasty car drivers.
Phatboy317 said:
I would argue that any business which exists to profit from the misfortune and mistakes of others has no place in civilised society.
Do you use a credit card at all?I'm sure every new credit card owner has the best intentions of paying off their bill at the end of the month, and has the misfortune or mistake of not doing so and gets into the trap of 24% APR.
Do you suggest banning credit cards to protect people from themselves, or force the credit card company to give infinite interest free credit?
PurpleMoonlight said:
sugerbear said:
Parking eye exists because car park owners dont want to employ people to hand out tickets or install/maintain expensive barriers.
If you don't want people parking in a car park then add a physical barrier. Easy.
No.If you don't want people parking in a car park then add a physical barrier. Easy.
Parking Eye exists because of the significant number of selfish drivers who refuse to abide by the parking restrictions in place.
Don't blame the solution, blame the cause ....
h, deserves everything the poor 'just doing our job' parking company throws at her :-/ [sarc]Mr Taxpayer said:
PurpleMoonlight said:
sugerbear said:
Parking eye exists because car park owners dont want to employ people to hand out tickets or install/maintain expensive barriers.
If you don't want people parking in a car park then add a physical barrier. Easy.
No.If you don't want people parking in a car park then add a physical barrier. Easy.
Parking Eye exists because of the significant number of selfish drivers who refuse to abide by the parking restrictions in place.
Don't blame the solution, blame the cause ....
h, deserves everything the poor 'just doing our job' parking company throws at her :-/ [sarc]If every overstayer had as a legitimate and unusual and unfortunate reason as your wife, overstaying in a car park would not be a problem, and it probably wouldn't even be economic to enforce the car park.
The problem is there are a significant number of people who take the piss. It is those who have meant that the system is financially viable, been put in place, and unfortunately not allowed your wife the leniency she would otherwise have been given.
sugerbear said:
Parking eye exists because car park owners dont want to employ people to hand out tickets or install/maintain expensive barriers.
If you don't want people parking in a car park then add a physical barrier. Easy.
Why should ad park owners, who might be small businesses, hospitals, leisure centres, etc, have to install expensive barriers? It's also not just the cost of the barrier, they regularly get broken by unknown people at night etc.If you don't want people parking in a car park then add a physical barrier. Easy.
I had the misfortune to be in property management 20 years ago and spent a significant amount of time dealing with parking issues at properties I managed, whether it was members of the public parking in tenant spaces, tenants parking in wrong spaces, the barrier being vandalised etc.
Parking companies exist because people take the piss or park in places where they shouldn't. If it was a minor issue then it wouldn't be worth employing a parking company.
The consequences though of those that do take the piss is that in cases where leniency should be shown it often isn't as the parking company have heard every excuse under the sun and in many cases those excuses are not exactly honest.
sugerbear said:
Parking eye exists because car park owners dont want to employ people to hand out tickets or install/maintain expensive barriers.
If you don't want people parking in a car park then add a physical barrier. Easy.
It isn't always possible to install barriers, especially if it's a shared car park. That's why car park owners employ PPCs to hand out tickets.If you don't want people parking in a car park then add a physical barrier. Easy.
If you don't want a ticket try complying with the notices in the Car Parks.
I think we are muddling issues here - lot's of people (including myself) have taken liberties with private parking. I've chosen to do this - I won't be doing it in the future and after this judgement am much more likely to have to pay for what I've done in the past. That's life, I'll get on with it.
However the Court of Appeal have basically said punitive charges are okay as long as they can be commercially justified. I don't like that. Not for selfish reasons though. When I ran a landscaping company I couldn't just make up fines for customers if they were written in a contract or not. I had to fairly prove what they had cost me, that was fair. That seems to be no longer the case.
However the Court of Appeal have basically said punitive charges are okay as long as they can be commercially justified. I don't like that. Not for selfish reasons though. When I ran a landscaping company I couldn't just make up fines for customers if they were written in a contract or not. I had to fairly prove what they had cost me, that was fair. That seems to be no longer the case.
sugerbear said:
Parking eye exists because car park owners dont want to employ people to hand out tickets or install/maintain expensive barriers.
If you don't want people parking in a car park then add a physical barrier. Easy.
Parking eye exists because technology has moved on and businesses have used this opportunity to reduce costs whilst the majority of people don't take the p!ssIf you don't want people parking in a car park then add a physical barrier. Easy.
Next you'll be saying we should check in on easyJet with a piece of paper rather than swiping your phone because you don't like technology moving on, or people should be able to take whatever size cabin bag on board without paying the excess charge?
photosnob said:
However the Court of Appeal have basically said punitive charges are okay as long as they can be commercially justified. I don't like that. Not for selfish reasons though. When I ran a landscaping company I couldn't just make up fines for customers if they were written in a contract or not. I had to fairly prove what they had cost me, that was fair. That seems to be no longer the case.
It's been the case almost from inception that a contractual charge is not necessarily a penalty if the party cannot make a direct link to that charge and loss.If you go back 100 years to the Dunlop case which pretty much started things off in this direction there was no direct link to Dunlop's charges to losses.
Indeed, the notion of a 'genuine pre-estimate of loss' which is obviously a legal way of incorporating liquidated damages is exactly that. The clause is not a penalty if there is sound and genuine thinking behind it.
That has developed into the issue of commercial justifiability, as there are instances where clearly a damages clause is needed or the contract can be breached with impunity on the basis that a particular monetary charge in a particular instance could be argued against.
That was in the Cavendish case law a couple of years ago and quite a few since.
This recent ruling did not change the law, it just updated how parking charges should be viewed in accordance with how liquidated damages clauses already work in the rest of the business world.
JustinP1 said:
It's been the case almost from inception that a contractual charge is not necessarily a penalty if the party cannot make a direct link to that charge and loss.
If you go back 100 years to the Dunlop case which pretty much started things off in this direction there was no direct link to Dunlop's charges to losses.
Indeed, the notion of a 'genuine pre-estimate of loss' which is obviously a legal way of incorporating liquidated damages is exactly that. The clause is not a penalty if there is sound and genuine thinking behind it.
That has developed into the issue of commercial justifiability, as there are instances where clearly a damages clause is needed or the contract can be breached with impunity on the basis that a particular monetary charge in a particular instance could be argued against.
That was in the Cavendish case law a couple of years ago and quite a few since.
This recent ruling did not change the law, it just updated how parking charges should be viewed in accordance with how liquidated damages clauses already work in the rest of the business world.
I've never encountered a contract where the liquidated damages could equate to the value of the contract. A PPC enforcing £80 liquidated damages for a failure to pay £2 to park creates the position where the liquidated damages = forty times the value of the contract. That cannot be a fair contract.If you go back 100 years to the Dunlop case which pretty much started things off in this direction there was no direct link to Dunlop's charges to losses.
Indeed, the notion of a 'genuine pre-estimate of loss' which is obviously a legal way of incorporating liquidated damages is exactly that. The clause is not a penalty if there is sound and genuine thinking behind it.
That has developed into the issue of commercial justifiability, as there are instances where clearly a damages clause is needed or the contract can be breached with impunity on the basis that a particular monetary charge in a particular instance could be argued against.
That was in the Cavendish case law a couple of years ago and quite a few since.
This recent ruling did not change the law, it just updated how parking charges should be viewed in accordance with how liquidated damages clauses already work in the rest of the business world.
V8 Fettler said:
JustinP1 said:
It's been the case almost from inception that a contractual charge is not necessarily a penalty if the party cannot make a direct link to that charge and loss.
If you go back 100 years to the Dunlop case which pretty much started things off in this direction there was no direct link to Dunlop's charges to losses.
Indeed, the notion of a 'genuine pre-estimate of loss' which is obviously a legal way of incorporating liquidated damages is exactly that. The clause is not a penalty if there is sound and genuine thinking behind it.
That has developed into the issue of commercial justifiability, as there are instances where clearly a damages clause is needed or the contract can be breached with impunity on the basis that a particular monetary charge in a particular instance could be argued against.
That was in the Cavendish case law a couple of years ago and quite a few since.
This recent ruling did not change the law, it just updated how parking charges should be viewed in accordance with how liquidated damages clauses already work in the rest of the business world.
I've never encountered a contract where the liquidated damages could equate to the value of the contract. A PPC enforcing £80 liquidated damages for a failure to pay £2 to park creates the position where the liquidated damages = forty times the value of the contract. That cannot be a fair contract.If you go back 100 years to the Dunlop case which pretty much started things off in this direction there was no direct link to Dunlop's charges to losses.
Indeed, the notion of a 'genuine pre-estimate of loss' which is obviously a legal way of incorporating liquidated damages is exactly that. The clause is not a penalty if there is sound and genuine thinking behind it.
That has developed into the issue of commercial justifiability, as there are instances where clearly a damages clause is needed or the contract can be breached with impunity on the basis that a particular monetary charge in a particular instance could be argued against.
That was in the Cavendish case law a couple of years ago and quite a few since.
This recent ruling did not change the law, it just updated how parking charges should be viewed in accordance with how liquidated damages clauses already work in the rest of the business world.
There's nothing unfair about that. Consider:
Borrowing books from a library, for free, but for a charge when you fail to return the book.
A credit card where you are charged no interest for 56 days credit if you pay in full, or 24% APR if you pay later.
A 'Buy Now Pay Later' retail credit contract where you get 12 months interest free credit, but, if you fail to pay in 12 months, the debt is transferred to a 3 year scheme at 24% APR.
In all of those situations, the service if offered without charge to the majority of consumers as a minority are picking up the true costs of providing the service to all. That minority are paying charges they specifically agreed they would pay in a contract they entered into freely.
I have no problem with that, and clearly nor does the Court of Appeal.
JustinP1 said:
There's plenty of situations where the damage caused by a breach can be the full amount of the contract, or exceed it.
There's nothing unfair about that. Consider:
Borrowing books from a library, for free, but for a charge when you fail to return the book.
A credit card where you are charged no interest for 56 days credit if you pay in full, or 24% APR if you pay later.
A 'Buy Now Pay Later' retail credit contract where you get 12 months interest free credit, but, if you fail to pay in 12 months, the debt is transferred to a 3 year scheme at 24% APR.
In all of those situations, the service if offered without charge to the majority of consumers as a minority are picking up the true costs of providing the service to all. That minority are paying charges they specifically agreed they would pay in a contract they entered into freely.
I have no problem with that, and clearly nor does the Court of Appeal.
Correct me if I'm wrong - but the consumer credit act deals with the credit cards and loans, which is specific legislation do deal with this matter entirely. There's nothing unfair about that. Consider:
Borrowing books from a library, for free, but for a charge when you fail to return the book.
A credit card where you are charged no interest for 56 days credit if you pay in full, or 24% APR if you pay later.
A 'Buy Now Pay Later' retail credit contract where you get 12 months interest free credit, but, if you fail to pay in 12 months, the debt is transferred to a 3 year scheme at 24% APR.
In all of those situations, the service if offered without charge to the majority of consumers as a minority are picking up the true costs of providing the service to all. That minority are paying charges they specifically agreed they would pay in a contract they entered into freely.
I have no problem with that, and clearly nor does the Court of Appeal.
And I've never heard of a library taking someone to court. If they could is a different matter - but I've never heard of it happening.
Oh well - there looks like there will certainly be an appeal. Which I'm not convinced will go anywhere. And ultimately the best way to get rid of parking idiots now will be to not park breaking the rules. There income will disappear and so will they... Unless people are stupid.
JustinP1 said:
V8 Fettler said:
JustinP1 said:
It's been the case almost from inception that a contractual charge is not necessarily a penalty if the party cannot make a direct link to that charge and loss.
If you go back 100 years to the Dunlop case which pretty much started things off in this direction there was no direct link to Dunlop's charges to losses.
Indeed, the notion of a 'genuine pre-estimate of loss' which is obviously a legal way of incorporating liquidated damages is exactly that. The clause is not a penalty if there is sound and genuine thinking behind it.
That has developed into the issue of commercial justifiability, as there are instances where clearly a damages clause is needed or the contract can be breached with impunity on the basis that a particular monetary charge in a particular instance could be argued against.
That was in the Cavendish case law a couple of years ago and quite a few since.
This recent ruling did not change the law, it just updated how parking charges should be viewed in accordance with how liquidated damages clauses already work in the rest of the business world.
I've never encountered a contract where the liquidated damages could equate to the value of the contract. A PPC enforcing £80 liquidated damages for a failure to pay £2 to park creates the position where the liquidated damages = forty times the value of the contract. That cannot be a fair contract.If you go back 100 years to the Dunlop case which pretty much started things off in this direction there was no direct link to Dunlop's charges to losses.
Indeed, the notion of a 'genuine pre-estimate of loss' which is obviously a legal way of incorporating liquidated damages is exactly that. The clause is not a penalty if there is sound and genuine thinking behind it.
That has developed into the issue of commercial justifiability, as there are instances where clearly a damages clause is needed or the contract can be breached with impunity on the basis that a particular monetary charge in a particular instance could be argued against.
That was in the Cavendish case law a couple of years ago and quite a few since.
This recent ruling did not change the law, it just updated how parking charges should be viewed in accordance with how liquidated damages clauses already work in the rest of the business world.
There's nothing unfair about that. Consider:
Borrowing books from a library, for free, but for a charge when you fail to return the book.
A credit card where you are charged no interest for 56 days credit if you pay in full, or 24% APR if you pay later.
A 'Buy Now Pay Later' retail credit contract where you get 12 months interest free credit, but, if you fail to pay in 12 months, the debt is transferred to a 3 year scheme at 24% APR.
In all of those situations, the service if offered without charge to the majority of consumers as a minority are picking up the true costs of providing the service to all. That minority are paying charges they specifically agreed they would pay in a contract they entered into freely.
I have no problem with that, and clearly nor does the Court of Appeal.
photosnob - Yes, the CCA is legislation around consumer credit, and libraries don't take people to court, however, we are talking about the contractual situation here.
My point is that contract like a free parking contract are actually commonplace in other areas - including municipal parking where the judgment makes particular reference to the fact that the public do expect a £50 fine for municipal parking infringement.
I totally agree with your final point. I think the public need educating over two things:
1) That before entering into a contract you should read it. I am constantly looked at in funny ways in everyday life when handed a piece of paper to sign because I actually read it... This is seemingly rare.
2) That you don't have a right to park your car on someone else's land. You park there on their terms whether you pay or not, so see 1)
My point is that contract like a free parking contract are actually commonplace in other areas - including municipal parking where the judgment makes particular reference to the fact that the public do expect a £50 fine for municipal parking infringement.
I totally agree with your final point. I think the public need educating over two things:
1) That before entering into a contract you should read it. I am constantly looked at in funny ways in everyday life when handed a piece of paper to sign because I actually read it... This is seemingly rare.
2) That you don't have a right to park your car on someone else's land. You park there on their terms whether you pay or not, so see 1)
Edited by JustinP1 on Friday 24th April 14:54
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