Discussion
Merry Christmas everyone.
A little ph help. Recieved this in the post this morning. Its a private parking firm and as far as I was aware I was parked on a public road. There were no yellow lines. If there was they were worn out. The next time I went to park there I saw all the cameras and signs so I didn't park there. The road is adjacent the A4 Bath road. Leads to the Park Inn hotel at Heathrow.
The paper work says ' car park ' I wasn't in the car park I was in the access road.
A little ph help. Recieved this in the post this morning. Its a private parking firm and as far as I was aware I was parked on a public road. There were no yellow lines. If there was they were worn out. The next time I went to park there I saw all the cameras and signs so I didn't park there. The road is adjacent the A4 Bath road. Leads to the Park Inn hotel at Heathrow.
The paper work says ' car park ' I wasn't in the car park I was in the access road.
Edited by melhookv12 on Saturday 27th December 11:36
You are now in a battle that has no goodie and no baddie (or maybe has two baddies) between a selfish freeloader (you) and an over claiming parking enforcement company (Parking Eye).
The road was probably a private road, especially if it was within the airport boundary. That notice does not impose a fine, as only a public body with lawful power to impose a fine or penalty charge can do so. The Notice is a claim for a payment either under a contract or as damages for the civil wrong of trespass.
As you did not enter the car park you possibly did not assent to the contract that was posted on its signs, although you may have done if there was a sign with the contract terms posted at the entrance to the access road, which you could have looked at. Where were the signs you mention?
You were probably trespassing on private land, and trespass is actionable without proof of loss, but even so the claim for £100 is excessive and is not recoverable in my opinion (assuming you did not block the access - see below). Trespass is, BTW, the action of a git, so please don't do it again!
Write politely pointing out that your parking did not cause any loss, or anything like £100 of loss, to anyone. You might wish to offer to pay, say, £10 for parking on someone else's land without their permission. The damages might be higher if, for example, you blocked a delivery lorry, but let us assume you did not.
Some here will advise you to visit some websites which go into needless detail about all this stuff and encourage you to write very silly letters making very silly arguments. You can do so if you wish, or you can follow my more realistic advice, which comes from a real lawyer with real knowledge and experience, rather than the advice of someone so obsessed by parking that they make or contribute to ranty websites about the subject.
There is also Mickey Mouse privatised appeal body called POPLA, but you are not obliged to use it, and my advice is not to waste your time on such stuff.
The road was probably a private road, especially if it was within the airport boundary. That notice does not impose a fine, as only a public body with lawful power to impose a fine or penalty charge can do so. The Notice is a claim for a payment either under a contract or as damages for the civil wrong of trespass.
As you did not enter the car park you possibly did not assent to the contract that was posted on its signs, although you may have done if there was a sign with the contract terms posted at the entrance to the access road, which you could have looked at. Where were the signs you mention?
You were probably trespassing on private land, and trespass is actionable without proof of loss, but even so the claim for £100 is excessive and is not recoverable in my opinion (assuming you did not block the access - see below). Trespass is, BTW, the action of a git, so please don't do it again!
Write politely pointing out that your parking did not cause any loss, or anything like £100 of loss, to anyone. You might wish to offer to pay, say, £10 for parking on someone else's land without their permission. The damages might be higher if, for example, you blocked a delivery lorry, but let us assume you did not.
Some here will advise you to visit some websites which go into needless detail about all this stuff and encourage you to write very silly letters making very silly arguments. You can do so if you wish, or you can follow my more realistic advice, which comes from a real lawyer with real knowledge and experience, rather than the advice of someone so obsessed by parking that they make or contribute to ranty websites about the subject.
There is also Mickey Mouse privatised appeal body called POPLA, but you are not obliged to use it, and my advice is not to waste your time on such stuff.
Edited by anonymous-user on Saturday 27th December 11:54
Thank you Breadvan for a rapid response. Very sound advice. I will write to their appeal department and I was thinking of offering something like you said. Whatever the hourly charge for use of the car park I am happy to pay.
I went to enter the road on the 23rd from a different access point and saw the signs and cameras very clearly so parked somewhere else.
On the first occasion I turned around in the entrance to the car park and parked out of the way not causing any obstruction as I parked behind a coach.
I went to enter the road on the 23rd from a different access point and saw the signs and cameras very clearly so parked somewhere else.
On the first occasion I turned around in the entrance to the car park and parked out of the way not causing any obstruction as I parked behind a coach.
Don't offer anything, they will reject your first "informal" appeal. Request a POPLA code to take it further, costs them money so win, win, their decision holds no weight on you but does on them do you have nothing to loose...look into the genuine pre-estimate of loss and other associated arguments. Did you park in the car park or even leave the car?
kiethton said:
Don't offer anything, they will reject your first "informal" appeal. Request a POPLA code to take it further, costs them money so win, win, their decision holds no weight on you but does on them do you have nothing to loose...look into the genuine pre-estimate of loss and other associated arguments. Did you park in the car park or even leave the car?
Amusing how the mere sight of a parking invoice prevented you from reading any of the thread beyond it. Oddly this type of behavior seem typical of parking evangelists.Breadvan72 said:
OK, now I feel like the Grinch because I was mean to you about your parking. Merry Xmas.
I didn't take it that way 
. I'm happy to pay when I park. God knows I pay the airports enough as it is. Just trying to save my passengers money by not going into the airport car parks to early.
As a side note; I only received this today, if I appeal and lose do I have to pay the full £100 rather than the £60 which is due by 31st.? I'm guessing I'm not going to hear from them before the New year now anyway.
Try not to think in terms of appeals. This is a speculative invoice, not a parking ticket. Put all thoughts of fines or "having to pay" out of your head. Only a court (on this case a civil court) can order you to pay anything to the parking company, and before that can happen the company would have to sue you and win. It would have to show either that you made a contract and broke it, or that you committed the tort of trespass.
In that respect, this is one of the rare cases where the usually fruitloopy points that the parking nutter websites bang on about may come into play, but not quite in the loony way that they put it. Trespass is usually actionable at the suit of the person entitled to possession of the land, and that might or might not be the parking company. If the right claimant does sue you, you are bang to rights but the damages are nominal.
If the claim is based on contract (the argument being that you assented to the contract by driving past a sign, that you could have stopped and read), then the company has a problem because £100 is a big charge for parking and is likely to be an unenforceable penalty because it is not a genuine pre estimate of loss (at least unless and until the Court of Appeal says otherwise).
In that respect, this is one of the rare cases where the usually fruitloopy points that the parking nutter websites bang on about may come into play, but not quite in the loony way that they put it. Trespass is usually actionable at the suit of the person entitled to possession of the land, and that might or might not be the parking company. If the right claimant does sue you, you are bang to rights but the damages are nominal.
If the claim is based on contract (the argument being that you assented to the contract by driving past a sign, that you could have stopped and read), then the company has a problem because £100 is a big charge for parking and is likely to be an unenforceable penalty because it is not a genuine pre estimate of loss (at least unless and until the Court of Appeal says otherwise).
Breadvan72 said:
or that you committed the tort of trespass.
Trespass is usually actionable at the suit of the person entitled to possession of the land, and that might or might not be the parking company. If the right claimant does sue you, you are bang to rights but the damages are nominal.
I am watching a company build a case on this at the moment using ANPR camera's to detect the 'crime of trespass'Trespass is usually actionable at the suit of the person entitled to possession of the land, and that might or might not be the parking company. If the right claimant does sue you, you are bang to rights but the damages are nominal.
DVLA being the useless numpties they are didn't want to supply 'ownership' details, as they saw it you should get the details from your 'parking company' contractor even though it is about private roads not parking.
We'll see how it pans out
Parking Eye are doing court
As much as i admire Breadvan, get onto the pepipoo site and put everything up on that , personal details redacted. They will ensure you do get a POPLA code and win using a 'Genuine Pre Estimate of loss' defence
Otherwise sit tight and do nothing and possibly, please note possibly, get a CCj against you
Its your choice.
Whatever you do do not write to PE advising you were the driver, Always in the third pesron and wait until a letter comes through the post to the registered keeper before doing anything UNLESS the RK is a company or hire firm who will pay it PDQ and bill you the £100 plus their costs in which case write to PE so they dont contact the RK
As much as i admire Breadvan, get onto the pepipoo site and put everything up on that , personal details redacted. They will ensure you do get a POPLA code and win using a 'Genuine Pre Estimate of loss' defence
Otherwise sit tight and do nothing and possibly, please note possibly, get a CCj against you
Its your choice.
Whatever you do do not write to PE advising you were the driver, Always in the third pesron and wait until a letter comes through the post to the registered keeper before doing anything UNLESS the RK is a company or hire firm who will pay it PDQ and bill you the £100 plus their costs in which case write to PE so they dont contact the RK
Can you explain (preferably without resort to meaningless gibberish copied off the internet, but bonus points will be awarded if the gibberish is funny) how the contractual concept of pre-estimate of loss applies to a claim in tort, such as trespass? Please cite all relevant case law. Over to you, Mr Pub Lawyer!
OP, do yourself a favour and steer clear of peepooplop and all such wingnut sites. Their followers here have a quasi-religious fervour for them, but cults are always a bit odd.
OP, do yourself a favour and steer clear of peepooplop and all such wingnut sites. Their followers here have a quasi-religious fervour for them, but cults are always a bit odd.
Breadvan72 said:
Can you explain (preferably without resort to meaningless gibberish copied off the internet, but bonus points will be awarded if the gibberish is funny) how the contractual concept of pre-estimate of loss applies to a claim in tort, such as trespass? Please cite all relevant case law. Over to you, Mr Pub Lawyer!
OP, do yourself a favour and steer clear of peepooplop and all such wingnut sites. Their followers here have a quasi-religious fervour for them, but cults are always a bit odd.
OP, do yourself a favour and steer clear of peepooplop and all such wingnut sites. Their followers here have a quasi-religious fervour for them, but cults are always a bit odd.
melhookv12 said:
I will write to their appeal department and I was thinking of offering something like you said.
I predict you will be wasting your time. If PE accept your appeal/offer I will donate £10 to a charity of your choice.They are interested only in getting the discounted amount (too indistinct to read) as fast as possible or failing that the full £100. Their entire business model depends on it.
Breadvan72 said:
You are misunderstanding the legal process. The point of making an offer of a reasonable amount is to spike the guns of the potential claimant in the event that it is foolish enough to sue for a larger amount.
Again you are confusing PE with a normal company, who respect the legal process. PE will do court, no question, in fact if you ignore it is almost certain you will get court papers. OP if PE accept your offer of £10 I will pay £20 to help for heroes.Appeal, they will reject, get POPLA code, this is binding on the parking co and costs them £27 and you nothing. Appeal to POPLA on the grounds of no pre estimate of loss, PE will not respond you will win.
BV have you ever dealt with PE? As in got a ticket and handled it the way you recommend (without QC after your name)?
I don't understand the argument of people saying "you are selfish and a free loader / how would you feel if I parked on your drive" etc. The car park is for parking on, it what the companies expect you to do.
The way I look at it is this, if you went out and forgot to lock your door and came back to some tramp having a big dirty s
t on your toilet then you would rightfully want money off him for fumigating the place before you would use it again.
If on the other hand you lived next to a concert venue or something and put a sign over your front door saying "free toilet-2 minutes use only, penalty bla bla bla. If someone stayed 3 minutes would they really owe you anything.
The way I look at it is this, if you went out and forgot to lock your door and came back to some tramp having a big dirty s
t on your toilet then you would rightfully want money off him for fumigating the place before you would use it again.If on the other hand you lived next to a concert venue or something and put a sign over your front door saying "free toilet-2 minutes use only, penalty bla bla bla. If someone stayed 3 minutes would they really owe you anything.
nikaiyo2 said:
Breadvan72 said:
You are misunderstanding the legal process. The point of making an offer of a reasonable amount is to spike the guns of the potential claimant in the event that it is foolish enough to sue for a larger amount.
Again you are confusing PE with a normal company, who respect the legal process. PE will do court, no question, in fact if you ignore it is almost certain you will get court papers. OP if PE accept your offer of £10 I will pay £20 to help for heroes.Appeal, they will reject, get POPLA code, this is binding on the parking co and costs them £27 and you nothing. Appeal to POPLA on the grounds of no pre estimate of loss, PE will not respond you will win.
BV have you ever dealt with PE? As in got a ticket and handled it the way you recommend (without QC after your name)?
If a Judge sees that someone offered to pay a sensible sum and the claimant is seeking a silly sum, that tends to be a point against the claimant.
Note that the pre estimate of loss argument is irrelevant if the claim is based not on contract but in trespass, as might be the case in this thread. One size does not fit all.
I haven't had to deal with PE as I don't make a habit of parking without paying. Not so long ago I fended off another company with one simple and polite letter when the ticket at a railway carpark fell off the dashboard and lay unseen by the ticket dude in the footwell. I pointed out what had happened, and added that in any event no loss had been sustained because I'd paid to park. That was the end of that. No need for magic words or all those whacky (and for the most part legally incoherent) arguments recommended on those nutty websites.
Breadvan72 said:
I haven't had to deal with PE as I don't make a habit of parking without paying. Not so long ago I fended off another company with one simple and polite letter when the ticket at a railway carpark fell off the dashboard and lay unseen by the ticket dude in the footwell. I pointed out what had happened, and added that in any event no loss had been sustained because I'd paid to park. That was the end of that. No need for magic words or all those whacky (and for the most part legally incoherent) arguments recommended on those nutty websites.
Your point might have rather more force if you had though. 'Another company' is not PE. One swallow does not a summer make. Knowing who you are taking on and the methods they use is key to defeating them. The best way of doing this is by appealing to POPLA when PE reject your representations (as is pretty much guaranteed with this PPC no matter what you say in your representations). Ignoring (as some people still do) is not a sensible option since RK liability came into play.PE has form for excessively redacting contracts, submitting dodgy 'boiler plate' witness statements, claiming costs it cannot substantiate, and in some cases their legal representative telling porkies in court (usually because they have been badly instructed).
In your case, while there was no loss (because you had paid), what would your argument have been had they contended that the contract required the ticket be visibly displayed and that an additional sum was payable on failure to do so? No authority to contract with the driver? Unenforceable penalty?
That no authority to contract BS remains BS no matter how often you say it, RD. It is such a pity that you have been taken in by the wibble merchants, as on other subjects you are usually quite sensible. For some reason the fairy dust has got hold of you on this one, but made up magical legal points don't gain force just because you passionately want them to be real. A penalty argument, by contrast, is a real argument (in a contract case).
Whoa tiger! I didn't make a statement, I asked you a question. You could simply have said that 'no authority to contract' is a flawed argument and explained why. Damning me with faint praise is a bit tacky as well.
AFAIK the contract between the landowner and the PPC must specifically state that the PPC has authority to issue proceedings in its own name and, if not, any such action must fail. IIRC it was VCS that got spanked on this point in Ibbotson. I think most PPCs have now got their act together on that score.
I stand by what I said about using POPLA. PE has been spectacularly unsuccessful when RKs have used that route. No GPEOL and/or an unenforceable penalty has been the preferred avenue of attack. It makes no sense to become embroiled in legal proceedings when there is a sensible alternative option to be explored first, especially when a POPLA assessor's decision is binding on the PPC but not the other way round. If you win, its all over. If not, you still have the choice of defending any action the PPC may choose to bring.
AFAIK the contract between the landowner and the PPC must specifically state that the PPC has authority to issue proceedings in its own name and, if not, any such action must fail. IIRC it was VCS that got spanked on this point in Ibbotson. I think most PPCs have now got their act together on that score.
I stand by what I said about using POPLA. PE has been spectacularly unsuccessful when RKs have used that route. No GPEOL and/or an unenforceable penalty has been the preferred avenue of attack. It makes no sense to become embroiled in legal proceedings when there is a sensible alternative option to be explored first, especially when a POPLA assessor's decision is binding on the PPC but not the other way round. If you win, its all over. If not, you still have the choice of defending any action the PPC may choose to bring.
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