Hi Ellen, big bug bear of mine, this whole private parking scam! I paid £15,000 each for two spaces in the car park beneath my flat in London, yet if I park there without a permit, I get issued with a £75 'Penalty Charge Notice'! Needless to say, I don't pay it and get bombarded with all sorts of threats from the issuing company, their solicitors and their imaginary debt recovery companies, but nothing ever happens. I have a collection of over 400 letters from them now.
The main thing to be aware of is that these tickets have no basis in law, despite the fact that they are designed to look like the normal tickets issued by local authority appointed parking attendants. They even call them something like 'Parking Charge Notices', generally abreviated to PCN, to mimic official PCNs, or 'Penalty Charge Notices' issued by parking attendants. They rely on forming a contract with you and that's pretty hard to prove. Their letters will imply that the registered keeper of the car is responsible for either paying the ticket, which is not the case, or for informing them of who was driving, which is definitely not the case, as this can only be enforced by the police or the courts under section 172 of the road traffic act.
As I mentioned earlier, these companies rely on the implication that they have formed a contract with you i.e. There will be a sign somewhere saying something along the lines of "If you don't pay the parking fee of £1.80, you agree, instead, to pay a penalty fee of £25". They would struggle to prove this as a contract in court, as there must be three stages - An invitation to treat (For example, a car in a showroom with a price on it), An offer (You telling the salesman how much you want to pay for it) and an acceptance (The salesman agreeing the price with you). If you drive into a car park and take a ticket at a barrier, which then rises, allowing you to drive in, you have effectively fulfilled the contract process, but just parking in an open car park does not seal a contract. In addition, any contract could only be formed with the driver of the car, and that may not necessarily be the registered keeper, so to send an enforcement notice through to the RK demanding payment is just nonsense.
The main thing to remember here is that all they are sending you right now are demands and threats. They mean nothing. You will initially receive a bundle of letters from them demanding increased payments. These will be followed by letters from a solicitor threatening court action if you don't pay and finally you will receive letters from a debt collection agency, telling you how badly a CCJ will affect your ability to obtain credit in the future. Essentially they are relying on scare tactics to frighten you into paying.
You have a few choices here -
1. You can pay it and they will go away. I definitely wouldn't recommend this as a) It costs you money and b) The more they get away with it, the more they will do it!
2. You can ignore them. This is what I do now, having spent many hours on the phone arguing in circles with them.
3. You could send them a letter acknowledging their letter to you, the registered keeper of the car, advising them that any contract and, therefore, any penalty would be with the driver of the car and not the registered keeper, so they should contact the driver instead.
Obviously how you deal with this is completely up to you, but before you do anything, I would suggest having a look through the parking forums on the Consumer Action Group. There's a lot of good advice in there. The great thing about the Internet is that you can get help with pretty much anything these days, so don't worry about it and please, please please don't give these conmen your money!! Good luck and let us know how you get on
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