Parking Penalty Notice

March51

Recently March Jr. parked his car in a space in a small car park outside an empty, vacant, shop. He finished his visit to another nearby store and returned home. He has now received a demand for £90 from a private company for parking where he did. If he doesn't pay they threaten to put in the hands of a debt collection agency and charge associated costs.I imagine there was a very small, hidden notice somewhere in the area. No notice was left on the car and they have a photo of it, including the reg no. (presumably they have DVLA info.). Anyone had anything like this, if so is it worth fighting? Thanks.

charltonkeston

dont pay, dont reply to any letters. That is what my friend did when he got one of these fines at MFI at Lewisham about 3 years ago.
Have a look on the net, (forums news groups) and see if they have a history of doing this.
I dont know where your son stands legally but if it were me I would ignore it untill I got a letter form a real court.

My friend never heard from them again after the third letter.

seth plum

Totally ignore them and let them persue the matter through the civil courts at great cost.

uncle

If your really worried take your letter to the old bill there might be lots of other cases the same

AppyAddick

Same message here, i got one of these from a carpark in Ashford in Kent. There was no way i was going to pay it, i got two further demands each getting more and more heavy and then nothing more.

As keston says, dont pay unless you get a letter from court.

Bloody cowboys.

nigel

March - ignore the letter. Certainly don't pay. But send March Jnr to bed without his tea...

March51

Thanks for the advice, folks. Mmm, could try that Nigel but it means staying up 'til around 1.00 a.m for him! He's still celebrating 6 from 6.

LenGlover

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/private-parking-tickets

This might help...

March51

Thanks Len, that looks very useful.

Leroy Ambrose

Don't pay it. They have no legal right to issue you with a 'fine'. What they're doing amounts to a breach of contract between March Jr and the owner of the land he parked on. In order to prove a breach of contract, they would have to take it to court. What's happened here is that the idle, workshy gippo pricks who use the land to make a bit of extra cash have probably pissed off somewhere with their tow truck for a couple of hours and missed out on a nice juicy 300 quid 'release' fee for March Jr's car. Someone will have taken a picture of it and is now trying to get back a bit of cash.

Best thing you can do is get down there and take photographic evidence of any signage (usually laughably inadequate, 'accidentally' covered by ivy or placed ridiculously high up (or low down). Ignore the letters until they say they're actually 'invoicing' you - at which point you write back and tell them you are refusing to pay because the ticket is unfair. You'll usually win at this point by default, because most of these cowboy tosspots won't bother taking you to court.

Good luck - as someone who has worked in the (legitimate!) parking industry before I have lots of sympathy for people caught out by this scam - the government should have made this type of shit illegal years ago instead of trying to semi-legitimise it

EDIT - dammit. I should have read the link before posting all that!

March51

No, that's fine LA, the more advice the better and you all seem agreed on what (or not) to do. We've had 'official ' ones before but never anything like this so all advice is much appreciated.

Ledge

if it's got your name and address on make sure u shred it before throwing it away mate all that ID theft and that

Elthamaddick

have had (yet another) parking fine from bexley council, for parking on a pavement outside a mini tesco, for all of 2 mins - I've had these before and they've always had a picture of the car with the fine, however this time no pic - do they have to provide photographic evidence of my car being where it says?

hawksmoor

I'm no expert, but I reckon they do have to provide photographic evidence. I wouldn't have thought they had a leg to stand on if they didn't, otherwise it'll be them saying, 'You parked illegally,' and you saying, 'No I didn't'.

BigRedEvil

Believe they have to have photographic evidence.

_MrDick

Make sure you appeal as that stops the clock. If you have to pay the fine you will do so at the reduced rate.

hawksmoor

I think I mentioned this on another parking fine thread on here, but I got a penalty notice about my having parked in an area that a small sign up the road had designated for disabled drivers. I appealed and said I hadn't parked in a disabled space, which I would never do, and they let me off the fine. Anyway, I discovered a few weeks later that it was a disabled space!

The point being, always appeal.

guinnessaddick

Elthamaddick said:

have had (yet another) parking fine from bexley council, for parking on a pavement outside a mini tesco, for all of 2 mins - I've had these before and they've always had a picture of the car with the fine, however this time no pic - do they have to provide photographic evidence of my car being where it says?

On the PCN it says you can view the photo online, when you do it just shows you the same details as on the PCN.
Received the same last night, it states the offence occurred in upper wickham lane, the wife was using the car and says she was just waited for the car park to clear (Tesco where the Duchess Of Edinburgh used to be). I went to the web site to see the evidence, none there. Have emailed them to request photo, along with proof of the correct device was used along with locations of warning signs in operation at the time.
I have noticed when walking the dog a Bexley council smart car parked just up the road from the Tesco store, I now know why.

Elthamaddick

That's exactly where I've been done

Leroy Ambrose

There's no legal requirement for a PCN to come with a corroborating photograph. I'd say you're more likely to win an appeal if there isn't a photograph, but it's by no means certain. The burden of proof rests on the motorist to convince an appeal that the ticket was issued incorrectly. The vast majority of tickets are issued perfectly legally (if annoyingly quickly) and it sounds to me like - even though it seems unfair to you - the ticket is legal. If you do want to appeal, make sure, like VMM says, that you do it within the allowed period, or the fine will double. Also, paying without appealing usually (though not always) means you pay half the fine - weigh up the pros and cons and decide whether you're likely to win or not. Councils are bastards when it comes to parking.

guinnessaddick

Mrs Guinness is saying as far as she can remember she didn't park on the pavement, she just waited for the car park to clear and then pulled into a parking space.