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Vid
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PCNs

Post by Vid »

We have an interesting situation ongoing, back in July my mother-in-law was very ill, doctor's surgery was called and rather than immediately call an ambulance or have a home visit they insisted that she attended the surgery for an emergency appointment. So MrsVid gets her mother into the car and off to see the doctor, after an hour consultation its off to the hospital where the M-i-L spends several days. A week later MrsVid takes her mum for a follow up appointment to the doctor.

A week or so later a letter drops on the mat for MrsVid, a PCN from a company 100+ miles away that have fairly recently gained a contract from the local council to manage parking at the health centre that our doctor's surgery is based at. The PCN contains no specifics as to what the alleged offence is, just that they say there is one.

Very difficult to know what you're appealing against without a specific reason given so using their online form an appeal was made giving the details for parking in the HC car park. A few days later a second PCN arrives for the 2nd visit, so again the appeal is made saying that it was a follow up appointment.

A couple of weeks later letters arrive saying that the appeals have been denied as the T&Cs were breached and that no further appeals would be considered.

MrsVid contacted the surgery who said that they've had no end of problems with patients being harassed by this firm, do not pay and signed slips confirming the appointment details were given to her.

We made a further attempt to contact the firm to end it by sending scans of these slips.

The reply was basically, 'we don't want to know as the appeal process has been used already, you owe us double'.

We went off on holiday for a couple of weeks to be greeted by a letter from a debt collection agency (probably part of the same firm) demanding payment or else they'll take us to court. Ignored it. Got another today, charge has now increased. Oh, and the letter is addressed to me, I am neither the keeper nor the driver of the vehicle at the time and the nice thing about being a lorry driver is that it can be proven without doubt that I was elsewhere driving a lorry at the time.

Looking at the ombudsman's website the date for appealing through them passed during our holiday.

The only T&Cs on display in the car park are that vehicles have to be parked within bays, not over lines and that disabled badges must be visible, both complied with but no idea how they police that as the company do not employ car park attendants and are based over 100 miles away. All they have is a camera taking pictures of registration plates at the entrance and exit of the park.

Anyone have any experiences with leeches of this sort? Likelihood of them pursuing to a court? If so, their local court or ours? Can we claim costs off them for taking time off to defend ourselves?

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unc.si.
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Re: PCNs

Post by unc.si. »

Don't worry about it in the slightest.

who are the firm, and are they part of the BPC (think thats what its called)? If not then they can whistle. Even if they are they can whistle. Its a private contract matter and if the ts and cs just say that you have to be in a bay and thats it then there is no contract breach (if you were in a bay). End of story. Even if you werent, the signs have to be clear etc, ie there has to be a reasonable expectation that you knew that you had entered into a contract for parking.

Sounds like they've also failed to correctly word the NTK as well by not specifying the alleged breach - it has to be worded in a specific way with the right info. There's loads of info on this on driving forums. Look the firm up and there will be plenty of help.

Basically though, they'll send some threatening letters from solicitors (who can't enforce anything) but there's no way on earth they would dare to take something like this to court. They'd probably be done for contempt if it got that far based on what you've said. They just send stuff out and get enough people too scared or busy to fight so they pay up. My wife's friend (they met for a coffee then went for a walk along the canal before going back to the car) just paid up the reduced charge of £60 as she couldn't be arsed to write a letter. I'm not a lawyer but I've been in business for long enough to know about contract law (and have done training on various areas of contract and employment law) to be confident enough that I'd win.

I've had 2 of these - one was years ago when I spent more that 3 hours at a service station (in a snowstorm). Just completely ignored and they went away eventually. You can't just ignore now though so have to respond, but still very little chance of ever having to pay up unless it was very obvious that you (eg) should have only stayed for 2 hours and you stayed longer, in which case fair cop. In your case they've got no chance.

Had one more recent one for the missus 'leaving the site' on a local car park. Sent a letter with photo's saying that the signage was inadequate (which it was - letters too small and no prominent sign at entrance) and they failed in their duty to mitigate loss and a load of other things. I refused to go through their appeal process as there was no contract so asked them to cancel their invoice for charges. I also refused to tell them who the driver was (no legal obligation to do so and we had waited fro the NTK to come through). Gave them 35 days I think to respond with a POPLA appeal code (which costs them cash to get, but is a perfectly reasonable request from me, even though they belonged to a different trade body). They sent a couple of standard letters (I sent them a copy of my original letter back with 'please respond' handwritten on it) in response and they've gone away now. Not had a letter for about 3 months, so I'm adding the lack of response to my letter to the list of complaints that I'll be making against them to their trade association. This has also reminded me to call the company who owns the land (who I've given about £200k of work to over the last few years) to tell them what a bunch of cowboys they have running their car parks :D

ps - I'm assuming that this is a private company and its not a real PCN issued by a council, in which case you'd have to use the council appeal system. If its a private company it will in effect just be an invoice for breach of contract, so they would have to prove that you could reasonably be expected to know that you were entering into a contract, what the terms were and that you did indeed breach the terms. There also has to be adequate signage readable when you enter the site showing the full terms and the charge for breaching them, which has to be a reasonable pre-estimate of the losses (which after a case in 2012 would probably be around £80 to £100). They are very good at making the letters look very official and suspiciously similar to a real PCN.

There is reams of info on the net about this and if you google the company concerned there will I'm sure be lots of info on exactly how you should proceed.

If you want to see how they should behave and what sort of signs should be present then just go to your local supermarket or B&Q. There will be big signs that you can read on the way in, plus lots of signs on the site. If there aren't similar signs at the doctors then the company has almost zero chance of proving that they have a contractual relationship with them. Even if they have then the Ibbotson case (which you can google) demonstrates that they still may not have the authority to charge you anything.


This is a real pet hate of mine (hence the rant :D ), so don't give the bustards a penny and do your best to screw them after you've won. No place for parasites like that in the world. I don't mind legitimate parking restrictions (eg retail park car parks not just being used as free all day parking for people working nearby - perfectly reasonable to state that the car park should be for genuine shoppers if its private land), but it has to be 100% clear that a driver entering the car park knows that there are restrictions and what they are.

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Beerfuelledman
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Re: PCNs

Post by Beerfuelledman »

unc.si. wrote:There is reams of info on the net about this and if you google the company concerned there will I'm sure be lots of info on exactly how you should proceed.
My concern on this is that much of what is on the net is a compilation of peoples thoughts on the matter, rather than definitive legal guidance and how the laws of the specific Country (Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, Wales etc) affect the matter, if at all.

Lidl seem to have a fair amount of these Camera activated systems. My Dad got stung having nipped in once, left and returned later in the day. He was fined for having parked there the entire time.

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unc.si.
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Re: PCNs

Post by unc.si. »

You're right that you have to treat internet chat with skepticism, but in this case you can actually go to trade associations to see the guidance for the parking companies (BPA), what signs are needed, what form NTK's need to be etc, and also actually see transcripts of court cases (eg Ibbottson in this case) and look at things like the Protection of Freedoms Act guidance etc to see the rules for yourself. Money Saving Expert provides lots of links to official sites and is a pretty good place to start.

If the signs are clear and you breached the contract clauses then its enforceable (whether they actually take you to court is another matter), and you should pay before it gets that far, but if the signs aren't clear then its unlikely that you would have been deemed to have formed a contractual relationship. Their lawyers will know that and not go to court in that case (you need photographic evidence, although in theory the onus is on them to prove that adequate signage existed on that day). They get enough people who are scared or lazy enough to pay up to not make it worth their while taking their chances with the courts when they know that they've got almost no chance of winning.

The crux in my wife's case (the 'leaving the site' fine) was that the entrance sign saying that it was a private parking area was only visible from one direction (it was also too small and not within the specified angle of view when driving in either) - if coming from the other direction there was no visible sign. The signs on site were also high up (about 8 feet high, ie well above eye level) and not easily visible. They've added another (bigger) sign to the entrance now so they've probably just about covered themselves, although IMO the lettering isn't big enough anyway.

One thing that is clear is that if there's a sign you should read it to check all the clauses to stop the problem arising in the first place. Saves a lot of hassle later on.

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