Parking fines

[Black and White Tragic]

Heard this on the radio this morning and immediately thought of all the great advice dished out on this thread. She ignored the first rule of Parking fight club.

[sugna]

This might dispel a few of the myths.

[MacDuffman]

The ones that I've got at my work threaten to take me to a County Court. We don't have County Courts in Scotland, do we? Can they take you to a Court in England?

[Shandon Par]

25 minutes ago, MacDuffman said:

The ones that I've got at my work threaten to take me to a County Court. We don't have County Courts in Scotland, do we? Can they take you to a Court in England?

I think they can confiscate your Abba records.

[The Master]

19 minutes ago, MacDuffman said:

The ones that I've got at my work threaten to take me to a County Court. We don't have County Courts in Scotland, do we? Can they take you to a Court in England?

No. It's where the "offence" (a term I use loosely) occurred.

Be careful of work ones. My work says they reserve the right to deduct unpaid "parking charge notices" from my salary. 

Not that I'm saying they or any other employer can lawfully do that, watch out for it happening nonetheless.

[Cille Mhernaig]

The reason they are 'unenforceable' for want of a better phrase in Scotland is due to the contract being between the driver and Private Parking Company. Whilst the company can use the DVLA to identify the registered keeper, there is no requirement on the registered keeper to identify the driver, the onus is with the PPC to identify the driver who the contract is with.

In England & Wales the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 Schedule 4 Paragraph 4 introduces keeper liability, which is where the driver has not been identified they can claim the unpaid parking charges from the registered keeper.

PoFa is not applicable in Scotland so that is where the 'unenforceable' opinion comes in as if they cannot identify the driver then they are onto plums as they cannot force the registered keeper to identify the driver or pursue the registered keeper for costs.

The moment you confirm the name of the driver to the PPC in Scotland, you are liable for the ticket and the law is on the side of the PPC where they can eventually take you to court.  

When these stories make the news there are always 2 things - 1) they have confirmed the identity of the driver and 2) they always seem to have racked up thousands in charges making it worth their while to go to court. Although it was interesting the one last year they knew the identity of the driver, and he owed about £5K yet they settled out of court for £2k.

The unwritten rule about the ignore advice is don't be a tool and continue to park there, 1 parking charge for £100 where they don't know the driver, just the registered keeper in Scotland is a bigger baw ache for them to take to court, with the odds stacked against them.

Numerous parking charges where you rack up 4 figures worth makes it worth their while pursuing in the hope you fold and pay before it gets to court. Again if it is just the registered keeper they know then not good odds of the court finding in their favour. Even though they would probably claim that any registered keeper receiving numerous charges and threats of court action they are not responsible for are the driver responsible if they don't identify the driver at the time. The reason that this is still not good odds in court is it is an assumption, there is no proof the RK is the driver. 

As long as the driver is not identified then it is fine to keep ignoring for now. The day the front page headline is 'Parking Company successfully take registered keeper to court and win over £100 charge.' is the day that the games a bogey for ignoring them.

[Dee Man]

21 hours ago, Cardinal Richelieu said:

I'd deliberately park "illegally" and grass myself in for an easy tenner. However, I think I'm right in saying that you only get the money once the mug has paid their "fine". 

You could follow Philpy about for a week and retire off your earnings.

[philpy]

You could follow Philpy about for a week and retire off your earnings.

Haw cunto, I parked badly once, doesnt mean I do it all the time, k??

[Newbornbairn]

20 minutes ago, Dee Man said:

You could follow Philpy about for a week and retire off your earnings.

As he parks badly across two spaces you could claim two fines each time. Double the money.

[Cardinal Richelieu]

10 minutes ago, NewBornBairn said:

As he parks badly across two spaces you could claim two fines each time. Double the money.

[dundeefc1783]

See they are obviously now reacting to this case where the women got the massive fine.

They have sent me out two parking charge notices from August 2014 on a car I no longer own.

The letters were ignored at the time and will be ignored again. Good luck proving who was driving that car almost three years ago.

[die hard doonhamer]

See they are obviously now reacting to this case where the women got the massive fine.

They have sent me out two parking charge notices from August 2014 on a car I no longer own.

The letters were ignored at the time and will be ignored again. Good luck proving who was driving that car almost three years ago.

I received a proper solicitors letter from them grouping a few together and asking me for £1000. Like you, I'd like to see them prove I was driving.

[BigTamMuller]

Got something in from Debt Recovery Plus today looking for £130 from a Hamilton Asda Parking Eye charge back in November, incidentally only ever got the one letter from Parking Eye on that one so pretty much assumed they'd given up. Must be a new thing but they've now fired on the bottom of the letter some of the example cases, one being that woman in Dundee that owed £25k and telling me these have served as a test case for parking companies. 

Will just be getting ignored like the first parking charge nonetheless. The courts will become massively overcrowded the day these parking companies begin taking everyone to court over their one-off parking charge anyway.

[sparkys dream]

I received a similar letter today as well from DRP has swiftly been binned

[Gaz FFC]

I feel so left out. Need to start parking badly I reckon.

[welshbairn]

11 minutes ago, Gaz FFC said:

I feel so left out. Need to start parking badly I reckon.

Good point. Chucking the letter in the bin is the right way to treat an occasional mistake, not a parking technique.

[Tamdunk]

I got a notice saying I owe money back to a company and when I called them it turned out to be a bus lane charge from Glasgow city council. They sent the penalty charge notice to my old address as I had only updated my address on my driving licence and not my V5. Is there any chance I could get the original penalty notice issued to my new address and pay the original charge? Or am I stuck with the additional costs?

[welshbairn]

1 minute ago, Tamdunk said:

I got a notice saying I owe money back to a company and when I called them it turned out to be a bus lane charge from Glasgow city council. They sent the penalty charge notice to my old address as I had only updated my address on my driving licence and not my V5. Is there any chance I could get the original penalty notice issued to my new address and pay the original charge? Or am I stuck with the additional costs?

I had a similar thing with a speeding charge reaching me after the 2 month limit for the same reason. Didn't help me in that situation but it would be worth phoning the Council to explain what happened.

[die hard doonhamer]

Has anybody had a ticket from the SMART car park off Kinnoull Street in Perth before?
I have a friend who got a ticket from them.  He'd parked, didn't really know how it worked because the instructions weren't very clear, entered his reg into the machine when he returned to his car, put a sum of money into the machine that should have covered it, didn't get a printed ticket and thought "stuff this, the machine must be broken" and drove off. 
A week later a demand for £60 dropped through his letter box along with photos of the car entering and leaving the car park.  His main worry is that if they have photos of the car, then they may also have photos of him leaving/entering the car/car-park and will therefore be able to prove that he was the driver.
Under those circumstances, would it be wise for him to rubber the letter?  And does anybody have personal experience of rubbering letters from that particular car-park?

Ignore it.

[welshbairn]

1 minute ago, Emil Borkhausen said:

Has anybody had a ticket from the SMART car park off Kinnoull Street in Perth before?

I have a friend who got a ticket from them.  He'd parked, didn't really know how it worked because the instructions weren't very clear, entered his reg into the machine when he returned to his car, put a sum of money into the machine that should have covered it, didn't get a printed ticket and thought "stuff this, the machine must be broken" and drove off. 

A week later a demand for £60 dropped through his letter box along with photos of the car entering and leaving the car park.  His main worry is that if they have photos of the car, then they may also have photos of him leaving/entering the car/car-park and will therefore be able to prove that he was the driver.

Under those circumstances, would it be wise for him to rubber the letter?  And does anybody have personal experience of rubbering letters from that particular car-park?

There's one in Inverness and they're absolute c***s. There's no point in explaining what happened, they'll just say there was nothing wrong with machine and demand payment. Bin the letter.