Has anyone refused to pay a parking fine?

ktaylor

Paid for but forgot to display a 50p parking ticket last week (remained stuffed in my pocket). Got fined £100 by Premier Parking Solutions. They refused my appeal (with evidence of purchased ticket) with standard, catch-all letter. What happens if I refuse their future requests for payment?

Wallace1492

I got fined for not displaying a Tax Disc. No dispute I had one, but the offence was not displaying it. In my case was an actual offence.

Yours is not a criminal offence, but civil, i assume.

You could probably brass it out and get away with it, if they take you to small claims court, providing evidence that you bought a ticket should suffice.

Failing that a "D" lock might come in handy...

amnezia

ktaylor wrote:

Paid for but forgot to display a 50p parking ticket last week (remained stuffed in my pocket). Got fined £100 by Premier Parking Solutions. They refused my appeal (with evidence of purchased ticket) with standard, catch-all letter. What happens if I refuse their future requests for payment?

CCJ i guess

cee

Firstly I am not a lawyer...

If you do not pay, no doubt they will eventually take you to court so you will have an opportunity to make your case.

Depends on you appetite for that!

Doesn't seem fair that they refused your appeal considering that you did pay for the parking...but i guess to the letter of the description of 'Pay and Display'...you didn't do the 2nd part.

Phone your local council to see if they can offer any support? MP?

A colleague once managed to have a parking ticket overturned parked outside the Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh.....he took his daughter in and was about 10 minutes late checking the meter....The council just tore the ticket up....but I guess the fact that its not the local authority, but a 3rd party parking company you are dealing with will make it unpleasant.

Good Luck.

c

asprilla

If the ticket wasn't issued by the council then it's a civil matter and not criminal one. The ticket should not say Penalty or Fine or anything like that and is not allowed to look like a parking ticket. It's a charge for parking and it's based upon the implied acceptance of a contract.

It will not go to court because the implied acceptance of the contract won't stand up. These companies expect people to be ignorant of the law and just pay up or cave under a series of threatening letters, but TBH they haven't got a leg to stand on.

This topic comes up regularly on a number of car forums that I use and the advice is always the same; if it's not a council ticket then just ignore it.

Edit: or you could just igmore me because I'm not a lawyer either.

flicksta

Noooooooooo!

Private land, very hard for them to enforce anything.

http://www.appealnow.com/

kelsen

CCJ probably, and the odds will be against you as the parking company will have it stated somewhere that tickets must be displayed clearly even if you have paid for it. Otherwise anyone can find an old ticket and present the same argument as you.

EDIT: I'm not a lawyer either so everything I say could also be bollox

davmaggs

Did you confess that you hadn't displayed the ticket in your appeal?

If didn't confess then write in and insist that you have a ticket (include photocopy) and that you want evidence that it wasn't displayed correctly. The idea being that if they photograph the car (councils often do) then you will find out before you press the matter, and if they don't have a photo then you are the only one with the proof and should happily insist on going to court.

As others say above they tend to try and make things sound official in an effort to get people to pay.

londonbairn

kelsen wrote:

CCJ probably, and the odds will be against you as the parking company will have it stated somewhere that tickets must be displayed clearly even if you have paid for it. Otherwise anyone can find an old ticket and present the same argument as you.

EDIT: I'm not a lawyer either so everything I say could also be bollox

See Asprilla's post, though if an appeal was made, this may be seen as admission of entering a contract with the parking firm depending on how the letter was worded.

ktaylor

Thanks for the thoughts so far. Lack of actual legal knowledge is no obstacle! I will be asking my mates down the curry house tonight so Bikeradar is no less a spurious source of info. I stated the following in my "appeal" (though I haven't used that word):
Dear Primier Parking Solutions, I have just received (22.06.10) a parking fine for £100 for parking at XXXX. However I paid for parking (50p between 13:49 and 14:49hrs) and had a valid ticket for the period concerned. It seems the attendant did not see my display of the ticket in the car. I have attached the fine and valid ticket as a picture attachment. I phoned you soon after returning to my car and a lady said an email would be a suitable response. Regards, ktaylor.

AndyManc

Serves you right for not cycling.

If I was the court, I would punish you with a hundred lashes of an oily chain.

( Looks around checking this is the cycle commute forum :roll: )


BTW I f******* hate cars.

Looks like you lied in your response to the parking company.


.

ktaylor

You might be right about lie. The thing is I was going for "vague" rather than "deceptive". It is no wonder I never became a lawyer. I always either say too much or too little!

Specialized Needs

AndyManc wrote:

Looks like you lied in your response to the parking company.

I think that could be disputed. ktaylor doesn't say it was displayed (although I accept that this is the most likely implication to draw from the wording).

Specialized Needs

It might have been safer to say something like 'didn't see the ticket displayed on the windscreen'. That clearly doesn't say it was displayed. 'my display of the ticket ... ' is a bit deceptive. Well, in my opinion, for what little that counts.

Splottboy

We got done in Sienna, Italy.

Cop made us got to cashpoint. Glance at his side-arm persueded us!
Paid the 90 Euros, then got totally lost in the back alleys.

Few months after getting back, get legal letter , in Italian, asking for more cash!!!
Wrote and told em we paid, they tried to say it was for entering illegal driving areas.
( I blame the Mrs, she was flippin driving...)
Had bout 3 letters since. Ignoring em now.

Anyway, prob now on the Interpol list of "Most Wanted Criminals" on the Continent, LOL!!!

RedGT

When you park somewhere which requires you to pay a fee then you enter a contract with the
people who enforce the parking, so failure to display will be interpreted as breach of contract thus the fine.

But don't quote me on that.

spen666

RedGT wrote:

When you park somewhere which requires you to pay a fee then you enter a contract with the
people who enforce the parking, so failure to display will be interpreted as breach of contract thus the fine.

But don't quote me on that.

Ah but what are the terms of that contract?

Unless you know of the terms at the time of making the contract, then it cannot be a term of the contract

always_tyred

spen666 wrote:

RedGT wrote:

When you park somewhere which requires you to pay a fee then you enter a contract with the
people who enforce the parking, so failure to display will be interpreted as breach of contract thus the fine.

But don't quote me on that.

Ah but what are the terms of that contract?

Unless you know of the terms at the time of making the contract, then it cannot be a term of the contract

Another point in relation to these things is that the "fine" (which it isn't) must be proportional to the loss suffered by virtue of the breach of contract.

In this case, in fact you did pay, therefore the loss was zero (arguably). They might argue administrative costs resulting from your failure to demonstrate that you'd paid, but they would (I think) have to demonstrate that displaying the ticket was a term of the contract (implied or otherwise). Also any punitive charges are, I believe, unenforcable as they don't relate to any actual loss suffered.

I ran this argument once in relation to a free for two hour parking fine on private land. I acknowledged the duration I'd been there and multiplied the initial cost of the parking by the extra time, which came to zero.

They stopped bothering me.

There are a plethora of websites dedicated to getting off this kind of parking ticket. The chances are that the operators of the parking area have broken several minor laws (e.g. getting your information from the DVLA on this basis, immitating a statutory parking fine, etc) and had no in any case made out a case for breach of contract in one or more of several ways.

lost_in_thought

Refused to pay a LOT of parking fines, all from a company called NCP.

They passed the debt on to debt collectors, to whom I re-provided the same evidence, and all the debt was written off.

From memory, it was about £650 of fines.

Kieran_Burns

DO. NOT. PAY. THE. BILL.


It isn't a fine, stop referring to it as a fine, it is not a fine.


Get the hint?

Seriously Asprilla has it right and after reading numerous threads about this on the above mentioned car forums, you do NOT need to pay the invoice.

Wrath Rob

Always Tyred is right. Providing this is not a Council parking ticket they can only sue you for the loss incurred. In this case it was nominally 50p but since you have the ticket its zero. And that's assuming they can prove that you entered into a contract with them, implied or otherwise. How can they prove that it was YOU who parked the car, and not another person who has access to it? They can't. They're just trying it on in the hope that you cough up the £100

AndyManc

Specialized Needs wrote:

AndyManc wrote:

Looks like you lied in your response to the parking company.

I think that could be disputed. ktaylor doesn't say it was displayed (although I accept that this is the most likely implication to draw from the wording).

I would have told the truth, told them I had forgotten to display the ticket but that I had proof of actual payment and would they be willing to dismiss (or at least reduce) the fine.

Parking companies often take photo's to prove their case.

They also often dismiss all appeals, people try it on, they will try and bulls*it their way out of anything, private companies enforce their own parking policies and often rightly so.

Having said that, the industry is rife with criminals making money from innocent motorists and successive governments have failed to address the issues.

.

AndyManc

Tickets issued by private companies

Private companies can issue tickets to drivers parked on their property, but the rules are not the same as local authorities.

If you receive a ticket in a private car park, such as a supermarket car park, or private multi-story car park, remember that it is not criminal law, but contract law that applies. The driver enters into a contract with the landowner when they driver into the car park.

This means that it is only the driver that can be subject to a ticket from a private company. If they do not know who the driver was, they cannot claim a penalty. They have no legal right to demand that you identify the driver.

If you are approached by a member of staff inside a private car park there is no obligation for you to assist them in any way

If the company wish to pursue a claim in the small claims court, they have to prove that you were the driver of the car. Any comments that you make may assist them in this aim, so best to say nothing.

If you refuse to pay, the private company has to pursue you through the small claims court. It is up to them to prove a breach of contract so look at the terms carefully. These are usually printed on a sign at the entrance to the car park.

Additionally, you may be able to reduce any fine issued by a private company. Under contract law, they can only claim for any loss they have suffered because of your offence. They may try to claim a penalty of, say, £100, but in law they may only be entitled to any revenue they had lost. So, if you pay £2 to park for one hour, but stay for three hours, they can only claim for two hours of lost revenue, which is £4.

Kieran_Burns

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?s=d ... owforum=30


for lots of good information.

tony620

write another letter then another then another they give up in the end i have got off of 20 odd parking fines.

Ive also got off for cutting a clamp off

ktaylor

I should of guessed there be a hundred different approaches to this question. I think if it is a matter of repeatedly writing to them carefully thought out letters then paying the charge seems a lesser evil! However if simple ignoring their angry letters is the best approach then I might give that a go....

The Rookie

Backing Kieran and Asprilla.

try www.pepipoo.com, parking forum and look at threads labelled PPC (private Parking Control) stock advice is to ignore, they always reject appeals, and they have no legal power to issue a 'fine' or Penalty (Penalty's are not allowed in contract law anyway).

Most the paperwork will be fradulant and illegal and they won't want to go anywhere near court.

In your case you paid for the space, so their loss is nothing, so you owe them nothing.

They will threaten court, they will threaten CCJ's (you can only get a CCJ if they take you to court AND you loose AND you still don't pay), and they will bluff and bluster through 7-8 letters including those from a debt collection agency (usually the guy at the next desk in the same office).

If you are minded to pay, let me know your address so I can send you more spurious invoices to pay!

Simon

ktaylor

Thanks for the pepipoo link. I enjoyed the Watchdog take on it....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAIcdi9niHA

Ben6899

Ignore all correspondence. They'll get bored before you do.

CiB

Splottboy wrote:

We got done in Sienna, Italy.

Cop made us got to cashpoint. Glance at his side-arm persueded us!
Paid the 90 Euros, then got totally lost in the back alleys.

Few months after getting back, get legal letter , in Italian, asking for more cash!!!
Wrote and told em we paid, they tried to say it was for entering illegal driving areas.
( I blame the Mrs, she was flippin driving...)
Had bout 3 letters since. Ignoring em now.

Anyway, prob now on the Interpol list of "Most Wanted Criminals" on the Continent, LOL!!!

From the Honest John column (Motoring fellow in The Telegraph).

After my recent email about an alleged Italian traffic violation, I thought you might be interested to read this from the Italian Consulate.

"According to Italian law, a fine to a person resident abroad must be notified within one year of the traffic violation. It must be notified in that person's language and must contain details of how to pay (for instance, the international coordinates of a bank account).

Since the fine you have received does not satisfy the last two conditions (it is in Italian and asks you to pay the fine with a postal order, which may only be used at an Italian post office), I am pleased to inform you that do not have to pay anything."

This sort of thing is v common in & around Florence for some reason. Anyone watch Goodfellas last night on ITV4?

asprilla

CiB wrote:

Splottboy wrote:

We got done in Sienna, Italy.

Cop made us got to cashpoint. Glance at his side-arm persueded us!
Paid the 90 Euros, then got totally lost in the back alleys.

Few months after getting back, get legal letter , in Italian, asking for more cash!!!
Wrote and told em we paid, they tried to say it was for entering illegal driving areas.
( I blame the Mrs, she was flippin driving...)
Had bout 3 letters since. Ignoring em now.

Anyway, prob now on the Interpol list of "Most Wanted Criminals" on the Continent, LOL!!!

From the Honest John column (Motoring fellow in The Telegraph).

After my recent email about an alleged Italian traffic violation, I thought you might be interested to read this from the Italian Consulate.

"According to Italian law, a fine to a person resident abroad must be notified within one year of the traffic violation. It must be notified in that person's language and must contain details of how to pay (for instance, the international coordinates of a bank account).

Since the fine you have received does not satisfy the last two conditions (it is in Italian and asks you to pay the fine with a postal order, which may only be used at an Italian post office), I am pleased to inform you that do not have to pay anything."

This sort of thing is v common in & around Florence for some reason. Anyone watch Goodfellas last night on ITV4?

I got fined on Florence for driving in a no car zone. Well, the rental company got fined and they then charged me, something which is stated in their Ts&Cs. It was probably right though, I did drive around the Duomo whilst looking for a car park.