Here's the chain of events, any advice appreciated!

Thursday 23rd November 2017

- "An authorised driver" parked my wife's car in a restaurant car park in York,

went in to the restaurant to ask if a payment could be made to park until Sunday 26th (Minster Baywatch didn't offer anything above a "3 hours + until 6am" option).

£15 paid and a hand written receipt was issued,

showing the registration number of the car,

and confirming authorisation to park from 23rd to 26th.

No other writing on the receipt that stated the receipt needed to be kept on display in the car.

Friday 24th November - Parking Charge Notice issued by Minster Baywatch, reason stated that no valid parking ticket was being displayed.

Sunday 26th November - Car removed from car park within the agreed time.

Saturday 30th December - NTK received.

We have made no contact so far with Minster Baywatch.

The NTK shows photographs of the car confirming no ticket being displayed on the dashboard.

My main question is,

because the driver went directly to the restaurant and made an agreement with them,

with nothing confirming that their receipt needed to be kept on display,

does this in any way override any presumed contract with the parking operator?

Any advice appreciated.

I have redacted scans of the NTK and receipt from the restaurant,

so far keep getting an error when I try to upload them ,

will continue to try and get them uploaded.

Thanks!

Scans attached....

Doc1.pdf

who owns the land your car was parked on

I don't know, presume a paid land registry search is what I'll need to do to find out?

an individually negotiaited contract trumps their unilateral one as advertised by the signage.

However,

does the person who took the money have the authority to offer such a contract?

Well, it doesnt matter as you believed that they did and if the person who took the money worked for one of the occupiers of the land there that is good enough.

Minster dont own the land and cant tell the poeple who do what to do and who to talk to.

For the moment do nothing but keep your paperwork safe.

If you look too keen to sort this mess out they will believe you are likely to pay up to make it go away and that can lead to other problems.

You can in the meanwhile ask the restaurant to TELL minster to cancel their ticket and make the restaurant aware that you are going to fight this if it isnt solved quickly by them and you may be asking for your £15 back

Thanks, I shall sit back for a while, and if I find myself in York in the near future, will pay the restaurant a visit!

I've today received a letter from "Debt Recovery Plus" in relation to this issue, giving me until 5th March to pay up.

Is it now time to do anything on this? I've not been back in York since the incident so have not been able to go and see the restaurant.

Daft Recovery plus can safely be completely ignored. You can do to that letter what they used to do with newspapers during the war, it's worth exactly the same

Just another desperate attempt to get you to part with money you don't owe for breaching a contract that didn't exist.

You can expect another 2 or 3 letters from these clowns, before some other bunch of muppets (or the same muppets on different paper) start writing to you

Thank you, suits me

They will escalate their charges up to £160 or so with all kinds of other threats.

Then they will arrive as saviours and offer you a reduced sum to settle.

Then you know they have no case.

Who would reduce the sum if they were 100% correct in their demands- thus leaving them without a leg to stand on.

Even flamingos are not that stupid.

Yes they often stand on one leg but they never lift up the other one at the same time.

trad any thread in any forum about dca's and they all say the same thing, they are rentathreats and have no authority or interest in any matter ever.

Ignore them

As predicted by you good people above, following a couple more letters, I've now been given the generous opportunity, for a limited time only, to settle at a reduced rate!

I enjoyed one of the sentences in the letter - "When taking any court action, our client must demonstrate that they have done as much as possible to settle this matter.". Yes, they've done lots apart from just ask the restaurant "did they have an agreement with you to park here?". That would have nipped it in the bud at considerably less expense to them!

I'm now had my first letter from Zenith Collections, very generously offering me a reduced payment of £80.

I see that Zenith are the same company as Debt Recovery Plus.

I assume I'm OK to continue to not contact them in any way....

read your thread its already here