I parked in a no through road which leads to the entrance to a supermarket car park and a derelict building site, which after many years of standing empty is finally being redeveloped.

The road is accessed from a main road, where there are normal road markings and no signs stating that you are entering a private road and there is No Parking or any charge if you do park in it. Shoppers often park in this road for a short time whilst they go the supermarket, even when there are spaces available on the store car park.

One day I parked in the road because the supermarket car park was full.

I parked for less than 10 minutes behind a car that was already there and didn’t think anymore of this until

I received a PCN in the post from a private parking management company.

I was shocked that this stated I had parked in an un-adopted road which was no parking allowed and had a £100 parking charge. The council confirmed the road is un-adopted whilst the site is being developed.

The company had taken photos of the car I was driving, which was parked alongside a derelict building in the road. The signs stated Attention Private Land – The site is managed & operated for No Parking at anytime and that there is a parking charge of £100.

These signs are not in the line of sight of a car driver and when you leave the car to go to the entrance of the supermarket they are behind you and there are no signs in your line of travel.

You might see the signs on your way back to your car, but that is obviously too late. The signs are on the perimeter of the building site, which the derelict building is part of, and they refer to “Land” and “Site”, so you would assume they refer to the building site being developed, and not the road.

If the road is included then there should be a sign at the entrance stating this is a Private Road and the terms and conditions that apply, as was in the Supreme Court case Parking Eye Vs Beavis.

To make matters worse the signs on the derelict building are not illuminated and are less visible at dusk when I parked and when it is completely dark they cannot be seen at all!

I disputed the charge with the management company because there were no signs at the entrance of the road and the ones on the building alongside which I parked had not been visible and referred to the building land/site. This was rejected because the IPS had approved the signs and location of them.

I tried to appeal to the Site Owner/Director of the company who are developing the site, but he ignored my letters. His company finally did respond after my Father wrote to them.

They confirmed that they had appointed a parking management company to control misuse of their land. I and other shoppers, unaware of that this is a private road with no parking, are hardly misusing the land by parking here for a few minutes!

Even Police have been seen parking here and I am aware that at least one unmarked Police car was issued with a PCN.

The management company have had many requests from the Supermarket store management and people like me to improve the signage and/or paint double yellow lines, to remove any ambiguity, but they have repeatedly refused.

One store manager even complained that an employee of the Management company was parking by the derelict building, adding further to the misleading situation. In fact

I am sure it was one of their employees whom was parked in front of me when I was issued with my PCN. It certainly was the same type and colour of car that I have seen driving around checking for parked cars.

My Father did a study and saw 13 cars park there in one hour one lunch time, including an armed Police woman!

I foolishly tried the IAS appeal process, knowing that I only had a 20% chance of being successful, because it is well known that this is not independent at all.

True to form my appeal was rejected, even though I had pointed out and given proof that the evidence given by the management company was incomplete and the site plans and photos showing the signs were over two years old and not what were in place when my alleged parking offence took place.

The Arbitrator dismissed these facts and still rejected my appeal and asked me to pay the charge within 14 days.

I informed the Parking Management Company that I did not accept the decision of the IAS and the reasons why.

I stated that I would not be paying the charge and requested that they followed the correct legal process and take me to court and not waste time and money passing this onto a debt recovery company.

My letters, including to the MD were ignored and the charge was increased to £160, to cover admin charges.

I heard nothing for four months then out of the blue I received a letter from a Debt Recovery company asking for the £160 to be paid.

I have denied the debt, and asked them to ask their client to take me to court, so that this can be decided fairly. Their response states if the account remains unpaid it will progress to the legal stage and be passed to the solicitors.

I would welcome further advice to what I have already received. This situation has been very upsetting and stressful for my family and I, especially when I am an honest, law abiding citizen, who has not committed any parking offences before. In the meantime, roll on the passing of the Private Parking Bill!

Well the bill wont stop them

Seems like youve missed the all important thing and spent ages missing it in all your letters and your war and peace post here.

There is a minimum 10 mins grace period on all speculative invoice s

Ignore them until/unless you get a letter of claim or a court claimform

Please complete this:

https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?462118-Have-you-received-a-Parking-Ticket-(1-Viewing)-nbsp

If you stop letting it stress you out, stop acting on impulse and engaging with them, do what DX has asked above...and then post on here before doing anything further in the future - they'll have a tough job getting a penny out of you. Be prepared to have to put a bit of work into this though, as the vultures will not disappear just because you get angry at them or are hard done by. They don't care.

The signage is prohibitive for a start, so they can't ever rightfully claim that it forms a contract - but there is probably a multitude of other discrepancies that will be their undoing. Better qualified forum members that me will point all this out. You're in very good hands, so relax and enjoy the ride.

I have told the debt recovery company I will no longer be engaging with them and if they or their Solicitor's try to engage with me any more I will report them for harrassment.

I will now only engage with my local County Court.

My Father and I have have already spent many hours on this case and so far no return!

Thanks for your response.

you will get nowhere by bothering to report them. It's just a game, but you have a better hand - if you know how to play it correctly.

You've done the right thing by coming here. It will help you to focus on the important points, and not get caught up in all the morals and mitigating factors. They don't matter in this process.

Obviously you have not seen any of my letters, but I have spent a lot of time researching this and speaking to CAB, Trading Standards and a Solicitor and I have never heard of a 10 minute grace on speculative invoices.

Is a PCN an invoice?

If it is and I have missed it, so have many others and most people parking in this road do so for only the grace period.

I am going to ignore them now and only react if they follow the proper legal process

Get a grip and complete the form DX linked to in post #2

There are more ways than one to scupper these chancers, letter tennis is not advised, let them bluff and bluster, if they issue a Claimform, there will be plenty to blow their case out of the water.

Obviously you have not seen any of my letters, but I have spent a lot of time...…………

and you've wasted all of it...……

the min 10mins grace is in their rulebook they have to abide by...

just use the search cag box of the top red toolbar

10 mins grace.

dx

Obviously you have not seen any of my letters, but I have spent a lot of time researching this and speaking to CAB, Trading Standards and a Solicitor and I have never heard of a 10 minute grace on speculative invoices. Is a PCN an invoice? If it is and I have missed it, so have many others and most people parking in this road do so for only the grace period.

 

I am going to ignore them now and only react if they follow the proper legal process

You'll have to trust me when I say that writing to them, speaking to CAB, Trading Standards....and unless the solicitor is clued up on private parking enforcement - you'll largely be wasting your time. These companies don't care about the rules - even if it's their own rule(s). Any excuse to slap a ticket on you and they'll do it - how else can they generate a profit?

Your situation sounds like a right mess in respect of how the parking company have handled it, so the sooner you complete the link the sooner you can benefit from having the issues narrowed down and some proper focus given to your situation.

Usually when you start writing letters of appeal/complaint to these firms, that's when they know they have you on a hook and will be very unlikely to back down.

quality of advice is what you needed, not quantity of time spent on the wrong thing. Unfortunately all of the groups you have spoken to have no knowledge of the detailed aspects of the law that make the claim a nonsense and your attempts to communicate with the parking co and their poodles have just shown up your lack of knowledge in the subject so they will take you for a fool and rely on the old adage that a fool and his money are soon parted.

Now with the circumstances outlined above they are on to a loser for at least 2 reasons, firstly they have fialed ot apply the minimum grace period ( and I bet their ticket/NTK doesnt have an observation period either) and secondly, a sign saying no parking isnt an offer of a cntract, it is a prohibition and that menas there can be no meeting of minds and agreement of terms. Being members of the IPC thye rely on the expertise of Gladstomes solicitors to write their signs but as Will and John (who own the IPC as well) have a long track record of shoddy work in this respect the parking co think they are right and will use any method to bully you into paying.

So, to help you we need to see the entrance to the land from the public highway, the signage there, the signage elsewhere on the land you were parked and the original notice you were sent so we can see if tney ahve got anything right. Your long bout of letter tennis will ahev damaged your position in some regards but based on the 2 main points they dont have a claim.

show us what you can and tell us who the parking co are as some are more litigious than others but any member of the IPC tends to believ the bul they are told by Gladdys so we expect them to start an action but the drop it later when it is obvious you arent going to cave in.

I know my handling of this situation was with hindsight not the best.

When my Mum received the PCN, as it was her car, she didn't have to rush and give them my details so easily.

Then I should have just denied the charge and ask them to take me to court straight away.

I know someone who did this and the last time I spoke to him, 5 months after the alleged offence, he had heard no more.

Mind you I had the silence treatment for 4 months.

Interesting and disappointing to hear you say the new Parking Bill will not make a difference to situations like this.

I will look at the link later when I am on my PC.

Thanks for all your advice so far.

the law is not retrospective so even if the govt decided that hanging was to be introduced for using bad english on parking notices nothing could happen to them as they predate the new law.

So the facts are the fcats, 2 reasons as to why their demand is duff so dont get side tracked and get the piccies we ned to provide the proof they are complete twonks

I clicked on the link and did not see a form to fill in, just a closed thread with some questions for 2 types of tickets issues (on windscreen & through the post).

I purposely did not name the companies involved because I did not want to harm my case if this goes to court.

stop playing secret squirrel

Yes I see that. When I signed up for this group I was advised by the site owners not to use my real name. If I upload the details and documents as stated I might as well have used my real name!

The NTK was received within 14 days, so cannot get them on that.

The NTK mentioned the schedule 4 of The Protections of Freedoms Act 2012, so I cannot get them on that either.

Yes I appealed to the Management company and then to the IAS and both were rejected.

I can supply all documents, but not on a public forum as this will identify who I am. Sorry, but I do not want to do that, eve if that makes me a secret squirrel.

I guess I will just have to play their games on my own!

Here is the entrance of the un-adopted road from the highway

pic1.pdf

can we have all your uploads in ONE multipage PDF file please read UPLOAD

its the QUESTIONS we need answering in that link in post 2

not as yet needing the pictures

fill out the questionnaire after copying the revelevent section [windscreen/ANPR] back here

Someone asked for a photo of the entrance from the highway.

and we need the questions too

cant see what uploading a photo has to do with redacting anything else.

so far so good but we need to be able to read the signage that is there as well.

Please read a load more threads so you get a better idea of what we are after and in what format.

Here is the entrance of the un-adopted road from the highway

Pictures for Ericsbrother.

The Parking sign & signs on wall of derelict building which drivers park alongside. Bear with me on other stuff.

As previously stated there isn't one of these or any other sign at the entrance to this road stating it is a Private Road or the Terms and Conditions.

There used to be one on the end of this building facing drivers as they entered the road, but this was too far back (you can see it on the entrance of the road photo) and the font size is too small to read.

However this has now been removed when new fencing was put up, so the parking company have made matters even worse!!!!!

pix1 .pdf

Are you going to answer the questions in dx's link please? You aren't going to get complete advice until you do.

HB

I did answer most of them. Just need to sort out the documents to not have any personal details in one PDF

To recap

1 Date of the infringement January this year

2 Date on the NTK [this must have been received within 14 days from the 'offence' date] It was received after 3 days of the alleged offence

3 Date received Received 5 days after the alleged offence

4 Does the NTK mention schedule 4 of The Protections of Freedoms Act 2012? [y/n?] Yes it does

5 Is there any photographic evidence of the event? Yes 3 photographs taken by a parking attendant, not automatic cameras

6 Have you appealed? {y/n?] post up your appeal] Yes to the Management Company and following the corrupt/biased IAS process.

Have you had a response? [Y/N?] post it up .Yes, both were rejected.

Documents to follow.

7 Who is the parking company? NPM

8. Where exactly [carpark name and town] Un-adopted Road (not the car park at the rear), entrance to St Edmunds Hospital (being developed into a dementia centre/home), Northampton.

For either option, does it say which appeals body they operate under. IPS/IAS

If you have received any other correspondence, please mention it here: Site owner/developer, Debt Recover company.

also get pictures of where the sign was and isnt now as this will help you in the long run by time stamping their evidence (and yours).

The sign is prohibitive in nature so not an offer of terms for parking so the amount thye are claiming is an unlawful penalty. Basically you arent offered terms for parking so not a genuine offer bur at best a sign that is designed to dissuade you from parking. The only way you can agree to be bound by its conditions is to break them!

Plenty of law on this so in the long run you are safe. Problem is they know this but will still try and get you to pay up by coercion threats or by using a court claim in the hope you then collapse and pay up when theyr is nio lawful reason for them to demand a penny. Their solicitors are well aware fo thsi but as the same 2 people own the IPC you can see how some people think that the IAS is just a kangaroo court and the solicitors are abusing the court process by encouraging the IPC members to make false claims.

Just added a photo of the new red fencing that covers up the end of the building where there used be a sign. There is a new sign, but this is not facing drivers as they enter the un-adopted road.

4 .pdf