You need to tell the Management Company that the parking company - their agents - have trespassed on your space and property. There is nothing in your lease regarding a permit, so they cannot operate a parking scheme on your space without varying the lease terms or you agreeing to the scheme in writing. Neither of these have happened. Therefore the lease trumps any signs or notices regarding the permit scheme and you want your car back now. If they do not return it you will have to pay up and then sue the MANAGEMENT COMPANY (as well as the clampers) and the costs to them will rise accordingly. Make it absolutely clear to them that as per your lease they have no legal right whatsoever to operate a parking scheme on your space without your permission.

Its an unenforceable private ticket anyway. My recommendation would be to ignore this, and ignore any follow up letters. However if you receive anything from them that suddenly start mentioning railway Byelaws then come back for advice. I've only seen one company issue a PPC ticket and then change tack to a Byelaws action later, but it wasn't Meteor. As it stands, despite the fact that the piece of paper you have posted looks like a parking ticket, its actually an invoice for a sum charged for breaching a contract. Under civil law, the only redress for breaching a contract is actual losses suffered (which, as you have paid for a weekly ticket, is zero). So they cannot simply try and charge you £90 or £45 for breaching. It wouldn't last 5 minutes in court.

I have heard of tales of cars being rocked by clampers to dislodge permits and tickets off the dashboard. Personally I cannot believe that such honourable members of our society such as clampers would resort to such a scurrilous activity!

Sorry but how does registering at companies house, and becoming a member of the BPA make you legitimate?

 

I'm not even sure they are registered at Companies House. I couldn't find them under any company name beginning with 'Searchlight'. Its probably a 'trading as' set up so they can even hide the real name of the company, OR there is no company and its the work of a sole trader. THAT'S how 'legitimate' they are.

Decades and centuries of contract law, overturned by a desk copper. Oh well, if you don't want to believe what this site and watchdog have to say about your legal obligations under civil law then feel free to give your money away unnecessarily.

Yes. They cannot just 'register a debt' with the county court!! They have to take you to court (fat chance), win (dear Lord no!), and then you still refuse to pay. THEN they can register a debt (CCJ). It doesn't sound half as scary when they tell the truth though does it?

I would suggest you have a word with your landlord and ask to see what it says in their lease about the parking space. I am guessing (although you do need to confirm this) that there will be language in there regarding their (and hence as their tenant conferred on you) exclusive right to peaceful enjoyment of this parking space. This would mean that the clamping company have trespassed on your (landlord's) land and the clamping is unlawful. The Management Company would then need reminding that all of the signs in all of the world would not have jurisdiction on that parking space without them varying the terms of the lease (which I doubt very much that they have done), and that their parking scheme can only be operated within the communal areas of the car park. They would need to refund you (not the clampers) as the clampers are legally THEIR agents. If they don't refund you then issue a small claim against them and the clamping company (do NOT issue a claim against just the clampers alone, they will invariably ignore any CCJs). Again, I stress you need to check what it says in the landlord's lease to confirm if what I have said applies here. There's an 85% chance it does (in my opinion).

If its a bus lane offence, it could well be a camera job, so the PCN would have been a postal PCN and hence would have been the NTO as well. However that still doesn't explain why the OP wouldn't have received the Charge Certificate or the Order for Recovery either.

Considering its litter to begin with, I don't know of any legislation which covers theft of litter. Maybe others know different? Them using this language, however erroneous, doesn't really put them in much trouble though, that I'm aware of. Its just another pathetic attempt to make their tickets look official.

They cannot affect your credit rating without taking you to court, winning, and then you still refuse to pay. None of which will ever happen. Ignore them.

Yes, the 'knowing who the driver is' issue is only one hurdle they need to overcome. There are plenty of others too!

Its a deliberate ploy to make sure you pay the full whack. Other ploys include sending threatening legal letters pre dated so that when you get them you panic into thinking you're too late to stop legal proceedings and you beg them to accept your payment. They're not thick, they have many tricks to fool people into paying as much as possible. However you now know that legally they don't have much of a leg to stand on, so you should just ignore them from now on. Don't forget to look out for that post-dated letter though, and have a laugh when it does.

The car isn't parked illegally, you have broken no laws. They are inviting you to pay an invoice for breaching a contract - the contract being the signs they would have displayed at the site. This means a couple of things: If there were no signs visible then there wasn't a contract formed and you haven't breached anything anyway. Even if you did see the signs and breached the contract then under contract law they can only pursue the driver for their actual losses only, not some arbitrary £90 sum they've dreamt up. Maybe a few quid admin fees, tops. The only other recourse for them is to treat it as trespass (i.e. NO PARKING!!!), and for this they can pursue the driver for nominal damages only (a couple of quid?). Either way, their pursuit of you for £90 is tosh and wouldn't last five minutes in a court. Either way, the photo is irrelevant unless they plan to sue your car.

Firstly, Derwent are Principal in a Principal/Agent relationship with VCS so they ARE liable for this under the laws of Agency. You should let them know this in no uncertain terms. In fact any court action you take needs to include Derwent as 'jointly and severally liable' for their agents VCS. Did they clamp the car as it had no permit and then added on the unpiad tickets or did they just clamp for the unpaid tickets? Either way, clamping your car to secure a debt that has not been proven in court is illegal without a court warrant. You need to ask Derwent to ask VCS to produce this warrant (they won't have one).The fact that this happened in October makes no difference, you have six years to bring a civil claim. I would send a Notice Before Action to Derwent and VCS, stating that you want a full refund within 14 days or you will begin court proceedings. In the Notice Before Action, head it 'Notice Before Action' and state the facts, then state the reason why you believe their actions were unlawful (they need a court judgement and a court warrant in respect of the unpaid tickets before they can sieze goods in lieu). State that you hold Derwent jointly and severally liable for the actions of their agent VCS. Send the NBAs to their registered addresses (you can look these up for free on the Companies House website) addressed to the Company Secretary in both instances.

Can you try and explain to the RK that this falls under civil contract law. The basic principle is that the contract is formed between the PPC and the driver by way of the signs on site. They are pursuing the RK for breach of contract. As the RK was never at that site, he/she has not read the signs, and hence no contract exists. Therefore the RK cannot possibly have breached any contract as they are not a party to it. I know this can be difficult, but please try and explain this to the RK. If they end up paying then they will effectively have been mugged. Failing that, then yes, try sending a letter threatening harassment, although as above I suspect this might have the opposite effect. As a last resort, you COULD write and admit you were the driver. Legally they still wouldn't have a case against you as what they are pursuing is a penalty charge, not a genuine liquidated damages charge as per proper contract law. They still wouldn't take you to court.

Yes by all means retain the computer generated threats, but SS makes a valid point, why clutter up your draws with irrelevant nonsense? We all know that PPC tickets and threats are toilet paper, and yes it may be beneficial to keep or bin them, but SS is only advising, I assume?, as to what he would do or has done in the past.

Granted I keep ALL of the letters TVL or any trin pot DCA sends me, simply so I can ridicule them on the phone, but not everyone is as confident, I think what SS is trying to get across is the actual trivial nature of these pathetic letters, therefore there is no need to keep them and refer back to them as bugger all ever happens.

Extremely naive advice, but its only that - advice. I'm not aware of anyone in our legal team that would ever throw away any bit of paperwork that even hints at potential legal action, regardless that the odds of actual follow up are very very low. Still, its only advice.

Read what I said again [EDIT]. Any paperwork that alludes to potential legal action should not be thrown away but put away somewhere. Regardless of the odds of being taken to court, which in this case are 0.0000000001% because the claimant has suffered no damages whatsoever. That doesn't stop some [EDIT] (parking companies) taking the odd futile punt in court now and again though, so the paperwork should be kept for that albeit extremely unlikely event. The OP has done NOTHING WRONG. I'm just advocating common sense in the face of potential provocation from PPC[EDIT]

What debt? At the end of the day its a penalty. Penalty issued by a private concern = zero debt as it cannot be legally recovered. It carries about as much weight as the site team sending you a demand for £50 for breaking forum rules (not saying that you have btw). What would you do with that?

It IS an alleged civil debt. One party claims another party owes them money. The debt remains alleged until such time as it is put in front of a judge and they decide. The fact that the claimant's case is rubbish is irrelevant. Chucking away any documentation that MIGHT (albeit extrmely slim) result in a court claim is stupid. Feel free to ignore my advice. Its only advice.

I wouldn't advise binning any documents you receive that relate to an alleged debt, even if you know the likleihood of them following up on it is next to zero. By all means file in a drawer and forget, but its inadvisable to bin them.

It would be safer to ignore completely. If you write back you run the risk of accidentally giving them information they want, plus it shows to them that you take them seriously and they are consequently more likely to pester you. They will ignore anything you write to them anyway, so there's no point. Ignore them. You could be a Chief Inspector, a Judge, a Barrister, they have no idea. Leave it that way.

You technically have six years to bring a court claim if you would like to try and get your money back, although you may need to provide some kind of explanation to a judge as to why you have left a delay between the occurrence and your claim. Paragraph (2) (a) of section 6 of the Private Security Industry Act 2001 (Licences) Regulations 2007 states: "the licensee shall not immobilise, remove or restrict a vehicle in accordance with paragraph 3 or 3A of Schedule 2 to the 2001 Act if the vehicle is an invalid carriage or if a valid disability badge is displayed on the vehicle or if the vehicle is an emergency vehicle which is in use"

You'd probably need to go into the station with a copy of the legislation and then escalate it upwards from the standard ignoramus desk bobby. Even then, I fear you may be right.

That's fair enough!

Isn't clamping or towing a motability car illegal under the Private Security Industry Act??

or even result in the clamping or removal of my vehicle?

Funnily enough, I've just answered this on another thread. The answer is:

You cannot clamp for a previously acquired private ticket. This is effectively siezure of goods in lieu of a debt. To do this they must first (1) prove the debt is 'real' and not simply 'alleged' by taking you to court and winning. Despite this being extremely unlikley you would still have a 28 day opportunity to pay up at this point and it finishes there. (2) they must apply for a court warrant and appoint an official bailiff. THEN they can clamp your car. If they clamp without following 1 and 2 above then they are breaking the law.

However just to be clear, we are not advocating anyone to either deprive a parking company of their standard parking fees, nor inconveniencing anyone by parking where they shouldn't or against the reasonable terms of parking at any site. We are against the ridiculous penalty charges that most PPCs then try to levy, usually unlawfully.