thanks dx100uk for the redactions. I would still be doing that now.

We live about 2 hours away from Windsor.

What I am taking is that if this ends up in court I can argue that they shouldn't have issued the ticket as my gf was back less than 10 minutes after the expiry.

I can also argue that they have no contract with us because they don't have signs (I can not verify this, nor can my gf remember).

There is nothing on the ticket to suggest parking after the time would incur costs of £60 per minute after any grace period.

It seems to me that should they decide to pursue my gf they have little room for manoeuvre. 

thanks for all the advice and in the meantime I will just sit and wait for the next debt collectors letter and ignore that too?

She arrived whilst the attendant was in the process of writing the ticket which was within the grace period and could have got in the car and left.

However she discussed with the attendant what he was doing and what a ridiculous issuing it was and this meant the ticket was actually issued one minute after a ten minute grace period despite my gf having arrived back within the period. 

And here are all documents to date inc the demand letter sent from UCS after we were unable to reply.

docs1.pdf

Thanks everyone.

in response to the sticky 

1. Date of infringement: 27/08/2019

2. Appeal was made and rejected. Rejection letter is dated 13th September but was not actually received or seen by my girlfriend via email until 29th January. They have maintained they sent the email on the 13th however my girlfriend did not receive this in her email box. The rejection letter is attached below. Then because she didn't get it she couldn't appeal so had to appeal another way by writing to the IAS direct. They have asked for more information which my girlfriend has sent.

3. There was no NTK

4. The appeals information was given in the rejection letter attached but as stated the rejection was not received until January 29th following my girlfriend following up direct with the Parking company.

5. The parking company is UK Parking ltd.

6. The car park is: Castle Car Park, Jennings Yard, River Street, Windsor, Berkshire, SL4 1QT

The appeal is here as I can't upload the file at the moment. I will upload as soon as I can.

PCN Parking Solutions for UK Parking Limited PO BOX 5419 Hove BN52 9AN
Dear 
Parking Charge Notice Number: 263118424

Vehicle Registration Number:

Location: Castle Car Park, Jennings Yard, River Street, Windsor, Berkshire, SL4 1QT

Issue Date: 27/08/2019

Parking Event: Parking After The Expired Time On The P&d Ticket

Total Due: £60.00

Thank you for your appeal against the above Parking Charge Notice ('PCN') which has been carefully considered, however,
on this occasion,the appeal has been rejected for the reason(s) detailed below.
Your vehicle was observed as displaying a time-expired Pay and Display ticket. Please note that you can visit our website;
www.paymypcn.net whereby you can review photographs of this parking event. You will note from these images that your ticket
expired at 19:19. In line with the [ATA] Code of Practice, the Parking Attendant allowed a reasonable grace period. As the
driver failed to return to the vehicle within this time period, a Parking Charge Notice ("PCN") was issued at 19:30.

Loss is not relevant as the claim is not for breach of contract. The contractual terms make it clear that any driver parking
in this area agrees to pay the charge. The amount claimed, is, in effect, the price the motorist has agreed to pay for
stopping where the Operator does not want them to and is a core contractual price term. Once the driver has entered an
agreement with the Operator to pay the charge, the Operator does not have to subsequently show that the charge is the amount
that they/the landowner has lost. With respect to the charge being an unfair contractual term, we would refer you to Beavis v
Parking Eye [UKSC] 2015/0116 where this point was dealt with in detail by the Law Lords.

Whilst we note the contents of your appeal, these amount to mitigation and are not sufficient to discharge your liability.
The onus is on the motorist to ensure that a valid Pay and Display ticket is on display at all times.
You have now reached the end of our internal appeals procedure and you now have two options (you cannot do both):
You can pay the total amount due of £60.00 within 14 days (see reverse of letter for payment options).
or you can appeal to the Independent Appeals Service (IAS) if you believe this decision is incorrect
In order to appeal the IAS will need your PCN number, vehicle registration and the date the charge was originally issued.
The IAS (www.theIAS.org) provides an Alternative Dispute Resolution scheme for disputes of this type. As you have
complied with our internal appeals procedure, you may use and we will engage with, the IAS Standard Appeals Service
providing you lodge an appeal to them within 21 days of this rejection.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Should you decide to appeal to the IAS and your appeal is subsequently rejected, the option to pay a discounted
amount will no longer be available and the full amount of the PCN will become due, payment should be made to the
Operator within 14 days from the date of the IAS rejection notification.
If you do not make payment, the outstanding PCN will be passed to our appointed debt collection agency for further action and all costs associated with this process will be added to the amount outstanding.
 

Thanks dx100uk. I thought I had redacted everything I needed to.

So what you are saying is to do nothing and then wait to go to court if they ever take us to court?

We are a bit stuck with what to do

my girlfriend now wants to pay

but I am not going to pay until we have some sort of justice in this instance.

I am of the belief that I should be speaking with the debt collectors and telling them to refrain from all forms of contact.

The appeal was never formally rejected despite the company saying they sent a response (never received).

Here is also the initial correspondence between my girlfriend and the parking company noting they have placed the account on hold. It was only when my girlfriend chased after first UCS letter did they give more information and send the rejection:

On Fri, 30 Aug 2019 at 16:56, > wrote:

30/08/19

Castle Car Park

Jennings Yard

Windsor

Dear Sir or Madam,

PCN number:.....

Vehicle registration number: K

You issued me with a parking ticket on 27/08/19 but I believe it was unfairly issued. 

I will not be paying your demand for payment for the following reasons:

 • Circumstances out of my control. 

I returned to the car just as the parking attendant was about to process the ticket but he continued with the process in front of me and issued my ticket. I overstayed by 10 minutes due to the time it took to pay my bill at the Pizza Express Restaurant in Windsor and then queuing for the toilet for my children. The manager at Pizza Express would be able to support this and tried to help me rush things along as I told him the situation. 

• The charge is disproportionate and not commercially justifiable

The amount you have charged is not based upon any commercially justifiable loss to your company or the landowner.

In my case, the £60 charge you are asking for far exceeds the cost to the landowner of less than £4.50 (the hourly rate) when I only overstayed by 10 minutes. 

 If you choose to pursue me please be aware that I will not enter into any correspondence and this will be the only letter you will receive from me until you answer the specific points raised in my letter. 

Yours faithfully,

From: PaymyPCN Appeals Manager <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 3, 2019 4:56:22 PM
To: >
Subject: Re: PCN Number: ….. 

Dear 

Thank you for your recent email, the contents of which have been noted. 

Your account has now been placed on hold to consider your appeal. Once we have received the outcome of your appeal we will contact you in due course.

Please Be Advised: If you do not hear from us within 14 days of the lodging of your appeal, do not assume your notice has been cancelled, please make contact with us during & after this time to be updated the status of your appeal.

Kind Regards,

S Lewis

For and on behalf of PCN Parking Solutions

last August 2019 my girlfriend went to Legoland with the kids 4 and her mum and then went to Pizza Express in Windsor.

They parked at Castle Car Park.  

paid to park and went to eat.

were then a few minutes late back.

There was already an attendant issuing a ticket.

The attendant then waited until my girlfriend was over ten minutes late to issue the ticket despite her being there well within any grace period.

My girlfriend appealed to Ultimate Customer Solutions end of August but did not receive a response

(they later said they emailed a rejection which my girlfriend never received until it was resent).

in August she received the first debt collection letter.

my girlfriend was advised to respond to UCS requesting an Subject Access Request (SAR) which they have not ever acknowledged or responded to. 

then we thought they had gone away until we received a letter from CSB solicitors (same address as UCS) advising they would be beginning court proceedings against my girlfriend. I told my girlfriend to complain that they haven't responded to any of our requests

she called the number of UCS and was accused of being rude to them at the end of the phone.

She wasn't but he wasn't very helpful and said they had responded to the appeal and sent it again.

This was on the 16th January 2020. 

On the 29th Jan this was sent after another chase to the solicitors:

I have reported UK Parkings ltd to the ICO as they are in beach of GDPR having ignored my SAR request. Further to this I was not notified that my initial appeal had been rejected and therefore cannot further appeal in a standard way and therefore I am awaiting further advice for ways to appeal against this unfair PCN.

As it stands should you decide to further contact me in regards to this matter without good cause I shall be seeking legal advice as per my statutory rights.

My girlfriend then received another letter from UCS threatening debt collectors (I told her not to worry about this) and so she wrote to the solicitors asking for an update:

Email dated 21/02/2020

I am writing to you regarding my email sent on 29th January, below. I still have not received a response from you and I left a voicemail for a solicitor to call me from CSB Solicitors, which I have also not received. I would like to speak to a solicitor regarding this PCN.

The solicitor responded via email the following:

Dear Madam,

Thank you for your email.

Following your email below, we reverted this matter back to our Client for their instructions. We will only be able to respond more fully once these are received.

At this stage we have no further instructions other than to send out a letter to you dated 16 January 2020.

We hope to be able to respond more fully once these are received.

Yours faithfully,

Solicitor

UCS are not actually doing anything they should do but nobody we have complained to has actually come back to us so not sure where to take this because I don't have time for court and I would rather just have someone take them to task on these unbelievably poor practices!

Any advice on next steps?

Thanks

do they let you know that it has been cancelled?  Or do you just wait to see if they send you another invoice?

I waited and I waited and have ignored the repeated requests for money inclusive of them sending me a goodwill gesture to reduce the 'fine' back to the original if I paid up within 14 days of the letter being sent.

Whilst all this was going on I complained to the landowners, whilst preparing myself for my day in court and they too felt the charge was ridiculous so they requested it be cancelled and it apparently has been. Thanks for all help offered. 

POPLA deemed the contract to be valid though. Who are POPLA anyway?

I have just been through the plans and there actually doesn't seem to be any reference to any time period from what I can see but I can't make out all the wording on the images. 

It seems they put in the camera and then retrospectively applied for the permission which was granted: 

Application Number: 15/02384/FUL

Location: 4 Glyn Square Wolverton Milton Keynes MK12 5JQ

Description: Installation of automatic number plate recognition cameras (retrospective)

Decision Date: 2016-01-22

I think it is ridiculous to make me pay money for when the shops were closed. Who should I write to about this considering the POPLA decision?

Hi Brassnecked

The sequence of events is correct. The term 'fine' is not actually used anywhere. That is simply me using the word. 

Thanks.

I am hoping somebody can give me some advice on the following.

I parked in a car park which states that there is 1.5 hours free parking for customers of the shops there.

I parked for 1:45:16 on a Sunday morning at 8:15am.

The shops all opened at 10am.

I had intended to leave well before the 1.5 hours but unfortunately my key battery was not working (I had been aware of the need to change it but hadn't) and therefore had to wait for my partner to bring me a spare key. This took her over 30 minutes as we live 15 minutes away, she had to dress herself and the kids and find the spare key.

I explained this to ParkingEye who rejected this

I therefore appealed to POPLA who rejected my claims using ParkingEye vs Beavis which is a completely different case with different circumstances.

I argued that I could not be in breach of contract because there is no contract offered for the car park when the stores are closed which is true.

POPLA rejected my claims as follows:

'The appellant has identified as the driver of the vehicle on the day of the parking event.

As such, I am considering the appellant’s liability for the PCN, as the driver.

When entering onto a private car park such as this one, any motorist forms a contract with the operator by remaining on the land for a reasonable period.

The signage in place sets out the terms and conditions of this contract.

The appellant explains that is he parked to use the Gym on site on a Sunday morning.

The appellant states the Gym did not have any parking facilities.

The appellant states did not overstay on site.

The appellant states his car was immobilised in the period it was there for a short time, meaning he was unable to access the car.

Whilst I note this comment, and the situation raised by the appellant.

I am unable to allow the appeal on this basis.

The operator has provided photographic evidence of the signage in place in the car park, which states:

“1 ½ hours max stay… Customer Only Car Park…

For use only whilst shopping in store…

Failure to comply with the following will result in a Parking Charge of: £100”.

The operator has provided photographic evidence of the appellant’s vehicle, entering the car park at 08:15, and exiting at 10:00, totalling a stay of 1 hour, 45 minutes.

The evidence provided shows that the appellant’s vehicle was parked on site longer than permitted as stated on the signage.

The appellant states that the signage does not offer a contract outside of store opening times and therefore cannot be subject to a PCN.

Whilst I note this comment, the signage clearly states that the parking on site is for store users only whilst shopping.

The appellant has stated within their appeal that they were attending a nearby gym.

The appellant has not identified that he was shopping on site on the day of the event.

Whilst I note the signage does not specify what parking restrictions apply when the shops are closed, the signage does not suggest that parking is without restriction during the time the shops are closed. Therefore, I am satisfied that the terms are applicable at all times on site.

It is the onus of the motorist to review the terms and conditions of the signage before parking.

Should they reject these terms, they have the opportunity to exit the site within a reasonable timeframe, usually 10 minutes, to seek alternative parking before any enforcement action is taken. However, as the appellant’s vehicle remained parked, they have accepted the terms and ultimately a £100 Parking Charge.

The appellant states that there is no landowner consent to persons being charged outside of store opening hours.

The operator has provided evidence that it has the appropriate landowner authority to manage parking on site. A

s such, I am satisfied based on the available evidence that it can issue PCN’s under authority.

The appellant states that the PCN is unfair and disproportionate.

The appellant states he has been asked to pay when no monetary loss has been subjected on any of the shops at the venue when they were closed.

The legality of parking charges was considered in a high profile court case, Parking Eye v Beavis.

This case was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court which concluded that:

“… the £85 charge is not a penalty.

Both Parking Eye and the landowners had a legitimate interest in charging overstaying motorists, which extended beyond the recovery of any loss.

The interest of the landowners was the provision and efficient management of customer parking for the retail outlets.

The interest of Parking Eye was in income from the charge, which met the running costs of a legitimate scheme plus a profit margin.

Further, the charge was neither extravagant nor unconscionable, having regard to practice around the United Kingdom, and taking into account the use of this particular car park and the clear wording of the notices.”

The charge in this instance, while it may not be a genuine pre-estimate of loss, is in the region of the £85 charge decided upon by the Supreme Court, is neither extravagant nor unconscionable and is therefore reasonable. Ultimately, it is the motorist’s responsibility to comply with the terms and conditions of the car park.

Upon consideration of the evidence, the appellant parked for longer than permitted and therefore did not comply with the terms and conditions.

As such, I conclude that the PCN has been issued correctly.

Accordingly, I must refuse this appeal.

I find this hard to accept and see this as completely unfair.

I am thinking of going to court and arguing this but am reluctant to have to pay anymore than the £100 fine!

any advice?