PPCs - To Reply or Not

[Ed Gasket]

I have read a number of threads here and the general advice is to ignore everything. However I have come across two 'law' type websites both of which recommend demanding that the PPC issue proceedings within 14 days or desist from any further contact. They further state that this will 'freeze' the amount they are able to collect. I do not understand why it would 'freeze' the amount but if true, then it would definitely be worth following the advice would it not? I also noted that one lady on this forum sent such a letter and had no further trouble from the PPC concerned.

 

Please see the articles below and post any views/recommendations. Can anyone explain why this would limit the amount they could claim? If sent straight away, then that would limit the invoice to the initial £30 or £50 which would put a lot of people's minds at rest.

 

Here is the article from 'Roadside lawyer'.

 

Here is the link: Ticket from private parking company was allegedly issued at a time I was back at my car: what is the legal position? — The Roadside Lawyer

 

Ticket from private parking company was allegedly issued at a time I was back at my car: what is the legal position?

 

Two days ago I received a ticket from Euro Car Parks for overstaying. The ticket they have issued me with says that I was parked between 7:15pm and 7:25pm with an expired ticket. I returned to my car at approximately 7:20pm and therefore the ticket is inaccurate. I park in this car park everyday. The car park holds in excess of 100 cars and at the time of my return there were just 2 cars in the car park (including mine). Is this 'parking charge notice' that they have issued me with enforceable? How likely would they be to start court proceedings if I refuse to pay and would they have to have proof such as a picture of my vehicle being parked on that day/time? I was under the impression that they are not enforceable and any parking charge (£60 in this case) would have to be reasonable and reflect any costs involved on their part (which must be minimal given the car park was practically empty!). Also by demanding more money if payment is not made within 7 days, is this pursuing 'money with menaces' and is in fact an offence in itself?

REPLY:

It's enforced through contract law which would mean they don't need to prove a loss so the issue of how many cars are parked there is irrelevant.

 

Basically you entered into a contract by parking there and they will allege you breached it by overstaying. The contract can only be enforced by bringing an action against you in the County Court as no offence has been committed. The reality is that bringing such an action is expensive and most companies do not bother - although they threaten repeatedly to do so - stamps are cheap whereas litigation is expensive.

Our advice would be to write to them to strongly assert that you had not overstayed and inform them that you will rigorously defend any claim against you in the county court. Furthermore demand that they issue proceedings within 14 days or desist from any further contact. Send the letter recorded delivery and keep the receipts.

 

This will not stop further contact but may well freeze the amount that they can collect in "collection charges" by failing to issue proceedings.

Ultimately your best protection is the costs they are likely to incur by bringing a case against you, coupled with the risk of losing.

 

*************************************

 

Here is the article from lawanswers:

 

From: UK Parking Control threats of enforcement of "Charge Certificate Notices" — law answers

 

UK Parking Control threats of enforcement of "Charge Certificate Notices"

 

I parked my car behind a parade of shops, when I entered I parked alongside several cars and was not obstructing any cars or exits. I was gone for 20 minutes and when I returned I saw a Notification of Unauthorised Parking note on my car windscreen from UK Parking Control. I saw no signs as I entered the car park or when I left. I have now received a Charge Certificate Notice saying I have to pay either £80 within 14 days or £170 after 14 days. I was told to ignore this letter by a family friend who is a barrister. I then received a final reminder with no date other than the PCN issue date. This said if I fail to pay then a charge certificate will be issued and further costs incurred. I then received a letter from Hunter Forrest and Co saying that I now owed £195. I was advised to ignore this and wait for a final letter to appeal. Under section 40 of the RTA the only people who can issue a parking ticket is the local authority so are UKPC talking Toytown language?

UK Parking Control are currently running second in our annual "Highwayman" awards and without proper signage their claim is probably unenforceable.

In any event you have committed no offence and any penalty would need to be brought for breach of contract under civil law - the contract tacit in your parking there and thus accepting very prominently published terms and conditions. If these are not prominently published then it is unlikely that you would be deemed in breach. Furthermore many of the practices used -- sham appeals procedure, escalating charges by extortionate collection costs, the use of the term "fines" -- have been deemed to fall foul of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.

Many of these companies also fail to follow the rules of protected terms under law and as such they commit a criminal offence under the The Administration of Justice Act 1970 which states under Section 1(d) as follows:

(1) A person commits an offence if, with the object of coercing another person to pay money claimed from the other as a debt due under a contract,

....

(d) utters a document falsely represented by him to have some official character or purporting to have some official character which he knows it has not.

Furthermore in the case of private parking operators where registered keeper details have been obtained from the DVLA, there is no obligation on the keeper to identify the driver. Despite claims to the contrary it is very doubtful that the keeper, if not the driver nor present at the time, could have been deemed to have been bound into any contract.

In any event, ultimately the "debt" can only be enforced through an action brought in the County Court, and our usual recommendation is that you demand they issue proceedings within 14 days or cease any further contact. This should put a stop to the ever-spiralling charges and debt collectors fees they may seek to impose.

Please remember that in such cases words are cheap and threats of future legal action are common. No penalty can be imposed without the case going to court so the only important document is the actual County Court claim - not any paper issued by UKPC or any of their agencies threatening this. In the unlikely event that they issue proceedings then you must file a defence (which is free) and probably based on the lack of signage. We can assist you with this if you wish.

Once a defence has been filed then you are already showing yourself to be serious and any further action on their part will involve serious costs with no guarantee of recovering a relatively small amount. Thus the case is unlikely to go much further.

[lamma]

Roadside lawyer advice not quite up the scratch in my view. There is no known case where a PPC that is totally ignored has resulted in anything. engaging with PPCs in mail when its mail based [problem] is a mistake. For those that know the applicable laws and regulations you can have fun (if you have the time and inclination) by sending letters. But for the average member of the public its a mistake as they will often on wittingly knock down the barriers that PPCs have to overcome. Instead use your letter writing skills to complain about the unlawful activities and paperwork of the PPCs (often enough these are illegal as well as unlawful). Any PPC invoice can be dealt with by a standard solicitor;'s letter that will cost around 25 quid to send. Much cheaper to ignore them, let the PPC dig their own grave with unlawful paperwork and then use that against them.

[Al27]

The 'charge' goes up because you haven't paid. It's a rip off of the council model - it's designed to make you pay up in the first place, no questions asked. However, remember that there is a genuine appeal process there though, whereas PPCs up the charges to make you pay AND collect more cash overall. It's all part of the business model. It's all part of the [problem] and has the added bonus of seeming to add legitimacy.

 

However, as any further charges would be seen as puniative anyway (e.g. liquidated damages are for damages, not random puniative amounts) the freeze is irrelevant. Of course, they'll argue it would be part of the original contract, but the penalty aspect of the original charge doesn't stand up in the first place, so neither can any other further amount.

 

The letter's only purpose is to stop them contacting you, or take you to court. In the real world though, you'll just continue to receive the letters. I doubt its effectiveness. There may be the odd PPC who just thinks "I can't be arsed carrying on with this one", but they'll be few and far between.

 

All Lamma's points are true. If you never contact them, you won't be in the 0.1% of people who get taken to court anyway.

 

PPCs hate Silent Bobs. PPCs love people who contact them.

[Steve__M]

Personally, I would ignore anything related to a free carpark based on the fact that it's pretty unacceptable to make ridiculous demands. If my ticket had fallen off the dashboard, though, I might send one reply, but that's just me - if it ends up in a few extra letters, I'm not bothered as I've had far worse from worse people.

 

Lawyers seem to be a very conservative lot, and I've got into trouble on a law site for suggesting things that work well lots of times for people on this site (Tenants and Landlords section). The "Which" Consumer Association even advocate paying and appealing which is shockingly conservative/stupid!

 

With regard to responding or not:

 

- I believe that in a normal legal dispute you are expected to put your side of the story (though I guess that can be limited to "perhaps if you contact the driver they might be able to help.")

 

- in other areas where big companies wish to assert themselves over individuals, they will target a selection of non-repliers with a court claim, presumably in the hope of getting some default judgements (perhaps for publicity reasons). Examples include people whose internet connection has been used to download copyrighted material, and people who re-sell tickets for big concerts or sporting events. So not replying is not *always* appropriate for all apparently unsubstantiated demands.

[Al27]

in other areas where big companies wish to assert themselves over individuals, they will target a selection of non-repliers with a court claim, presumably in the hope of getting some default judgements

 

Thing is though that PPCs don't like taking people to court, even to get a default judgement. They have to fork out money for the claim, spend time preparing and then there's the risk of them actually defending or setting a default judgement aside. Even with a win it's a pain to actually get the cash in their cold hands. All for a £60 / £100 ticket.

 

A few PPCs have tried it as a one-off. Only Michael Perkins has had a few goes, and it's ego driven rather than a serious money making exercise, because it's not economically viable.

[Wayne's Enforcement]

Absolutely do contact the parking company.

 

It is in your best interest to resolve all such matters at your earliest convenience.

 

It keeps your costs down, and abovel all its common courtesy to reply to someone if they send you a letter.

[My Real Name]

Absolutely do contact the parking company.

 

It is in your best interest to resolve all such matters at your earliest convenience.

 

It keeps your costs down, and abovel all its common courtesy to reply to someone if they send you a letter.

It's common courtesy to not make disingenuous demands for unlawful penalties.

 

But at least your post is consistent with being witless and fanciful.

[Rooster-UK]

There are over 200,000 users on this site that would totally disagree with the views of Wayne Enforcement !

[Ed Gasket]

What I am really interested to know is why the two 'legal' answers I attached above say that demanding court proceedings within 14 days would 'freeze' the alleged penalty. Is there a legal basis for this or are they making it up? If there is some truth in what they say then sending the reply wouldn't do any harm and may have a lot of benefit - at least peace of mind that no higher amount would be at risk other than court costs (very unlikely).

[Al27]

Absolutely do contact the parking company.

 

It is in your best interest to resolve all such matters at your earliest convenience.

 

It keeps your costs down, and abovel all its common courtesy to reply to someone if they send you a letter.

 

I'd have fun replying to any letter you'd sent me you pelican.

[Wayne's Enforcement]

Al27, are you incapable of replying to a thread without resorting to personal insults?

[Al27]

Yep, 913 of them so far. The last two were insults. You're honoured!

[Steve__M]

Here's my ill-informed further thoughts:

 

The advice sounds a bit made up to be honest.

 

I don't think you can *compel* someone to take action within 14 days. Contractual debts can be enforced for up to 6 years I believe. Legitimately, you could say you dispute it unless they can provide further evidence and/or prove it in court, in which case they should not use "debt collectors".

 

Also, you cannot (if you are a lawyer) blithely say that such a letter will "freeze" the charge. The charge is probably contractual, so what happens might depend on the terms of the contract. Proper lawyers rarely state something so clearly without first reading the contract.

 

I don't know what rules exist with regard to adding charges for debt collectors. Recently, I've been opening debt collector letters for my ex-tenants. Typically they threaten charges if court action has to be taken, but they don't seem to *add* the charges to the bill.

[Steve__M]

Hmmm...

 

Wayne vs Al in a battle for the hearts and souls of the CAG parking forum regulars. Sorry, Wayne, don't fancy your chances much.

[Ed Gasket]

Steve_M, you say 'Legitimately, you could say you dispute it unless they can provide further evidence and/or prove it in court, in which case they should not use "debt collectors".'

On what basis do you say that they should not then use debt collectors? Isn't your statement basically what the 'law' web sites suggested but without the 14 day bit?

[petej2811]

Roadside lawyer advice not quite up the scratch in my view. There is no known case where a PPC that is totally ignored has resulted in anything. engaging with PPCs in mail when its mail based [problem] is a mistake. For those that know the applicable laws and regulations you can have fun (if you have the time and inclination) by sending letters. But for the average member of the public its a mistake as they will often on wittingly knock down the barriers that PPCs have to overcome. Instead use your letter writing skills to complain about the unlawful activities and paperwork of the PPCs (often enough these are illegal as well as unlawful). Any PPC invoice can be dealt with by a standard solicitor;'s letter that will cost around 25 quid to send. Much cheaper to ignore them, let the PPC dig their own grave with unlawful paperwork and then use that against them.

 

This is utter nonsense.

 

Ignoring them is unwise to the extreme. Of course you don't know of an instance where ignoring PPCs has resulted in a grim outcome. Not the stuff people come to say.

 

Ignoring the PPCs is foolish, irresponsible and completely the WRONG thing to do.

 

Contacting them and outlining a proper and valid defence based on the circumstances is wise as it does limit the claim (there can be no admin fees for actions taken to recover a debt the PPC have been told is not owed). The onus is on the PPC to take action or cease their actions. You can put them on notice re harassment and then complain if any associated offences have been committed quite validly.

 

Ignoring them means that if you are that one person who is taken to court you will be playing catch up and the Judge will take a dim view of someone who has made no effort to engage the alleged creditor. Its a disadvantage that nobody here has to endure and those advising silence are foolish and, frankly, showing a clear lack of training.

 

Those of you in two minds - for God's sake think about the situation, think about how far it might go and ask yourself - "Do I want to be the one guy who is sued who hasn't prepared a defence, who hasn't put the PPC on notice and who has made no effort to dispute the alleged debt or propose a defence?" If the answer is yes then you're making work for yourself later if its your number that comes up.

[petej2811]

All Lamma's points are true. If you never contact them, you won't be in the 0.1% of people who get taken to court anyway.

 

quote]

 

 

How on Earth can you know that?

 

How can you give that as advice, knowing it will influence people when you can't possiby know of its truth, fact or quality. This is just plain foolishness.

[petej2811]

Absolutely do contact the parking company.

 

It is in your best interest to resolve all such matters at your earliest convenience.

 

It keeps your costs down, and abovel all its common courtesy to reply to someone if they send you a letter.

 

 

Nonesense.

 

Its in your best interests to outline the defence at the earliest possible opportunity, particularly when the people claiming money have no right to it.

 

It keeps costs to zero and its nothing to do with courtesy. Its about putting people who operate outside the bounds of the law that you know the game, you know the rules and that you won't be bullied.

[petej2811]

There are over 200,000 users on this site that would totally disagree with the views of Wayne Enforcement !

 

200,000 untrained laypersons who have taken very bad advice and aren't fully aware of the risks.

 

I'm shocked, having written the original guide, that this, frankly, disgraceful advice has come from it.

[petej2811]

Here's my ill-informed further thoughts:

 

The advice sounds a bit made up to be honest.

 

I don't think you can *compel* someone to take action within 14 days. Contractual debts can be enforced for up to 6 years I believe. Legitimately, you could say you dispute it unless they can provide further evidence and/or prove it in court, in which case they should not use "debt collectors".

 

Also, you cannot (if you are a lawyer) blithely say that such a letter will "freeze" the charge. The charge is probably contractual, so what happens might depend on the terms of the contract. Proper lawyers rarely state something so clearly without first reading the contract.

 

I don't know what rules exist with regard to adding charges for debt collectors. Recently, I've been opening debt collector letters for my ex-tenants. Typically they threaten charges if court action has to be taken, but they don't seem to *add* the charges to the bill.

 

 

You cannot compel someone, but you can have a lot of fun suing them for harassment if they pester you beyond your challenge.

 

You can't 'freeze' it, such an instrument doesn't exist, but you can, if it seems the inside of a courtroom, dispute the claim figure (from a very strong position) if it is comprised of administrative inflations beyond the point of your challenge. Term of the contract or not, what legitemate purpose would these inflations have beyond the point of challenge (the challenge is the refusal to pay and the demand that the PPC initiate a claim).? They have no point beyond intimidating and that is not stood for.

 

Within a contract charges to a point may be added for debt collection provided they are a specific term of the contract. If they are stated, fine, if not they need to be 'reasonable'.

[Ed Gasket]

Ok, I am thinking of sending something along the lines given at the end of this post by recorded mail. The reasons for this are:

1) Some legal sites suggest that demanding they issue proceedings within 14 days will limit the ever spiralling 'fines' and charges. I do not know if this is true or not but in case it is, its worth doing.

2) One respondent on this forum successfully stopped all this nonsense with such a letter.

3) If I do continue to receive demands for payment, then I am in a better position to make a complaint or counter sue for harassment because I have made my position plain rather than just ignoring everything.

 

I will post the outcome on this thread; i.e. whether nothing or further demands. Will also let you know, if applicable, whether the complaints get anywhere.

 

Here is the gist of the letter...

 

I absolutely deny your claim that the amount claimed, or any amount at all, is due to you from me.

I will rigorously defend any claim against me in the county court and further demand that you issue court proceedings within 14 days or desist from any further contact. I will regard any further contact from you or associated parties as harassment and report you to the police for criminal behaviour under section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1998, section 1 (d) of The Administration of Justice Act 1970, and section 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

[Steve__M]

Steve_M, you say 'Legitimately, you could say you dispute it unless they can provide further evidence and/or prove it in court, in which case they should not use "debt collectors".'

On what basis do you say that they should not then use debt collectors? Isn't your statement basically what the 'law' web sites suggested but without the 14 day bit?

 

Yes. It was meant to be a qualified agreement in that you can dispute the debt but you can't insist they meet a deadline of your choosing.

 

Companies should not use debt collectors for disputed debts.

[the_freedom_trail]

Absolutely do contact the parking company.

 

It is in your best interest to resolve all such matters at your earliest convenience.

 

It keeps your costs down, and abovel all its common courtesy to reply to someone if they send you a letter.

 

I have introduced my own terms. Any PPC that tickets my car agrees to pay a £300 administration charge for my processing of the pretend fine. These are posted in my front and rear windows.

 

Wayne, what you chatting about - common courtesy. Er, hello these private parking companies are nothing more than a hustle - why should I be courtious?

 

It is in no way the best interests of anyone to contact nothing more than a private company begging for money for pretend parking tickets. Your advice is misguided and probably self serving.

 

I have a clear policy, pretend parking fines get ignored and wheel clamps get cut off and sold for scrap. You aint the Police or the LA and never will be - get over yourself. You are powerless and more and more people are starting to realise it.

 

TFT

[Vermillion]

Just had a thought.. my local Post Office is selling 'joke' PCNs (6 in a pack). As you park up you could put one on the windscreen - that would confuse em. Fine yourself too - quids in?.

They're all a joke, anyway.

[Ed Gasket]

3 months on and no further contact from the PPC after I wrote to them (see outline of my reply above) and demanded they issue proceedings within 14 days. I think if you clearly state the amount is in dispute, they cannot legally pass it on to a debt collection agency (or one they pretend to be themsleves). Anyway seems like they have given up.