A rather spectacular UKCPS mess-up.

[kiak]

Hi everyone, I've read a few threads about UKCPS but I think I might be able to top them in terms of absurdity. No need to repeat the advice already posted but if you have any additional to add I'd like to hear it.

 

I live in city centre accommodation / flats (in yorkshire). Our flats have a secure underground car-park facility with remote control access to the doors. All the bays are numbered and allocated to residents.

 

Here are a few facts:

 

I pay extra rent each month for a parking space in this facility.

I was parked in my parking space like I have been most days since I moved in last 8 months.

On saturday I got a UKCPS sticky ticket demanding £75 for parking without a valid permit with the £3 per day increase after 10 days.

I do not and have never had a parking permit. When I moved in my letting agent told me they are not needed.

Noone in the carpark that I have ever seen uses any relevant parking permit.

There is the yellow signs from UKCPS in the car park stating 'authorised users only' and 'a valid permit must be displayed' however residents generally assumed this was more of a scare for REAL unauthorised people..

 

Here is where it gets almost funny:

It appears that they might have stickered every single car in the car park, there are at least 10 of us with this same problem.

Upon contacting the company responsible for managing the communal areas and car parks they said they do not know of any permits and we should contact our letting agents.

The letting agents are generally saying they don't have any permits, contact the management company.

There are notes up in our lobby now to try and figure out how many people are affected and get together and sort it out so I don't know final numbers yet.

On saturday there was a problem with the entrance doors, they were broken and jammed open. I don't think the CPS people would have actually been able to access the carpark if this wasn't the case!!!

 

 

So yes, it appears that they want us to pay £75 for parking in my own bought and paid for parking space (this is worth about £50 a month on top of my rent!). I know the letting agents (and byproxy the landlords of the flats) will not be on CPS's side in this and also the company that manages the building (and I assume byproxy the actual owners of the land) will surely not be supporting them.

 

 

My main purpose of this post was a 'can you believe this' thread.

 

But I was wondering, does anyone think we might be able to get together as a group and fight this and get them to drop it completely. It would be preferable to fighting individual battles as some of the residents are foreign and some might buy into their crap if we don't get together and support each other.

It is clearly a misunderstanding, you would have thought the person making the tickets might have been suspicious that no cars had permits at all. We would actually welcome permits and decent enforcement of our parking spaces!

 

[ForestChav]

Private parking tickets are a tort for trespass or loss caused by the landowner for you being on the land. You were parking in your allocated bay so you were not trespassing nor was your parking there causing anyone else any loss (since it's your allocated bay and no-one else can park there).

 

Or, depending on how you look at it, it's a civil invoice not a fine anyway, a company is just asking you for money, it has the same legal weight as me walking up to you and asking for £75 (i.e. none) and they will probably send you some DCA letters or letters threatening court action but they're all equally enforceable (i.e. not at all) and just a [problem] designed to scare you into paying up. As has been stated in similar threads you can simply ignore their correspondence.

 

The only people who can fine you and whose tickets are legally enforceable are the public bodies, e.g. the police, council, courts, and only them or tickets issued on behalf of them can use the words "Penalty Charge Notice". If you want, scan and cleanse the PCN of any personal details to be sure but from the sounds of it you can just ignore them.

[DBC]

Are you talking about a PPC called UKCPS , or is it CPS? They are different companies.

[kiak]

It is UKCPS.

 

I am quite happy to go down the route of not paying this and fighting it in court if it comes to it. I'm just a little worried that other residents might roll over and cough up.

[Al27]

Message on the notice board required.

[kiak]

Yeah, there is one!

[greasmonkey]

usualy they recomend taking court action to get money back were

clamping fees are paid to get your car realeased cant you send them

a notice before action to stop them giving you tickets( invoices)

for parking were you are entiteld to park to get it stopped

[kiak]

As far as I know so far it has been one round of tickets, and thankfully no clamping.

[kiak]

Turns out it is at least 30 cars that got hit!

[kiak]

Someone who managed to talk to a real person on the phone managed to get the info that every ticket issued on saturday for that carpark has been cancelled. So good news! Hopefully we wont be getting letters out then.

 

Even though they were clearly wrong I can't help being surprised that they appear to have actually done the sensible thing.