PCN for Parking In My Own Residents Bay

[SatyaT]

Hi Everyone,

 

Sorry if I do anything wrong whilst posting this....this is my first post!!

 

I received a PCN (on 28/11/2012) for parking in my own parking bay without displaying a permit, after reading though a few websites and some of the topics in these forums (a belated thank you!!) i felt relatively confident that i wouldn't have to pay the fine. With all the information at my fingertips, I sent the following letter (on 04/12/2012) in the appeals section on the PCM (uk) website thinking that it would be end of the matter.

 

Dear Sir or Madam,

 

Speculative Parking Charge Notice Number:

Vehicle Registration Number:

 

You issued me with a parking ticket on 28th November 2012 and I decline herewith your invitation to pay for the following reasons:

 

 

1) The car was parked in an allotted bay appertaining to the flat of the registered keeper. I am the current registered tenant of Flat , and as such am in possession residents parking permit of bay and have legal right to exclusive use the space. No trespass took place and there has been no loss to the landowner or other residents. Thus presenting me with a Parking Charge Notice is at odds with your contracted purpose of ensuring that there is no misuse of parking spaces by unauthorised individuals. Please see the attached evidence:

 

a. Picture :

Evidence that I have the appropriate Parking permit for Bay

 

b. Picture :

Evidence that I am the current registered tenant of Flat

 

2) On 28th November I cleaned the inside of my windscreen; whilst cleaning, the tax disc came away from the window and fell. As I was present at the time this happened, I was able to pick up the tax disc and place it on the dashboard. Upon exiting the car the parking permit was still adhered to the windscreen. I can only surmise that the drop in temperature as the day went on coupled with the remaining cleaning solution caused the adhesive on the permit to give way, thus the permit fell and so could not be seen by the Parking Attendant. It was a circumstance beyond my control that the adhesive had fallen off while I was away from the vehicle. Please see the attached evidence:

 

a. Picture :

Evidence that my tax disc is not adhered to the windscreen and is resting on the dashboard where I placed it after it fell off.

 

b. Picture :

Evidence of the residue left behind from where the permit was adhered.

 

3) The alleged indicated offence has caused no financial loss to the land owner. Requesting a payment of between £60 and £100 is judged by me to be unreasonable and disproportionate and therefore constitutes an unfair contract penalty under the terms of The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1997, which is not legally enforceable.

 

4) The Explanatory notes on the back of the Parking Charge Notice indicate that I was to ‘allow 24 hours after issue of the PCN’ to view the alleged contravention. I, however, was not able to view the alleged contravention on your website until the 4th December 2012, 6 days after the date of issue of the Parking Charge Notice.

 

5) The Parking Charge Notice placed on the windscreen is incorrectly filled in with inaccuracies and numerous blanks.

 

I request that you cancel this payment request relating to this invoice in writing to me within the next 35 days after service of this letter. Should you decide not to cancel I require a Verification Code in order to refer it to POPLA, incurring a charge to you of £27 + VAT, not recoverable from me, and their adjudication, if sought, would be binding on you but not on me. In the event that you wish to proceed to County Court, please be aware that I will defend against your action.

 

 

Any further correspondence relating to this invoice, except for agreement of cancellation will incur you with an administrative charge of £30, per correspondence, for research and response and time involved in so doing. Any response other than an acceptance of cancellation will be taken as your agreement to the said charges and will be responded to with an enclosed invoice. Failure to pay such invoices may be the subject of debt collection or legal proceedings in a county court.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

 

Yesterday evening, however, i received a reply from them saying that my appeal has been rejected. The reply e-mail is as follows:

 

PCN number:

Vehicle registration:

PCN issued on:

Parked in:

 

10 December 2012

 

Dear Mr Thakor,

 

Thank you for your correspondence regarding the above Parking Charge Notice (PCN). I have considered your case carefully and have decided to reject your appeal on the following grounds;

 

The Parking Attendant recorded that the vehicle was parked without clearly displaying a valid permit. You should only park your vehicle in this area if you clearly display a valid permit. The area is clearly marked and signed appropriately advising this.

 

The Terms and Conditions of which our services are provided are clearly displayed throughout our sites, including the requirement to display a valid permit.

 

You now have a number of options;

 

1. Pay the Parking Charge Notice at the discounted amount of £60.00 within 14 days. Please note that after this time, the Parking Charge Notice will increase to the full charge of £100.00.

 

Payment can be made:

 

* Online, by visiting

* By phone, calling 0845 8679445. Please have your credit/debit card details and the information in this letter to hand.

* By post, sending a cheque or postal order made payable to Parking Control Management (UK) Ltd to the address at the top of this letter.

 

2. You may also make an appeal to POPLA - The Independent Appeals Service. If you wish to make an appeal to POPLA, information on how to appeal can be found at

 

The verification code you will need in order to appeal to the Independent Appeals Service is and the appeals form you will need is also available on the above link. It is important that you reference the verification code on the appeals form in the required section at the bottom of the form as appeals submitted without this code will not be assessed.

 

If you opt for independent arbitration of your case, the Parking Charge Notice will increase to £100.00 which you will be liable for in the event your appeal rejected.

 

Please note that the independent adjudicator is unable to waive the parking Notice because of mitigating circumstances and a decision will be based on facts and evidence only.

 

3. If you choose to do nothing, we will seek to recover the monies owed to us via our debt recovery procedures and may proceed with Court action against you.

 

 

Yours sincerely,

PCM Appeals Team

 

Could anyone please advise me as to what to do next. I'm starting to worry, as i really don't want to pay the extra £40 if I don't have to.

 

Thank you in advance!!

 

P.S.

 

Just looking at the letter to which the permit was attached too when it was delivered to my flat. It states:

 

'Place permit on display. It is your responsibility to check when leaving your vehicle'

 

As i stated in my original letter to PCM (uk) the permit was adhered to my windscreen when i exited my car.

 

 

Don't know if this information can be used, but thought i would post it and see what you guys thought.

[BankFodder]

See the advice under this link - ignore

[SatyaT]

thank you...so in your opinion appealing to POPLA is not really a worthwhile pursuit???

[Crocdoc]

You can of course appeal to POPLA if you wish and should that fail you can still ignore as the findings are only binding on the PPC and not the recipient of the invoice, the cost of this is met by the PPC, which is £27.00 + VAT. The remit of this so called independent body is very narrow and does not look at the REAL ISSUES surrounding the legality of these charges.

 

Threfore you have nothing to lose.

[dx100uk]

its NOT A FINE

 

read it properly

 

they do not use that word

 

its a speculative invoice

 

ignore

 

dx

[ericsbrother]

Get the residents association to sack them. If you dont have a residents association start one and sack the management company that employed these people to start with. You will find that life will become easier and cheaper without both.