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Parking & Enforcement Agency (PEA) NI Windsreen PCN no BB, Antrim Hospital, NI


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Got PCN at hospital in NI.

 

Ticket says no valid disabled badge on display.

Disabled badge was on display and was visible in my opinion, though which side was up I couldn't say due to extreme stress.

 

The badge belonged to registered owner who was in hospital and who in fact passed away a few hours after the ticket was put on the windscreen.

 

The registered owner was not the driver but there was a key family member who was a passenger with mobility difficulties and so one of the disabled bay spaces was used.

 

This is brutal and I am wondering how to address this as quickly and easily as possible without having to disturb those affected in the deceased estate.

 

I am a very close relative and this very upsetting.

 

This happened in the last week.

 

How do you suggest I proceed on this.

 

Thank you.

Edited by dx100uk
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please don't hit Quote...just type we know what we said earlier..

DCA's view debtors as suckers, marks and mugs

NO DCA has ANY legal powers whatsoever on ANY debt no matter what it's Type

and they

are NOT and can NEVER  be BAILIFFS. even if a debt has been to court..

If everyone stopped blindly paying DCA's Tomorrow, their industry would collapse overnight... 

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So... it's a PCN parking charge notice

1) 29/1/18 date infringement

2) Not appealed yet

3) No notice to keeper yet...too recent

4) Parking company is PEA , Parking and Enforcement Agency Limited, a member of BPA and registered in Ireland with registered office in Belfast.

5) location Antrim Area Hospital, Antrim, Northern Ireland

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The badge belonged to registered owner who was in hospital and who in fact passed away a few hours after the ticket was put on the windscreen.

 

The registered owner was not the driver but there was a key family member who was a passenger with mobility difficulties and so one of the disabled bay spaces was used.

 

 

 

Sorry to hear that your friend or family member has passed away. A PCN is the last thing you need but sadly car park companies had their compassion removed at birth and couldn't care less.

 

 

I can't comment on the PCN but it's as well you were in a private hospital car park as it would have been a criminal offence to use a BB this way for on street parking.

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I cannot be certain one way or the other how this was displayed.

 

Should they have taken a photo to prove their assertion that no BB was on display?

 

And if they do is there no leeway on account of very difficult stresses?

 

Thank you.

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Seasider. Don't stress over which way up the BB was or whether or not you were entitled to use it.

 

Blue badges and parking spaces for BB holders mean absolutely nothing on private land. They could equally insist on you displaying a label from a bottle of Guinness in your windscreen, it would carry just as much weight. :wink:

 

Besides which, I'm fairly certain that the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4. Only extends to England & Wales. So there is no such thing as keeper liability in Northern Ireland. As long as PEA don't know who was driving the vehicle, there's not a great deal that they can do as they won't know who to act against.

 

There's no legal obligation to tell them who was driving.

Please note that my posts are my opinion only and should not be taken as any kind of legal advice.
In fact, they're probably just waffling and can be quite safely and completely ignored as you wish.

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Thank you.

That's really helpful.

 

I'm just a bit concerned that letter(s) will come to the deceased as registered keeper and this will be distressing for next of kin.

 

But I'll talk to them based on this.

 

Thank you.

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Ahh yes, there being no keeper liability (even more so under the circumstances) won't stop the begging, increasingly desperate and ultimately threatening letters from the parking company and their pet debt collectors. But, rest assured that they are completely powerless.

 

It would be a very simple matter to bat this away once a Notice to Keeper arrives, though the family will have to prove that the keeper has passed away. It's callous but the parking company will swear that black was blue that you'd be lying to them. But equally, there'd be some mileage in messing with the parking company on this as well. It all depends on how much of a craic the family would be up for.

 

Was the keeper a practical joker? If so, this one could be their last laugh at the parking companies expense :wink:

Please note that my posts are my opinion only and should not be taken as any kind of legal advice.
In fact, they're probably just waffling and can be quite safely and completely ignored as you wish.

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Well he enjoyed a joke for sure

but he would not want me to leave his next of kin with the stress of this.

 

I will take them on though if I have a basis for doing so as driver.

 

I do know what these letters are like having gone through this process and out the other side with an English PPC.

 

I can see that there is no POPLA appeal in NI for this company so I would be entirely at the mercy of their own appeals process!

 

Though you can escalate a complaint to the IPC!

 

Under the Appeals section of the PCN it says if you are unable to write, email or use our website please call 03450737209. If you ring that number it says press 1 for appeals. If you press 1 it says you must submit appeals in writing!

 

Any other way to work this and keep the next of kin out of it?

 

Thank you.

Edited by dx100uk
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The IPC? PEA are shown as BPA members. It's a bit odd if they're naming the IPC on the ticket.

 

Can you scan it (hide anything like vehicle registrations, ticket numbers bar & QR codes) and then upload it to the thread as a PDF.-

 

The only way that you're going to keep the next of kin out of the loop is to name yourself as the driver.

 

This would usually carry the risk of removing the protection of POFA, but as that doesn't apply, I don't suppose it makes too much difference.

 

You've got the benefit of knowing that there was a BB displayed. So it's up to PEA to prove that it wasn't, not for you to prove that there was.

 

Re-reading that post, it may not make sense when read along with my earlier posts.

 

I realise that I've already told you that the BB isn't important on private land. It isn't, but it is important to give the PPC enough rope to hang themselves and make them do all the running.

 

Once they attempt to prove whether or not there was a BB on display, and even if they show that there wasn't, this gives you more ammunition to fire back at them.

 

It might also be awkward not to involve the family at all, as you may need some basic details from them for your complaint to the hospital (unless you know them already) which is another front on which to attack the PPC.

Please note that my posts are my opinion only and should not be taken as any kind of legal advice.
In fact, they're probably just waffling and can be quite safely and completely ignored as you wish.

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I realise that I've already told you that the BB isn't important on private land. It isn't, ...

 

Depends what you mean by "isn't important".

 

The statutory scheme for BBs doesn't apply in private car parks so you can't be prosecuted for breach of BB law or receive a Penalty Charge Notice for not displaying one.

 

But a private car park can (and they usually do) say in their conditions for using the car park that you must display a BB if you park in their disabled bay. If you breach that condition you can receive a parking charge notice.

 

It's no different to breaching any other of their conditions

- parking within marked bays, displaying ticket in the car, or whatever.

 

Of course their signage must be clear and meet the rules

- it often doesn't

- and (in England/Wales) their procedures must comply with POFA

- again, they often don't.

 

But in principle a private car park operator can require a BB to be displayed as a condition of parking in a disabled bay.

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Are you suggesting that to be considered disabled, you must have a blue badge?

 

As for the PPC's terms & conditions, well, they can put whatever they like. Just because they're there, it doesn't make them enforceable. On private land a parking space is just a parking space regardless of what someone has decided to paint on the tarmac or write on a sign.

 

And as the OP has said that a BB was displayed, then the PPC doesn't really have any kind of case unless they can prove that it wasn't. And not just by the use of clever angles when taking the pictures.

Please note that my posts are my opinion only and should not be taken as any kind of legal advice.
In fact, they're probably just waffling and can be quite safely and completely ignored as you wish.

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Are you suggesting that to be considered disabled, you must have a blue badge?

 

No. I haven't said anything at all about what makes someone disabled and it isn't relevant to this thread. On public roads being disabled doesn't entitle you to a BB (it was OP who called it a Disability Badge).

 

As for the PPC's terms & conditions, well, they can put whatever they like. Just because they're there, it doesn't make them enforceable. On private land a parking space is just a parking space regardless of what someone has decided to paint on the tarmac or write on a sign.

 

Not true. A private car park owner is entitled to limit parking in particular areas of their car park to specific types of users if they want to. The condition must be properly signposted of course, and frequently it isn't, but there's no law preventing them in principle. Would you argue that you are entitled to park your car in a motorcycle bay and there's nothing the car park owner can do about it?

 

And as the OP has said that a BB was displayed, then the PPC doesn't really have any kind of case unless they can prove that it wasn't. And not just by the use of clever angles when taking the pictures.

 

Of course, obviously in any specific case the parking company has to prove the facts to show there was a breach of their conditions and it seems unlikely the parking company can do that here from what OP has said. That should be OP's case, not that the operator wasn't entitled to require a BB to be displayed.

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OK, we seem to be talking at cross purposes here. And you seem to be missing the point that I am trying to make.

 

Not true. A private car park owner is entitled to limit parking in particular areas of their car park to specific types of users if they want to. The condition must be properly signposted of course, and frequently it isn't, but there's no law preventing them in principle.

 

Of course they are, no one (as far as I can see) has said that they can't put up any condition that they like. They could say "This car park is for yellow cars with pink spots only" if they wanted to, it's entirely up to them. That doesn't make it enforceable (morally or legally) by any stretch of the imagination.

 

The car park owner (the hospital trust in this case (I would imagine)) will usually have to supply parking for the disabled, but it would probably be an unenforceable contract term for either them or their muppet show PPC to say that any disabled person (driver or passenger) that wants to make use of those spaces must show a blue badge as not all disabled people qualify for a BB (as you well know).

 

I wonder what the actual (hospital or trust) policy is, because I'd put a months wages on it that it won't be the same as the PPC's! I can't imagine a hospital saying "you can't park here if you're not disabled enough to get a blue badge" (even though the councils get away with it!)

 

-

 

No one has suggested a course of action as regards an appeal as of yet, of which, when the time comes, the blue badge will only form a single part.

Please note that my posts are my opinion only and should not be taken as any kind of legal advice.
In fact, they're probably just waffling and can be quite safely and completely ignored as you wish.

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I'm not missing the point you are trying to make,

I understand you perfectly well,

I just disagree with you!

 

I can't think of any reason why a requirement to show a BB to park in a BB bay is unenforceable.

If that's a contractual condition for parking in the car park what legal principle makes you think the condition is unenforceable in a court?

 

That claim has been made on here before but when challenged

no-one has ever been able to cite any law or court decision or official guidance saying that the condition is unenforceable.

 

So OP would be unwise to rely too heavily on any defence that the requirement to display a BB is legally unenforceable.

But at risk of repeating myself,

it is only enforceable if the BB bay is correctly signed and proper procedures followed,

and they very often aren't,

which provides a good defence.

 

Not all disabled people are entitled to a BB,

BB is for mobility problems.

 

We agree about that.

But it's a BB bay,

not a disabled bay.

 

You must display a BB to park in it, not prove disability.

 

O I can't imagine a hospital saying "you can't park here if you're not disabled enough to get a blue badge"

 

If you can't fair enough, but I can imagine it perfectly well. It's fact-specific for the hospital in question but it's not obvious to me why, say, someone with Dyslexia should be allowed preferential parking in a hospital car park. They wouldn't get a BB, lots of people with a disability have no mobility problems at all so why does a dyslexic person need to be able to park in a bay close to the exit?

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Plenty of reading here... http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=blue+badge

 

There probably aren't any court decisions to back it up as most PPC's will run away and hide rather than risk being slapped down by a proper judge for discrimination under the equalities act. That would be an unmitigated disaster for all of them.

 

If you can't fair enough, but I can imagine it perfectly well. It's fact-specific for the hospital in question but it's not obvious to me why, say, someone with Dyslexia should be allowed preferential parking in a hospital car park. They wouldn't get a BB, lots of people with a disability have no mobility problems at all so why does a dyslexic person need to be able to park in a bay close to the exit?

 

Off topic. You say that, but dyslexia is actually quite an interesting point. Can someone be expected to read, understand and abide by the terms and conditions if they are dyslexic. What a test case that would be :lol:

Please note that my posts are my opinion only and should not be taken as any kind of legal advice.
In fact, they're probably just waffling and can be quite safely and completely ignored as you wish.

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OK Ethel, you obviously just want someone to agree with you and tell you that you're right and that everyone else that gives advice on these forums is wrong.

 

OK, you're right and we're all morons. You win. Run along.

  • Haha 1

Please note that my posts are my opinion only and should not be taken as any kind of legal advice.
In fact, they're probably just waffling and can be quite safely and completely ignored as you wish.

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Oh right. I knew you were a woman did I.... You realise I'm not really a dragon I presume? But you do win. I give up.

Please note that my posts are my opinion only and should not be taken as any kind of legal advice.
In fact, they're probably just waffling and can be quite safely and completely ignored as you wish.

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I am direct family of the deceased(my parent) but not next of kin and will not be the person getting all the letters which could result from this.

 

A BB was definitely visible,

no question,

but it could have been wrong way up.

 

Not highest priority when rushing to be at a dying person's bedside.

 

I will upload the PCN in jpg form as that's what I'm able to do at the moment.

 

Thank you.

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