EPC ANPR PCN - Lease car - overstay- M&B - Old White Lion - East Finchley **CANCELLED BY PUB**

[ELLE17]

Hi again

Embarrassingly, this is the second PCN I have received from a Private Company in 2023! 

 I have not had a parking ticket for years before this and now 2 in the space of 6 months!

I met a friend at a pub which I have visited many times in the past and often parked in their car park when there was space. 

As it was a quiet evening i thought nothing of it that there were spaces available, had a drink, chatted to my friend and went home. 

I saw no signs at all, either on my way in or on my way out!

I was shocked a few days later when I received an email from the company I lease my car from that I had been given a PCN - see attached. 

Following advice on here i did nothing. 

I then received a notice to hirer around mid December and then a Final Notification Letter on 20 Jan 2024. 

I have not responded at all.

What is the best move now?

Thanks everyone!

Laoise

 

 

EPC NTH+NTK+Final notice .pdf

[dx100uk]

please complete this:

please dont forget next time to READ upload and REDACT letters you put up!! and we need bothsides of every letter too. one multipage pdf for them all is acceptable.

ive done if for you this time

dx

[lookinforinfo]

I see that you received the original PCN that was sent to Leaseplan as well as your Notice to Hirer. Did you also receive a copy of your Hire contract and a copy of your agreement that you are responsible for parking tickets etc.?

They have already made one mistake with their Notice to Hirer inasmuch as they should have given you 23 days to respond rather than the usual 28 days.  Could you please confirm that the other documents  were sent to you along with the PCNs.

[ELLE17]

1 Date of the infringement 28/11/2023

2 Date on the NTK [this must have been received within 14 days from the 'offence' date] 05/12/2023
 

3 Date received 13/12/2023 (via email from leasing company)
 

4 Does the NTK mention schedule 4 of The Protections of Freedoms Act 2012? [Y/N?] Y
 

5 Is there any photographic evidence of the event? Y
 

6 Have you appealed? [Y/N?] post up your appeal] N
 

Have you had a response? [Y/N?] post it up N
 

7 Who is the parking company? Euro Car Parks

 

8. Where exactly [carpark name and town] Old White Lion pub, East Finchley
 

For either option, does it say which appeals body they operate under. POPLA

If you have received any other correspondence, please mention it here

Notice to Hirer dated 14/12/2023

Final Notification Letter dated 20/01/2024

I also received 2 letters from Leaseplan:

1. to let me know that ":We have given your details to the relevant authority transferring liability of this offence to you."

2. THIRD PARTY AUTHORISATION LETTER

Hi - I didnt receive a copy of my hire contract or copy of the agreement. 

Would Leaseplan need to have sent this or the parking company? 

I received a letter from Leaseplan telling me that they had received the pcn and then a third party authorisation letter - see redacted items attached 

 

 

 

docs1 .pdf

[Homer67]

Call or visit the pub and tell them to call off their dogs, they wil say it's out of their hands but it isn't, they can and should tell EuroCP to cease action.

Get on the Pub's social channels and do the same if they don't respond favorably to your visit/call

[dx100uk]

again you put up a whole series of single page PDF files that were NOT redacted properly..

when told how to properly redact by following our upload guide on how to do it as one mass file..............

do you want these people to find you here.

sorted again and merged to one file.

[FTMDave]

Homer beat me to it ...

[lookinforinfo]

Thank you for posting that information-it puts you in the clear so you do not owe them a penny even if the best lawyer in the Country goes with Euro Car Parks to Court. 

They have made a number of errors -the major one being the Notic to Hirer. That is the most important document for them since in order to win in Court ECP have to comply with The protection of Freedoms Act 2012 Schedule 4.  Section 13 and 14 of the Act relate to hire vehicles. S13 is more to do with the Hire company while S14 deals with the hirer and what ECP has to do to comply with the Act.

There first mistake is although they state that they sent you a Notice to Hirer, they have by allowing you 28 days to pay the invoice effectively sent you a Notice to Keeper. Hirers only get 21 days grace to settle the bill. That in itself is enough to kill their case as they have failed to comply with one of the provisions of the Act. And they have tocomply with them all to be able to be able to pursue you.

They then compound their error by asking for the name and address of the driver if you were not the driver. This is necessary with a Notice to Keeper but not on a Notice to Hirer because hen it doesn't matter who was driving ony the hirer is responsible. As ther is no mention of who was driving in the Hire section of the Act, your PCN is not compliant.

And by not sending the Hire contract and the agreement of your responsibility for parking tickets etc they confirmed that not only are they complete idiots [which we already knew] but further ensured that you are not liable at all.

The original PCN to the Lease company is also non compliant but not worth adding since you already more than killer their case. And I doubt that "Your vehicle was not authorised to park" is actually stated on their sign age in the car park.

So need to stress. Just relax and laugh at heir stupid letter from them and their unregulated debt collectors.

[ELLE17]

Thank you Lookinforinfo, FTMDAve, DX100uk and Homer67 for helping me.  I feel pretty stupid for not following the protocols for posting attachments.  Thank you for helping with this too!

So, from what I have understood, I can just go to the pub (or social media) and ask them to stop Euro Parks from hounding me.  But apart from that I can do nothing as its unlikely they would be able to win in court anyway so they wont pursue me.  Have I got that right?

Thank you

Laoise

[FTMDave]

Well you've seen in your other thread where appeals get you - nowhere.

The pub, on the other hand, will have the power to call their dogs off - and will want to keep customers.

Of course it won't be as easy as that, it will depend if the pub itself called in EPC or if it was head office in case of a chain - but the pub is your starting point.

Is it easy for you to go back there?

[lookinforinfo]

Elle you are not dealing with a proper company. They have been in the parking business for years but are still incapable of issuing a correct PCN. Now whilse that is good news for you as they are still blissfully unaware that their PCN is not compliant and even if they did know, it still won't stop them trying to scare you into paying.

All you can do is totally ignore all their threats safe in the knowledge that they have no chance of winning and have a good laugh at their expense. However one day they may decide to issue you with a Letter  before claim or a letter of Claim. Please do not ignore those but let us know so we can advise on your next move.

[Nicky Boy]

Having read the correspondence from Leaseplan to you, you also need to inform them that they CANNOT charge an admin fee for their part in this.

It is NOT a Penalty Charge, nor is it a fine. It is simply a speculative invoice. (Check your lease agreement for the wording).

[ELLE17]

Thanks Nicky Boy

I have just checked and this is the relevant clause:

• an administration fee of up to £25.00 (including VAT) each time we receive and process a fixed penalty, fine, congestion or other charge in connection with the Vehicle or its use. In addition if we pay such charges on your behalf you shall reimburse us in respect of the such payment (see paragraph 2.2 of the Terms and Conditions)

Is this contrary to legislation? 

BTW they did not automatically pay the Parking Charge Notices from Alliance Parking or Euro Parks, but they did pay a Penalty Charge Notice from TFL Red Routes (which I also contested at the time as the sign implied we could park there at specific times to load - but my appeal was rejected).

£25 does seem a lot though for just forwarding an email!

Thanks

Laoise

[dx100uk]

a speculative invoice is none of those

its a civil private parking contractual matter.

 

[FTMDave]

Yes - demand the money back, and if they don't play ball go and do chargeback through your bank.

On Google Maps the pub seem to take customer service very seriously and reply to every single review.  So phoning and asking for the manager, or even better going in if the place isn't too far from you, is the road to go down.

 

[Nicky Boy]

17 hours ago, ELLE17 said:

BTW they did not automatically pay the Parking Charge Notices from Alliance Parking or Euro Parks, but they did pay a Penalty Charge Notice from TFL Red Routes

Which shows that they DO know the difference...

[ELLE17]

Thanks for everyone’s help with this pcn.  

I finally had an opportunity go to the pub with the letters and told them I was drinking in their pub that night

they immediately cancelled the ticket.  

They said they put it in place because lots of people were leaving their cars in the car park all day and hopping on the tube.

Once I told them I was legit it was all cancelled. 
i have not yet tackled my lease company but will do so in the next week.  

thanks again everyone

- where do I go to acknowledge a success?

Laoise

[dx100uk]

well done!!

thread title updated.

[FTMDave]

Well done on your victory! 

[honeybee13]

Well done, thank you for letting us know.

HB

[Nicky Boy]

Congratulations Elle!

1 hour ago, ELLE17 said:

- where do I go to acknowledge a success?

There is a donate button further down the page...

We're all volunteers, but there are overheads to actually run the website.

And go get that "admin fee" back...

[Nicky Boy]

1 hour ago, ELLE17 said:

they immediately cancelled the ticket.

Have you actually got anything to confirm this?

[lookinforinfo]

That is good news Elle. If you send the Cancellation message  to Leaseplan to show you  hadn't breached anything that might convince them to repay you.

Even if the Pub hadn't cancelled your ticket you still wouldn't have had to pay a penny had it got to Court because ECP did not comply with PoFA. But you would have been deluged with threats from unregulated debt collectors in the meantime.

Edited March 7 by lookinforinfo

[FTMDave]

Your victory will make it easier to get the admin charge back.

We've had a few cases recently of car hire companies mixing up (or pretending to mix up) Penalty Charge Notices with invoices from a private company.  So Caggers have had to argue it out with them.

But in your case not only was it not a Penalty Charge Notice but it has also been cancelled!

So write to them and demand your money back on the basis that

On 08/02/2024 at 16:23, ELLE17 said:

• an administration fee of up to £25.00 (including VAT) each time we receive and process a fixed penalty, fine, congestion charge

(a) the invoice was none of these and (b) it has been cancelled by the landowner (obviously attach proof).

As it's in their interests to try to keep the £25, in parallel look up your bank's web pages re chargeback.

Hopefully all will go well but if Leaseplan faff around as soon as you can demand a chargeback through your bank.

BTW, I'd heard all this "chargeback" stuff on the forum but had never been in the position to need one until a year ago.  In my case I had paid for train tickets that were never purchased as the site crashed during purchase.  I wrote to the train company - no reply.  I looked up my bank's chargeback pages - they said I had to give the trader the chance to remedy matters and if they didn't I could do chargeback after 14 days.  The train company never replied.  After 14 days I got on to the bank (RBS).  My money was refunded.