blandy Posted December 21, 2021 Moderator Share Posted December 21, 2021 44 minutes ago, tonyh29 said: Sadly you are probably screwed Few years back you could just ignore the letter and enjoy the ride as they sent you another 8 letters increase the fine , telling you they were sending bailiffs around , then reducing the fine , then giving you one last chance to pay £50 or they would take you to court .. the loophole was around it being as some kind of fixed penalty which they aren't authorised to issue and thus charging £80 to park was excessive and unlawful but some spineless judge , who was probably on the take , ruled in favour of a company similar to Euro Car parks , so i believe its now nearly impossible to get off these ... you can write a mitigating letter and they can't increase the payment ( if its pay a reduced amount now or it goes up) whilst your appeal is going through the process .. but just about every loophole on these tickets has now been closed ... I got someone off one about a month ago - by doing what I recommended to @Follyfoot. While you may be (I dunno) right about "the law" and loopholes being filled, it's still la hassle to take it to court, for them, over a 80 quid "fine". More trouble than it's worth if the victim has a good story/case for the defence, so to speak. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted December 21, 2021 Moderator Share Posted December 21, 2021 3 hours ago, Follyfoot said: Not sure where to put this so please admin move to the correct place if necessary. Had a letter from the above saying that I was illegally parked in one of the carparks blah blah and have fined me with all sorts of threats if I do not pay. The only time we can think of ever using this car park was a few weeks ago where we pulled onto it to pick up a takeaway curry. We did not even park and were gone inside two minutes. Do they have any legal powers to take things further. My mate reckons just ignore it and they can do nothing and it’s all hot air but. just wondered if anyone had any dealings with these people before. Thanks in advance As others have stated, they should have provided you with photogrpahic evidence of you using their car park You should also examine the car park and see if the signage regarding payments is clear The Money Savings Expert Forum is generally considered to have the best and most up to date advice (read the relevant stickied posts) Quote Parking Tickets, Fines & Parking Confused about parking penalties and fines? Get help with all kinds of car parking problems. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danceoftheshamen Posted December 21, 2021 Share Posted December 21, 2021 Got a parking ticket recently at Villa Park. I parked on really wide dead section of footpath near Spaghetti Junction where I see loads of cars parking at every game. Was given a ticket stating "parked on a red zone" when clearly i was not on the red zone but on a dead area of pavement adjacent to it. I was not blocking the footpath either as the paved area was wide enough to fit 2 cars on let alone one and the tarmac footpath was totally clear. The bit i parked on was a load of badly broken slabs with the footpath inbetween me & the main road. I argued it with photo's etc but of course they just dismissed it as "being on the red zone". Every week since it is still packed with cars parked on matchdays and I have not seen a single ticketed car since!! Did i just get unlucky or what?! Should have argued it further i guess. As for Follyfoots situation my mother had an almost identical one to that. Dropped her friend to a shop in Worcester and got a ticket, being dark she didn't see the camera's and partially hidden little signs high up on the buildings... That one i have gotten off a ticket with before. Some of the signs were partially hidden behind vans or way too high on buildings meaning you could not read them properly and some were not visable at all.. I told the company i had evidence that their signage was insufficient and was looking forward to them taking me to court so i could produce them. The letters stopped although it took a few goes at arguing it with them first so i agree with Blandy if you can throw genuine doubt at it they will often not proceed to court for fear of losing.... easier for them to write the £80 off... Less risk. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted December 21, 2021 Moderator Share Posted December 21, 2021 2 minutes ago, danceoftheshamen said: Got a parking ticket recently at Villa Park. I parked on really wide dead section of footpath near Spaghetti Junction where I see loads of cars parking at every game. Was given a ticket stating "parked on a red zone" when clearly i was not on the red zone but on a dead area of pavement adjacent to it. Any lines yellow or red, indicating parking or stopping restrictions at the edges of roads are valid all the way up to the property line so include any footpaths or other ground right up until you reach non public land 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RussG Posted December 21, 2021 Share Posted December 21, 2021 These jokers tried to recently sting me for being in a car park for over 3hrs where in fact I'd visited the same car park twice in one day for 15 mins at a time, they flat out rejected my appeal then I took it to POPLA and provided my trip history from my phone. My appeal was withheld and that was the end of it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted December 21, 2021 Moderator Share Posted December 21, 2021 13 minutes ago, RussG said: These jokers tried to recently sting me for being in a car park for over 3hrs where in fact I'd visited the same car park twice in one day for 15 mins at a time, they flat out rejected my appeal then I took it to POPLA and provided my trip history from my phone. My appeal was withheld and that was the end of it. Thats how I get every single driver of ours off. If they are working their vehicles are tracked every 15 seconds They've even tried to dispute that, then I point out that the evidence meets the treshold for Murders, County Lines Drug Cases, you name it in Crown Court so if they don't like it, we'll present it at court. Not lost one yet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted December 21, 2021 Share Posted December 21, 2021 6 hours ago, blandy said: I got someone off 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister_a Posted December 22, 2021 Share Posted December 22, 2021 21 hours ago, Davkaus said: Essentially it used to be the case that the costs they tried to recover had to reflect actual provable losses, penalty charges were not enforcable. If you overstayed for an hour, and they tried to bill you £100 you could tell them to do one or ignore it entirely, knowing that even if they tried to take you to court you'd be liable for a few quid based on the chargable tariff and reasonable admin fees. The Supreme Court, in all their wisdom, changed this in Parkingeye vs Beavis, and established that the car park management companies had a legitimate interest is preventing overstaying to control the flow of customers in their car parks, and that £85 was not an unreasonable fee as a deterrent against overstaying, which has set the precedent that these fees are enforceable. Anyone advising to just ignore the letters is relying on outdated information, as of 2015 if you just ignore the letters, you're being sued, and you'll lose. Thanks for this, always good to learn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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