26 Feb 2015

A question about : Parking Eye Fine

Hi, i have recently received a parking fine from Parking Eye, as i parked on a car park at The Wharf, Walsall, for 2 and a bit hours without purchasing a ticket.

Firstly, i realised i hadnt got a ticket as i walked back to the car after our shopping trip with my two children. But by then the damage was done, i honestly didnt even notice the signs,, i was so in uniform shoppin mode.

Having read Martin Lewis's site i notice that they are givin the advice as to not paying the said fines.. I want to just double check that i am not gonna get into more trouble should i not pay it.

Can you please advise. Thank you.

Best answers:

  • You'll get lots of threatening correspondence but the bottom line is the same - it is a self-funding scheme,NAND you don't have to opt in. Incidentally, it isn't a fine - but an invoice for payment, which you can choose to ignore.
  • Would be advisable to also post for opinions on the Parking Tickets, Fines & Parking board.
  • As above. The CAB are not permitted to advise on here about private parking issues.
    Their information on private parking tickets comes from the British Parking Association, who consider that private parking tickets are legitimate and should be paid.
  • What does two "and a bit" hours mean?
    5 minutes? Was there a long queue to get out, as at one I use regularly? If so, write to PE explaining that you were trying to leave but held up by traffic.
  • Hi Peartreepink, thank you for your query regarding parking fine,
    If you were parked on private land and did not see the signs and received a parking fine you may want to dispute the fine or ignore it. The parking company can only take enforcement action against you by first obtaining a county court judgement but if they do decide to take that action it will mean you incur further charges and could affect your credit rating if the judgement is not paid within 30 days. If this was a council car park and you have been issued with a penalty charge notice then the situation is very different and local councils often pass these to bailiff companies to enforce so it is important that you check the details of the ticket. You can find more information on parking fines here: https://www.adviceguide.org.uk/wales/...ivate_land.htm
  • Sorry but the CAB reps advice from Swansea is incorrect
    It isnt a fine
    It cant be enforced, as per stephens post i would suggest you look at the recent VCS judgement.
    Please do read the judgement before giving further advice about parking invoices on private land.
  • Rather than read some of the advice on the link they have posted, it sadly seems that the CAB rep above has quoted from a BPA document instead.
  • I think a phone call to Swansea CAB office tommorrow might be in order, so these issues can be resolved and the advisor put in the right direction.
    Sometimes works better then following a thread on here
  • Taffy i think they would be an excellent idea
    I would suggest you go to their offices and give them all the information so they can in future offer good informed advice in the future.
    Would be a constructive thing to do
  • Parking eye(or any other private company)have to prove YOU were driving the car.Ignore the invoice.
  • With all due respect to my fellow posters the CAB representative was correct in one important respect: that the purported debt arising from a private parking company invoice is enforceable only in the county court.
    Given that it is entirely reasonable to assume that private parking companies are well aware of this fact one has to ask why they are seemingly so unwilling to issue proceedings? This question is thrown into even sharper relief when would considers that private parking companies comport themselves as the only upholders of landowners rights and interests.
    The vast majority of private parking companies are members of the British Parking Association (BPA). The BPA is simply a trade association established to promote and protect the interests of its membership. It has no regulatory powers and is not independent. The fact that the BPA's advice is sought by government should properly be viewed as a function of its being the only representative body in the parking "industry" rather than, necessarily, it having proved itself in giving wise counsel.
    That aside, the BPA admits that around 30% of all private parking invoices remain unpaid. This equates to over 540,000 out of the 1.8M invoices issued during 2011 - a very substantial figure. Yet, so interested in pursuing and upholding the rights of landowners are private parking companies that during the same period they issued county court proceedings in only 845 cases out of the more than half a million instances. More importantly, only 49 were heard in court and in 24 of these cases the claim of the parking companies were rejected. Were I a landowner I would not regard this as a particularly good record and would want some form of explanation.
    For private parking invoices to be upheld at court it must demonstrated that they represent "a genuine pre-estimate" of the losses of the landowner. One must wonder why in all cases involving a single parking company this "genuine pre-estimate" always equates to the same figure when is it not reasonable to conclude that some landowners losses would be greater than others? Why, if the figures are an estimate of their losses, during the first few days after the alleged infraction, those losses are so much less that a discount is inevitably offered? How is it that the losses in free car parks match, pound for pound, the losses in a pay and display car park?
    Importantly, if these invoices did genuinely represent an estimate of their losses quite how these companies made profits based on the only substantial income they have - that of the proceeds of these invoices?
    For many years private parking companies have merrily bandied about the occasionally favourable findings of a county court as if it were a legal "landmark" making much of such cases on their websites and in their letters of demand. Some continue to do so often describing these findings as a "precedent". The truth is that such cases cannot ever form anything of a "landmark" in a legal sense. No county court finding is binding on another county court - it cannot establish a legal precedent. One must ask why such companies misrepresent cases in this way?
    One legally binding case was heard in the Upper Tax Tribunal earlier this year and is cited as Vehicle Control Services Ltd -v- HMRC [2012] UKUT 130 (Judgment can be obtained via this link). The Upper Tax Tribunal is a superior court of record and its decisions are equivalent to the decisions of the High Court and are therefore genuinely binding on lower courts.
    This case held that without specific legal interest in the land on which they purport to "enforce" private parking companies cannot pursue any errant motorist in trespass and nor can they offer any contract to park and, as a consequence, no motorist can be ajudged to have breached any contract.
    Strangely, despite the fact that private parking companies made much of the spurious county court cases (most notably the case describe as Combined Parking Services v Stephen John Thomas [2008]) none has reported the findings of the real legal precedent relevant to their business on any of their websites.
    Some parking companies also make much of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act imminently about to come into force. This schedule establishes that in cases where parking companies are unable to identify the driver of a vehicle that has parked in contravention of the rules of the car park they can pursue the vehicle owner. Aside from the fact that this section overturns the legal principal of privity, it imposes no legal obligation upon the vehicle owner to divulge details as several private parking companies seem to believe and are advising their invoice recipients will be the case.
    Why all this misleading advice and guidance and why the misrepresentation by these companies? Would it have anything whatsoever to do with the fact that being able to issue parking invoices is a licence to print money. Why are parking companies crawling up each others backs to snatch contracts to patrol car parks from their competitors?
    CAB would do well to examine the private parking world in a little more detail than they have thusfar and, just "for openers", ensure they tell their clients that no private company or individual has the authority to levy a fine or penalty on any one else. These are not fines and nor will they ever be. Do not endorse them or imbue them with any form of authority by describing them as parking charges, notices etc but describe them as exactly what they are - invoices. In fact to be more precise, from a strictly legal perspective, they are "invitations to settle" and absolutely nothing else. Most importantly, no one is under any legal obligation whatsoever to pay these invoices and may simply invite parking companies to prove their demands in court which is the only arena in which they are enforceable - or not.
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