penalty notice

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Mon 23 Jan 2023 10:51
penalty notice - leftfield lenny

I have been employed by a company for just over 18 months who have access to a car park that's monitored by a private firm. I have from the beginning of employment registered my private number plate with them, updating their records whenever I alternated with my wife or daughters car. In December I was issued a ticket on my car with the private registration for not being entitled to use the car park. When I took the matter up with my manager, he said that the registration number had been entered wrongly at some point and to ignore any communication.

That was also the advice given to another work colleague who was sent several letters outlining his impending fines until they gave up. However, he was a agency worker and his car is probably worth no more than £4,000 I on the other hand am a full time employee and my car is worth over £20,000.

I informed and showed my manager the demand for payment for illegal parking and he said to ignore it. But that's easy for him to say, there's no potential of bailiffs knocking on his door if it doesn't go away. What's your advice? Even if it was a clerical issue, it wouldn't have been more than a wrong letter on a keyboard pressed, i.e. a next door letter to the correct one. My correct details have been with the company for over one and a half years.

Edited by leftfield lenny on 23/01/2023 at 10:52

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Mon 23 Jan 2023 12:04
penalty notice - Bromptonaut

So far as I can see the issue is as follows.

It's parking on private land. The landowner may contend that by leaving your car on his land you entered into a contract and owe them a fee as specified on visible signage etc. Their right to do this was confirmed by a Supreme Court case called Beavis.

The landowner has issued you, or your wife/daughter it was her car and she's the keeper with a Parking Charge Notice. There's a process set out in law (Protection of Freedoms Act 2012) to ask for a review and appeal to a tribunal. Or you can ask the landowner to look at it again and cut you some slack as an error was made.

If the charge notice is ignored the landowner can issue County Court proceedings to recover what they say is due to them. Since Beavis was decided some operators have become much more bullish about this. However there's a cost to them in doing so and a lot of them just play around sending threatening letters from Debt Collectors or tame Solicitors.

In order to get Bailiffs involved they must have first gone to the County Court and got a judgement against you or your wife/daughter. As long as you're opening your post and noting what you get you will see the 'Summons' and have the opportunity to act and file a defence.

As an advice worker I've seen plenty of people in trouble over enforcement of parking fines. Mostly they involve Councils where the system has sharper teeth. In pretty much every case either they've been ignoring correspondence or have not got their car registered at their own address.

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Mon 23 Jan 2023 12:25
penalty notice - 72 dudes

That's great advice as usual Bromptonaut, but it's possible this could be much simpler.

I work at the petrol station of a supermarket and we have a 3 hour time limit imposed by a private parking company. As such, all employees have to have their registration number recorded with the private parking company.

All well and good until some glitch or admin error rears its head.

On two occasions I took my wife's car to work, having registered it's number plate along with my own.

Weeks later, and on both occasions, a "fine" arrived in the post for £90.

All I had to do was give the parking penalty notice number to a manager who promptly e-mailed the parking company for it to be cancelled as I was a staff member.

I would urge the OP to go again to his manager and insist he emails the parking company concerned to get the notice dropped. I would imagine the OP's company has something similar in place to my situation.

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Mon 23 Jan 2023 12:30
penalty notice - Bromptonaut

That's great advice as usual Bromptonaut, but it's possible this could be much simpler.

Thank you; I do my best.

You are of course right that getting management (it would be facilities in my old workplace) to engage the Landlord would be a way out. I did though want to allay the OP's fear of bailiffs and his car.

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Mon 23 Jan 2023 12:21
penalty notice - Andrew-T

When I took the matter up with my manager, he said that the registration number had been entered wrongly at some point and to ignore any communication.

If the registration includes a letter-O or a zero that could easily happen. When the Mersey bridge opened a few years ago SWMBO had this problem when she went to pay the toll and the assistant entered the wrong character.

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Mon 30 Jan 2023 15:36
penalty notice - leftfield lenny

Yes, my personal plate includes a 0. Personally, I would have made allowances for any transgression between a 0 and a O, but then again, I'm not a parking patrol warden who's probably on a good bonus if he or she books as many cars as possible.

I feel more at ease now and I'm now just waiting for the next step.

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