Parking Charge Notice outside a Hospital

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Sat 13 Jul 2013 11:13
Parking Charge Notice outside a Hospital - Marrv

Hello all,

I am having trouble working out where a friend of mine stands in relation to a parking charge notice. This is a long one so please bare with me.

Back in June this friend took me to A&E for a head injury, she parked in a private cark park between two council car parks. She paid the £1/hour charge. She realised that the ticket was running out & went to purchase another ticket. She arrived within the 5 minute grace period to find a que and proceeded to que. While she was queing her car was ticketed. She approached the operative and questioned him, but he drove away without answering her.

Due to her having CFS/ME she went into a bad time, I recovered enough to read the ticket 10 days later. I found on the front it said "you have 7 days to appeal". I resigned to waiting for the letter with more information how to appeal further.

The letter has arrived and now says "you had 28 days to appeal and did not, therefore you forfiet the right". I re-read the ticket, yes it says 7 days on the front, 14 on the back.

So;

Do I still have a right to appeal to the private firm as they misled me with how long I have to appeal to them with multiple contradicting information?

Do these firms use contract law to enforce their claims?

If so the £100 charge seems unreasonible for a breach of 14 minutes (ticket to ticket) and for a £1/hour car park this seems like an unfair contract term as well as an unreasonible penalty charge. (Unfair Contract Terms & Dunlop respectivly). Can I argue the charge on these grounds?

Should I start an appeal to POPLA? Or is that just for London (this took place in Leeds).

Any help will be great, can provide as much information as possible without gibing too much info away

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Sat 13 Jul 2013 13:41
Parking Charge Notice outside a Hospital - FP

You do not menton the name of the parking company, but if you go to www.pepipoo.com you will be able to search and get up to date with their antics.

"Do these firms use contract law to enforce their claims?" Good question. There seem to be remarkably few examples of cases coming to court. My impression is that the "victims" either pay up, or refuse to respond to the increasingly threatening letters and end up by being ignored.

If you want to contest it, probably you should be prepared for a court appearance during which you would argue about the existence of a contract (how clear was the signage, etc.) and the fairness of otherwise of such a contract. In practice, it doesn't seem to happen.

My suggestion would be to ignore the whole thing.

Edited by FP on 13/07/2013 at 13:42

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Wed 24 Jul 2013 17:04
Parking Charge Notice outside a Hospital - Palcouk

Dispute the charge, invite the Company to take you to the parking appeals tribunal

On the facts given they will lose (95% sure)

The parking company cannot go any further unless they physically instigate legal action, and nothing can happen about that until a court/Tribunal has given a rulling.

Threats about your credit status are empty threats

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Wed 21 Aug 2013 18:56
Parking Charge Notice outside a Hospital - Marrv

Right,

It has been a few weeks and got a letter through the post today saying

"Unfortunately as the parking notice was issued over 28 days ago we are unable to accept your appeal. As stated on the parking charge notice all appeals must be recieved within seven days of issue. As your appeal was significantly late the appeals procedure has now closed and the parking notice will stand".

It is correct that the appeal was sent in late, however the notice to the keeper was not sent to the keeper until 32 days after the notice was issued. Furthermore an ongoing illness the keeper had issues addressing this so several weeks passed until the letter was opened & this issue started to be resolved.

I called UKCPS (the company in question) who said I have no right to a POPLA appeal as I was outside of the 28 days.

As such I cannot forward this to POPLa to dispute. What should I do next? Can I force the company to go to POPLA without an appeal number? If so how?

Short of ignoring it any other advice? I shall most likely ignore it unless a court summons appears but I like being fully prepared either way.

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Wed 21 Aug 2013 21:45
Parking Charge Notice outside a Hospital - FP

Have you looked at Pepipoo, as advised above? I suggest you ask for help there.

However, a couple of observations. Firstly, regarding late appeals: "If your appeal is late, it cannot normally be considered. If you do send it late you must explain fully and clearly on the appeal form itself why it is late. The Assessor will then decide whether the appeal can be considered but this is likely to happen only in very limited circumstances." (from the POPLA website)

Note - you do not have to "force the company to go to POPLA"; you can make your appeal online from the website - www.popla.org.uk/makinganappeal.htm#whencan

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