parking fine advice please

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Sat 4 Aug 2012 19:23
parking fine advice please - thepieman

i'm posting this for some help for my father parking fine. any advice would be much appreciated.

He parked his vehicle in a car park where you get the 1st hour free but you do have to still obtain a ticket from the machine & display it on your dashboard. my father failed to do this as he was only popping to Wickes to grab some DIY stuff.

he came out and on his windscreen was stuck a clear wallet but with no ticket inside... he pulled it off and kept the empty wallet and drove off.

this happened on15/6/2012.. he got a letter through the post today 4/8/2012 which stated that this was the 2nd letter posted to him and because he has ignored the previous letter his fine is now £90.

in the letter was just 1 picture of my fathers number plate.

Basically he never got the original PCN attached to his screen, he never received the 1st letter in the post either..

Where does he stand & what should he do?

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Sat 4 Aug 2012 19:33
parking fine advice please - daveyjp
If the 'invoice' is from a private parking company ignore everything which gets sent to him. The paperwork will get more threatening to try and get him to pay but the letters will be full of 'may' and 'if'.

The only time to consider doing anything is if fully stamped official Court papers arrive, a very rare event.

Edited by daveyjp on 04/08/2012 at 19:47

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Sat 4 Aug 2012 20:19
parking fine advice please - gordonbennet

Assuming the invoice is from a private company and not the local authority, then yes simply ignore the thing.

The letters that follow will seem increasingly ominous, and the absolute important thing is to ignore everything, make no reply at all.

Pepipoo is THE forum for good specialist information on excessive parking charges, a brief read on there will soon enlighten.

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Sat 4 Aug 2012 20:21
parking fine advice please - thepieman

just phoned my dad, the company is called UKPC if this any help..

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Sat 4 Aug 2012 20:30
parking fine advice please - gordonbennet

just phoned my dad, the company is called UKPC if this any help..

Many posts on Pepipoo about that shower.

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Sat 4 Aug 2012 20:30
parking fine advice please - NARU

UKPC: Just ignore them

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Sat 4 Aug 2012 20:41
parking fine advice please - thepieman

Cheers guys, I have just phoned my Dad again and told him to 'file the letters'....in the BIN...:)

once again thanks for all your advice...

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Sun 5 Aug 2012 10:01
parking fine advice please - thirts
My understanding, if this is a private company, is that they have to prove who the driver of the car was. This is because the driver, not the car, has entered into a contract with the parking company. They can't in effect invoice a car.

Just because you are the owner does not prove it was you who parked the car. And it is the parking company who has to prove who parked the car, there is no onus on the car owner to provide that information.

So I would agree with others and not enter into any correspondence with this company. However it's easy to be a keyboard warrior.
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Sun 5 Aug 2012 10:19
parking fine advice please - daveyjp
Identifying the driver is now a minor issue for the private parking companies.
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Sun 5 Aug 2012 10:47
parking fine advice please - NARU

There is also a recent HMRC test case, which concluded that many of these 'contracts' are invalid (unless the parking company has an interest in the land).

And there is also the unfair contracts act - it might just about be fair to recoup a genuine loss from someone who parks, but a penalty is not fair.

No wonder almost no cases actually get to court.

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