Free Traffic Legal Advice

Live cases legal advice => Private parking tickets => Topic started by: MidnightRain_13 on January 27, 2025, 03:17:04 pm

Title: Re: CPM PCN - No E-Permit - Residential Space, South-East London
Post by: b789 on February 03, 2025, 05:22:03 pm
It's a bit like me finding your address and sending you an invoice for £200 for the advice given so far. I'll tell you what though... I'll give you a whopping 60% discount if you pay me within 14 days. How can you resist an offer that saves you £120. Bargain! Go on... you know you want to save £120.

CPM are trying it on with their speculative invoices and almost had you until you came here for advice.

Get on with your wedding plans. This is not going to affect your credit rating in any way, shape or form. You will have to ignore a bunch of useless debt collector letters that appear scary but in actual fact mean nothing. You are no longer ignorant about these things and know how to deal with them if you simply follow the advice.

The process will take about a year but in the end you won't be paying a penny and you'll be a lot wiser.
Title: Re: CPM PCN - No E-Permit - Residential Space, South-East London
Post by: paulpaul1308 on February 03, 2025, 05:12:58 pm
The lease on your parking space makes no mention of needing a permit or of paying third parties for not displaying one. The parking company won't accept these facts of course, they just want some money from you. Are you in the habit of paying speculative invoices from random people?
Title: Re: CPM PCN - No E-Permit - Residential Space, South-East London
Post by: b789 on February 03, 2025, 05:08:58 pm
FUBAR. This was so easily dealt with if you'd not submitted that appeal. It is not irrecoverable though. If you follow the advice, you won't be paying a penny to CPM.

Quote from: MidnightRain_13 on February 03, 2025, 04:36:37 pm
TI’m tempted to just pay the 2 fines as I’m worried about a potential County Court judgment's impact on my credit score, but also just feel really ill spending upwards of £120 when we have so many other expenditures.

Exactly what these rogue, unregulated private parking companies want you to think. They rely on you being low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree and will pay up out of ignorance and fear.

You obviously have no idea how a CCJ is obtained and, like so many people come to the wrong conclusions and fall into the parking companies trap. Before we go any further and clean up this mess you've made for yourself by rushing to appeal and throwing away the best defence you had, which was not identifying the driver, this is the process that must be gone through to get a CCJ on your credit record and nothing we advise on will ever let that happen:

Quote
A Threat of a CCJ Cannot Instantly Affect Your Credit Record

1. Debt Collection and the Long Process Before a CCJ

• Before a County Court Judgment (CCJ) can even be considered, a parking company or creditor will typically send months' worth of meaningless letters from Debt Recovery Agencies (DRAs).

• These DRAs have no legal power—they cannot take you to court, send bailiffs, or affect your credit record. Their only purpose is to pressure you into paying.

• Ignoring these letters does not result in a CCJ.

2. The Legal Process Before a CCJ Can Be Issued

• If the creditor decides to escalate, they must send a Letter Before Claim (LoC) giving you at least 30 days to respond.

• If ignored, they may file a claim with the County Court, after which you will receive a Claim Form.

• You then have 14 days to respond (or 28 days if you acknowledge the claim and request time to prepare a defence).

• If you defend and win, no CCJ is issued.

• If you ignore the claim or lose in court, the CCJ is recorded.

The Timeline – Over a Year Before Any Impact

• From the first debt letter to a potential CCJ, the process can take over a year.

• Until a CCJ is formally issued, nothing appears on your credit file, and your credit score remains completely unaffected.

How to Prevent Any Credit Impact

• Even if a CCJ is issued, you can pay it in full within 30 days, and it will be completely removed from your record as if it never existed.

• This means no lasting damage to your credit.

Summary

• Debt collectors cannot issue a CCJ and have no legal power.

• A court claim takes time and can easily be defended.

• It does not affect your credit score unless a CCJ is issued and left unpaid beyond 30 days.

• If paid in time, the CCJ is removed entirely (expunged), with no impact on your credit record.
Title: Re: CPM PCN - No E-Permit - Residential Space, South-East London
Post by: MidnightRain_13 on February 03, 2025, 04:36:37 pm
Thank you for your help. Sorry for the delayed response, we’re in the midst of finalising plans for our upcoming wedding and this is just an additional headache that doesn’t want to go away. I’m tempted to just pay the 2 fines as I’m worried about a potential County Court judgment's impact on my credit score, but also just feel really ill spending upwards of £120 when we have so many other expenditures.

On what date was the V5C address updated from the Scottish address to the English address? 17th of January 2025
Were the Parking Charge Notices (PCNs) issued as postal Notice to Keeper (NtK) sent to the Scottish address? Yes, though I fear we may have done the wrong thing in changing the liability of those into my name with my English address. We just didn’t want my fiancée's parents receiving multiple threatening letters.
What exactly does your lease/AST say about parking?
We have a separate lease for the parking space, in a separate document.
From Section 1 (Definitions): "Car" means "one private motor vehicle or light van not exceeding one and a half tons in weight"
"Car Parking Space" means "the parking space as shown edged red on the Plan"
From Section 3 (Tenant's Covenants), the key parking provisions state:
3.7: "to use the Car Parking Space only for the parking of a Car and nothing else"
3.8: "not to allow or permit any vehicles to be driven through the Access Road at more than walking pace nor to allow or permit any vehicle to cause any unnecessary or unusual noise in the Building"
3.9: "not to use the Car Parking Space for storage purposes or for any residential or domestic purposes or commercial purposes"
3.12: "to observe such reasonable regulations as the Landlord and/or Management Company may make from time to time governing the Access Road and/or Car Parking Space"
3.17: Requires that any parked vehicle must have:
•Valid insurance per Section 143 Road Traffic Act 1988
•Compliance with vehicle construction regulations
•Current vehicle excise license
The lease grants rights in Schedule 1: "The right of way with or without vehicles over and along and through the Access Road and from and to the public highway in the exercise of the rights contained herein granted subject to such regulations as the Landlord and/or the Management Company may from time to time notify to the Tenant."
There is no specific mention of requiring a permit to park in the designated space.
Please show us what you put in your initial appeal to CPM:
I am writing to formally appeal the Parking Charge Notice (PCN) [XXXXXXX], issued on 07/01/2025 for the vehicle with registration number XXXXXXX. I would like to clarify that I was the driver of the vehicle at the time, and the bay in which the vehicle was parked is the one I lease as part of my flat at XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (screenshot from my lease attached indicating this). As per my lease agreement, I have the right to use this parking space. To support this, I have attached a recent utility bill as evidence of my residency. Regrettably, I overlooked updating the vehicle registration details in your system to include this vehicle. I sincerely apologise for this oversight and have now rectified the issue by ensuring the correct details are registered (temporary code XXXXXXX). This will prevent any similar misunderstandings in the future. Given that the vehicle was parked in the bay I am entitled to use and that this was an administrative oversight, I kindly request that you cancel the PCN as a gesture of goodwill. Thank you for your understanding and prompt attention to this matter. Should you require any further information or additional evidence to support my appeal, please do not hesitate to contact me.

The management company have been no help whatsoever, but to be fair I have only emailed them to which they haven’t responded. With so many other moving parts, starting to wonder if I should just pay to avoid the hassle, but £120+ feels excessive for parking in my own space.
Title: Re: CPM PCN - No E-Permit - Residential Space, South-East London
Post by: b789 on January 27, 2025, 04:00:29 pm
On what date was the V5C address updated from the Scottish address to the English address? Were the Parking Charge Notices (PCNs) issued as postal Notice to Keeper (NtK) sent to the Scottish address?

Any PCN issued to a Scottish address cannot hold the Keeper liable. They could be safely ignored and eventually they would stop because no English operator is going to try and sue someone in the Scottish court under the Simple Procedure because it would cost them much more than they could ever hope to recover.

However, it sounds like you have already appealed and blown away that easy option. What exactly does your lease/AST say about parking? We know that what it doesn't say is equally as important, especially the lack of mention of requiring a permit.

Please show us the terms in the lease/AST that cover parking. A term allowing the management company a right to make reasonable regulations does not override your supremacy of contract. If the lease/AST does not require you to display a permit (and you only did so previously out of courtesy) and the lease has not been varied in accordance with the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, section 37 5(a) or (b) (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1987/31/section/37) then you are not bound by any third party signs that have been put up.

So, please show us the terms that apply to parking as they are worded in your lease.

As for appealing to the IAS, personally, I wouldn't even bother trying with that kangaroo court. It will be a complete waste of time and effort. However er, please show us what you put in your initial appeal to CPM and what the management company have said about this, assuming you complained to them about it.
Title: CPM PCN - No E-Permit - Residential Space, South-East London
Post by: MidnightRain_13 on January 27, 2025, 03:17:04 pm
Background: I am the registered keeper and leasehold owner of a designated parking space that comes with my flat.

Situation: My partner and I recently inherited her father’s old car and drove it back from Scotland after spending the holidays there on 02/01/2024. Upon returning, due to the rush of the New Year and work commitments, I didn’t immediately submit for an e-permit. However, the process once started was very convoluted, especially since the car’s documents (V5C and insurance) were registered at my partner’s family home. The parking company’s process for registering the car under my name, so I could park it in my own parking space, has been incredibly frustrating. We’ve since transferred the vehicle into our name and are now waiting for the new V5C. During this time, we were issued two PCNs. Fundamentally, this is my parking space, and it feels absurd that I’ve been charged to use it. We’ve now parked the car on a side road, while the space I’m legally entitled to remains unused, as I navigate a mountain of unnecessary red tape to use something that should already be mine.