What you have described is a very common scenario following large events, and it is one that is entirely defendable.
Your daughter paid for parking for a defined period and complied with the system requirements. She entered the site after the paid session began, parked lawfully, attended the concert, returned to the car well before the expiry time, and correctly entered her registration into the machine before leaving. At that point, her contractual obligations were complete.
The fact that she was then physically prevented from exiting the car park due to internal congestion, poor traffic control, or inadequate site management is not her fault and cannot reasonably be characterised as “parking with no valid permit.” She was not choosing to remain parked. She was trapped within the site by circumstances entirely within the operator’s control.
The allegation itself already appears flawed. “Parked with no valid permit” is contradicted by the booking confirmation, invoice, and payment evidence. Even if the operator attempts to reframe this later as an overstay, that overstay was caused by the car park’s own failure to allow vehicles to exit in a timely manner after a known busy event. Courts are well used to this argument, and it does not assist parking operators.
The delay in seeing the correspondence does not create liability. It only affects the operator’s internal appeal window, which has no bearing on the court process. Debt letters claiming that it is “too late to appeal” are designed to pressure payment and should not be taken as having any legal significance.
DCBL and any other useless debt collector can be safely ignored. Debt collector are powerless to do anything except to try and intimidate the low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree into paying out of ignorance and fear. I can assure you that if the advice given here is followed, you (or your daughter) will not be paying a penny to anyone over this.
What matters now is the original Notice to Keeper. That document determines whether the operator has even attempted to create keeper liability and whether they have complied with the statutory requirements they rely on. Debt collector letters are irrelevant and should not be posted or analysed.
Your daughter should keep all evidence safe, including the booking confirmation, invoice or screenshot showing the paid parking period, any payment references, and the text messages showing she was stuck attempting to exit before the paid time expired. These clearly demonstrate that she was trying to leave and was unable to do so.
Bay Sentry’s usual route, if they persist, is to pass the matter to DCB Legal. I can assure you with greater than 99.9% certainty that any claim issued will, if the advice you receive here is followed and defended using our template defence, end up either struck out or discontinued due to poor particulars, incorrect allegations, and an inability to rebut evidence showing paid parking and no actionable breach.
The next step is simply to post the original Notice to Keeper, both sides, and confirm the dates on it. From there, it will be clear exactly how this is dealt with if they attempt to progress it further. We do not need to see any reminders or useless debt recovery letters.
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