Hello, help pleasseeee. Young couple spiralling…
My partner and I live in an apartment block where we pay for parking - in our space. In February, we came home to find someone in our space, and security said to park in guest bays and move it when we could. We did that, all fine. Took about a day for the other car to move.
In that time, we were issued a PCN because the NPC rules say you must be in your spot. However, our building management said they (NPC) had cancelled the PCN as it wasn’t our fault and we still pay to park in the car park. They emailed us saying they had been cancelled but didn’t provide any screenshots or anything.
Clearly, they didn’t. We received a £170 fine from DCBL, who obviously don’t accept appeals at this stage.
Obviously I’be gone straight to the building management, but I’m worried about this and court in the future, I’m guessing our building management can’t stop this fine? Any advice appreciated. Wondering whether to pay, and just deal later? Is that stupid? Probably.
What "fine"? I will give you £100 for each and every occurrence of the word "fine" or "penalty" you can find in your Parking Charge Notice (PCN).
Before we go much further, what exactly does your lease or AST say about parking? Who do you pay for the privilege of parking?
One thing is for sure, you can safely ignore anything from DCBL or any other debt collector. They are powerless to actually do anything except to try and make the low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree pay up out of ignorance and fear. Never, ever enter into any communication with a third party, powerless debt collector.
For now, you may want to show us the PCN. Was this issued as a windscreen Notice to Driver (NtD) or a postal Notice to Keeper (NtK). Have you appealed this already?
Big lesson you have hopefully learnt is do not do anything verbally. A phone call is not worth the paper it isn't written on. Get confirmation of anything you have been told in writing.
READ THIS FIRST - Private Parking Charges Forum guide