Don't overthink this. It's only POPLA and their decision is not binding on you if it is not successful.
The “
my tenancy is the only contract that matters” point still stands, even if your landlord has signed a contract with UKPC. The landowner/landlord giving UKPC authority to operate on the site is a completely different thing from you, as tenant, agreeing to pay UKPC for using your own bay.
UKPC’s landowner contract only does one thing that matters here. It shows the landowner has authorised UKPC to operate a scheme and issue charges to people who breach whatever terms apply.
It does not create any contractual obligation from you, the tenant, to UKPC; or override or vary the terms of your tenancy; or allow the landlord to “take back” your parking space and turn it into a pay-per-breach trap.
Your legal position is still your right to use that allocated bay and comes from your tenancy and what was agreed (and advertised) when you took the flat. The landlord cannot, by a side contract with UKPC, derogate from that grant by allowing a third party to penalise you for normal use of the space that formed part of the let.
UKPC’s contract with the landowner is, at most, evidence of authority to deal with unauthorised or third-party vehicles. It does not magically make you their “customer” or “contracting party”. So yes, the “my tenancy is the primary contract” line absolutely still holds, even knowing the landlord has signed with UKPC.
Their line: “
The parking charges issued by UK Parking Control Limited are based on a contractual agreement between UKPC and the driver, as detailed on the signage…” That might hold water for shoppers in a retail park, or random visitors, without any prior entitlement to park.
You are neither. You already had a pre-existing right to park in that bay, as part of the tenancy deal (“1-bedroom flat + 1 parking space”), no clause in your tenancy that requires a permit or requires compliance with UKPC’s regime or authorises a third party to charge you for using your own space.
In that context. when you park in your own allocated bay, you are exercising your tenancy right, not “accepting an offer” from UKPC’s sign. There is no new consideration, no clear agreement to pay, and no realistic sense in which you would be voluntarily signing up to pay £100+ to park in the space you are already paying rent for.
So your POPLA comment will draw a clear distinction, for a non-resident, the signs might be the only basis for a contract and for a resident with an allocated space, the signs cannot override the tenancy and cannot create a second, contradictory “contract” to pay for using that space.
Simply copy and paste the following into the response webform. DO not try to edit it or change anything:
I make the following submissions in response to UKPC’s evidence.
First, my tenancy agreement is the only contract that governs my occupation of the flat and my use of the facilities that come with it, including the allocated parking space. The property was advertised and let to me as a one-bedroom flat with one parking space. I only ever park in that allocated bay. My tenancy agreement contains no clause requiring me to display a permit, no clause requiring me to comply with any private parking scheme, and no clause authorising a third-party parking company to levy charges against me for using my own space.
Under basic principles of landlord and tenant law, including the Landlord and Tenant Acts, a landlord cannot unilaterally change the terms of a residential tenancy by making a private side agreement with a third party. Any variation of the tenancy terms would require either a specific variation mechanism in the tenancy itself, a new agreement which I sign, or the use of a formal statutory procedure. None of that has happened here. There has been no variation of my tenancy, no fresh agreement, and no statutory process. My tenancy terms therefore remain exactly as originally granted: a flat with a parking space and no obligation to display a permit or to contract with UKPC.
The separate contract between the landowner or managing agent and UKPC does not bind me. I am not a party to it and I have never agreed to it. That contract may authorise UKPC to control and ticket vehicles which have no independent right to be on the land, but it does not and cannot override the rights granted to me by my tenancy. It cannot convert my normal use of my own allocated bay into a breach of some supposed “contract” with UKPC. It is legally incapable of varying my tenancy or imposing new financial obligations on me without my informed agreement.
UKPC claim that there is a contractual agreement between themselves and the driver, based on their signage. That might conceivably apply to a visitor or member of the public with no existing right to park. It does not apply to a tenant who already has a pre-existing right to park granted by a tenancy. When I park in my own allocated bay, I am exercising rights I already hold under my tenancy, not accepting UKPC’s “offer” on a sign. There is no meaningful offer and acceptance here, and no fresh consideration. I am simply using the parking space that formed part of the bargain when I rented the flat. The idea that I chose to enter into a second, inconsistent contract to pay UKPC £100 for the privilege of using what I already pay rent for is not credible.
Any permit scheme in this context can only be administrative. A resident’s permit is at most a way of identifying which vehicle belongs to which flat. It is evidence of an existing right to park, not the source of that right. Failing to display a permit for a short period does not extinguish the tenancy right to use the space and does not magically create a new obligation to pay penalties to a third-party contractor. UKPC has produced no clause from my tenancy that says otherwise, because no such clause exists.
Regarding the “relevant land” point, UKPC now say that Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 only requires the relevant land to be specified and does not require the identity of the road or city. That may be correct in the abstract, but it is not what happened in this case. On my Parking Charge Notice, UKPC chose to identify a specific road and address where they allege my car was parked. That address is wrong. I was not parked at the location written on the notice. I was parked in the parking space allocated to my flat at a different address, as shown by UKPC’s own photographs and by the email from my estate agent confirming which bay belongs to my flat.
Schedule 4 requires the notice to “specify the relevant land on which the vehicle was parked”. In my case, the land specified on the notice is not the land where my vehicle was actually parked. UKPC cannot dismiss this as a mere convenience when they themselves chose to give a specific location and got it wrong. If they wish to rely on Schedule 4 to pursue keeper liability, they must at least correctly identify the land on which the car was parked. They have not done so here. The notice is factually inaccurate about where my car was parked and therefore fails to correctly specify the relevant land. That alone is enough to defeat any attempt to hold the keeper liable under PoFA.
I do not dispute that UKPC has some form of contract with the landowner or managing agent, nor that they have signs, equipment or staff on site. That is not the issue in this appeal. The issue is whether UKPC has any lawful right to demand money from me, a tenant, for parking in the space that was let to me with my flat.
UKPC’s paragraph about equipment, signage and personnel “proving” authority entirely misses the point. It is perfectly possible for a landowner to authorise a parking company to manage unauthorised or visitor parking while the tenants’ own rights to use their allocated bays remain governed exclusively by their tenancies. That is exactly the situation here. My tenancy gives me the right to my bay; it has never been varied to require me to pay UKPC anything. The presence of signs and staff does not create a contract between UKPC and me, nor does it amend my tenancy.
UKPC’s statement “I am sure that if the parking operator was not allowed to issue charges on site the landowner would not permit the parking operator to keep its signage on site” is pure speculation and proves nothing. It tells POPLA nothing about the scope of UKPC’s authority in relation to tenants with allocated bays, and nothing about whether my tenancy rights can be overridden. Their own redacted contract does not say that tenants’ contractual rights under their leases or tenancies are displaced, and UKPC has produced no clause from my tenancy that does this either.
UKPC’s reliance on “contract by signage” is also logically one-sided. If I placed a sign in my car window stating that anyone who photographs my vehicle in my allocated bay agrees to pay me £100, no reasonable person or court would treat that as creating a genuine, enforceable contract. The photographer would not have freely accepted those terms, nor intended to enter into such a bargain, merely by performing their usual activity. Yet this is essentially what UKPC claims to have done to me: they say their signs can impose a substantial charge on a tenant already granted the right to park by a tenancy, without any proper negotiation or variation of that tenancy. This highlights how artificial UKPC’s “contract from a sign” theory is in the context of a resident with primacy of contract.
In short: even if UKPC has authority from the landowner to operate a scheme on the site, that authority does not bind me unless my own tenancy incorporates those terms or has been validly varied. It has not. Their generic assertions about signage and “authorisation” do not answer my core point that my tenancy has primacy, and that I never agreed to pay UKPC for using my own allocated space.
To summarise: I am a tenant whose flat was let with a parking space. I park only in that allocated space. My tenancy has never been varied to require me to display a permit or to submit to UKPC’s regime. The landlord’s private contract with UKPC cannot, as a matter of landlord and tenant law, unilaterally change my tenancy or impose new obligations on me. UKPC’s attempt to rely on signage to create a separate contract with me ignores the primacy of my tenancy and the fact that I am simply using what I already pay rent for. In addition, the Parking Charge Notice misidentifies the location and fails to correctly specify the relevant land for the purposes of PoFA.
For all of these reasons, there is no valid contract between me and UKPC for parking in my own bay, and no keeper liability arises. The appeal should be allowed.
