Free Traffic Legal Advice

evening all,  i was recommended to post on here for some advice.  My 20yr old daughter has had a notice come through the post advising her to pay £100 for overstaying the parking at a local mc donalds car park.  her and her friend,  got some food and sat chatting in mc donalds from 20.52hrs and departed at 23.01hrs.  quote how someone can spend this long in mc donalds is beyond me,  shes a student so funds are tight with her part time job.  hardest part is the notice came through when we were on holiday and have just got back last night so we have missed the window for reduce payment. 

is it worth talking to mc donalds,  google says mc donalds employ private companies to put ubers and people off using the car park for shopping,  there is nothing near by to this mc donalds and especially at that time of night. 


i've attached the notice. 

thanks,  even if its a case of lesson learn't for my daughter,  mc donalds have parking charges after a certain time. 

thanks

edit.  i will have to find another way of putting the notices up,   saying upload folder is full so they wont post

It is all going to depend on how badly your daughter, or you, feel aggrieved by the charge. Was it issued fairly?

Ask why the driver failed to notice the signs in the car park. Why was the driver not aware that there was a £100 charge if they breached the terms of parking?

Is the vehicle registered in your daughter’s name? If so, she has received the Notice to Keeper (NtK). Under no circumstances should the Keeper identify the driver. MET do not know the identity of the driver, only that of the Keeper.

There is no legal obligation for the Keeper to identify the driver. MET are not allowed to infer or presume that the Keeper was also the driver and there is persuasive case law to back that fact up.

Any burden of proof is on MET to prove the identity of the driver. The only way they can know the identity of the driver is if the Keeper blabs it to them, inadvertently or otherwise.

The Keeper and the driver are separate legal entities. The only way the MET can transfer liability for the charge from the unknown driver (to them), to the Keeper is if MET have fully complied with all the requirements of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (PoFA). They have not.

PoFA, Schedule 4, paragraph 9(2)(e)(i) requires that the NtK “invites” the Keeper to pay the charge. In the NtK you have shown us, there is no invitation nor any synonym of the word that invited the Keeper to pay it. Partial or even substantial compliance with PoFA is not sufficient.

So, why didn’t the driver notice the signs? Were they conspicuous? Were the terms of parking prominently displayed? Was the charge of £100 “adequately” brought to the attention of the driver? Has MET fully complied with all the requirements of PoFA to be able to hold the Keeper liable for the charge? Has MET evidenced that the Keeper was the driver? Does MET have a valid contract flowing from the landowner, through their agent, McDonalds to issue PCNs in their own name?

These are all questions that should be answered if the Keeper feels aggrieved and that the PCN has been issued unfairly. It comes down to whether the Keeper would rather pay the “mugs discount” and be done with it or whether they are prepared to fight it.

Plan A is always try and get the landowner or their agent, McDonalds in this case, to tell MET to cancel the PCN. This is the easiest way to get it cancelled. Plan B would be to appeal to MET but I can guarantee that MET will reject it, no matter what is said in the appeal. No money in it for them.

By rejecting the appeal, MET will be obliged to provide a POPLA code for the Plan C appeal. This is where there is a 45% chance of being successful and the appeal would be in the points I mentioned above. POPLA will not consider any mitigation, only points of law or the BPA Code of Practice (CoP) to see whether the PCN was issued correctly.

If the Plan C POPLA appeal is not successful, Plan D would be to wait and see if/when MET decide to try and recover the alleged debt through the county court. MET can be litigious but the county court is the ultimate dispute resolution service. Only a judge would decide whether a debt was owed or not.

The decision has to be made based on the original questions I asked at the beginning of this post.

I agree. I had not noticed the "invitation" for the keeper to pay. The NtK is therefore PoFA compliant. However, any appeal should still be made as the Keeper without identifying the driver as there could be issues with the signage that negates Keeper liability under PoFA, especially if the £100 charge was not "adequately" brought to the attention of the driver.

If possible, take some photos of the signs and the general layout of the car park, under similar lighting conditions. Do not use flash or headlights to illuminate the signs. A close up of the signs is useful for us to see if all the legal and BPA CoP requirements for the signs have been adhered to.

I would get something in writing from McDonald's ideally. We've seen too many cases of promises being made on the phone, only for them not to materialise.

It's not cancelled until it's cancelled.

On the possibly misguided assumption that the apparent offer has been made in good faith it can be sensible to go through the motions of payment. Some say not found, some zero due. Some unchanged.

At least that enables verification of whether it has been cancelled sooner.

i logged onto the met payment system today to appeal,  and it shows the parking notice number not found,  i tried the pay for parking and again,  said not found,  i have screenshot and then videoed me trying both options and then the response.    Could it be that quickly with mc donalds.