The reason I and other posters have been somewhat labouring the point around the lease is because if PCM eventually sue you in the County Court, primacy of contract would have been by far your strongest arm of defence. There is still likely a decent amount of time before they do take you to court (if they decide to), which should be more than enough time for your parents to obtain a copy of their lease from the landower. But, if they are unwilling to help you out by doing this we will have to explore other options.
Ok, to recap where we are:
- You live in a property, but have no contractual agreement to be there, as you have been allowed to live there by your parents
- Your parents likewise cannot provide you with any documents to prove that they have any contractual agreement to be there
- As a result of not being able to locate a lease, they likewise cannot prove that they have a space(s) demised to them via said lease
- You mentioned at one point "All the agreement mentions is that the car park requires a permit", but as yet we do not know what agreement this is, how it came into your possession, nor which parties said agreement is between
- You have 2 tickets in play. 1 is for parking in a bay that is allocated to you (via the missing lease), and 1 is for parking in a bay allocated to a third party (the housing association).
For the parking charge you have received for parking in your own bay, the following potential arguments:
- Primacy of contract. The parking spot is demised to your parents, who granted you permission to park in it. A difficult argument to run without evidence.
- No contractual offer - we have not yet seen photos of the signage (this would be useful), but if it requires the displaying of a permit, there is an argument to be made that the signage is prohibitive, insofar as it doesn't make a contractual offer to those without a permit to park. The downside here is that you do have a permit, it simply wasn't displayed.
- No commercial justification - you had a permit, but simply forgot to display it, and as such now they are aware you have one, there is no commercial justification for continuing to pursue you. The counter argument here might be that there is a commercial justification for penalising non-diplay, on the basis that the wardens who patrol need to be able to identify who is entitled to park where, so that they can effectively manage parking. This argument could potentially be overcome.
For the parking charge you have received for parking in the Housing Association's spot, the 'No contractual offer' argument would seem to be the best fit, again, subject to what the signs say.
