Hi All,
The driver went to this retail car park on 27/11/24, parked up and visited most of the shops there for varying amounts of time including eating in Costa. I, the keeper received this parking charge notice on 2/12/24 stating my vehicle had stayed 4hrs 10mins in a 3hr max stay free car park. As there are quite a few furniture/carpet/clothing shops there as well as a Costa surely the driver spending that amount of time there is not unrealistic.
Can anyone please advise on the best way to go with this and whether the notice is compliant?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
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Welcome to FTLA.
Before we get onto any appeals... Did the driver make (m)any purchases during their stay? A good starting point would be to gather any receipts for the visit, then try to find the owner/managing agent for the retail park and see if they will intervene.
The 3 hour limit was presumably brought in to deter misuse of the car park by non-customers, who would block spaces that genuine visitors could otherwise use, not to penalise genuine customers. It can be tricky getting much progress with retail parks sometimes, but is well worth a go first.
"Right to recover from you"
Does not say the keeper is invited to pay the charge.
PE NtKs, are never fully compliant with all the requirements of PoFA and as always, this Nt K does not comply with paragraph 9(2)(e)(i). However, you would have to be very explicit and able to communicate this to the POPLA assessor after PE reject the appeal.
Plan A is always try and get the landowner of their managing agent to get the PCN cancelled. If you are a genuine customer at various businesses at the location, you don't want them knowing that you will ever come back and use them if an unregulated private parking company can just issue you with a £100 invoice.
PE will of course argue that the Beavis case applies in this car park, and they are right, unless you can show that the signage is different to that in the Beavis case.
You can only get a POPLA code after an initial appeal to PE. After exhausting Plan A and before the appeal deadline, you appeal to PE with the following, which will be rejected but gets you a POPLA code:
I am the keeper of the vehicle and I dispute your 'parking charge'. I deny any liability or contractual agreement and I will be making a complaint about your predatory conduct to your client landowner.
As your Notice to Keeper (NtK) does not fully comply with ALL the requirements of PoFA 2012, you are unable to hold the keeper of the vehicle liable for the charge. Partial or even substantial compliance is not sufficient. There will be no admission as to who was driving and no inference or assumptions can be drawn. ParkingEye has relied on contract law allegations of breach against the driver only.
The registered keeper cannot be presumed or inferred to have been the driver, nor pursued under some twisted interpretation of the law of agency. Your NtK can only hold the driver liable. ParkingEye have no hope at POPLA, so you are urged to save us both a complete waste of time and cancel the PCN.