Free Traffic Legal Advice

I thought legally I was allowed 10mins to read signage etc.

1/ Not 'legally' (there is no law) no, the Code of Practice allows a grace period for reading signage where parking is permitted, in your case they are saying parking was not permitted.
2/ Get your own picture with no car on the bay showing its a P&T bay and use that in your appeal.
3/ Plan A is always to complain to the landowner (who these parasites work for) about the actions of their agent and insist they get it cancelled, it may even be someone who works for the landowner who issued the notice (know as 'self ticketing' in the trade)

Don't appeal yet - we need to clarify some points.

Aside from the valid points made by The Rookie above, I see the notice refers to the fact that you are the hirer of the vehicle, is this the case? If so, did Premier Park send you any other documents alongside this notice?

If you are the hirer, and they did not send any additional documents, then you will have a valid technical appeal as the hirer, alongside the meritorious point that the driver (whose identity you should not reveal to the parking company) did not park in a disabled spot.

Don't appeal yet - we need to clarify some points.

Aside from the valid points made by The Rookie above, I see the notice refers to the fact that you are the hirer of the vehicle, is this the case? If so, did Premier Park send you any other documents alongside this notice?

If you are the hirer, and they did not send any additional documents, then you will have a valid technical appeal as the hirer, alongside the meritorious point that the driver (whose identity you should not reveal to the parking company) did not park in a disabled spot.

Hi. Yes, that's correct. I am the hirer and inside the envelope was just the one double sided page I posted the link to. Please can I ask what other documents I am missing? There is definitely nothing else as I am sat with the letter now.

Aside from the pic I will get of the p+c bay, may I ask what the technical appeal is that I should add to my appeal? Will try to add as many valid points as possible.

Thank you

If Premier Park want to be able to recover the charge from you as the hirer, they need to comply with the requirements of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act (there's a link to it at the bottom of my post in the signature) - in particular, paragraphs 13 and 14 are relevant in the case of hire vehicles. If you give that a read, you'll see that 13(2) requires them to provide certain documents alongside the notice to hirer, which they pretty much never do.

For the initial appeal, you could include something along the lines of the below:


If appealing online, be very careful there are no drop down/tick boxes that cause you to identify who was driving, and keep a close eye on your spam folder for their response. Only choose 'Hirer' if it asks for your relationship to the vehicle, no blabbing about who was driving. If there's a drop down asking your reason for appealing, choose 'Other'.

If you're not likely to be going to the site to get pictures any time soon, you could just submit with point 1 removed, and save it for your POPLA appeal if they reject your appeal.

Thank you. A colleague has just told me this should have been issued within 14 days. Does anyone know if that is correct/applies here?

No - if the parking operator want to hold the registered keeper liable, then they need to issue the notice to them such that it is delivered within 14 days. This is not applicable to you, as you are not the registered keeper. If you read Schedule 4 that I linked to above, this details the various relevant periods, if you are interested in broadening your understanding.

No need to apologise - the purpose of the forum is to provide info/advice on these things.

I don't mean for this to sound like a criticism of your colleague, who is no doubt well-meaning, but be wary of advice received from friends/colleagues/blokes in pubs, and always check any advice you receive* - we see too many cases of people who were given poor advice and end up digging holes for themselves.

*I realise there's an element of irony involved in telling you to check any advice, whilst myself providing advice - where possible, I always try to back up any claims I make with reference to relevant legislation or Codes of Practice, etc., and other forum users should, too. If in doubt, ask us to clarify.

In order to assist the OP in undertaking the nuances, the "driver" and the "keeper"/"hirer" are separate legal entities. When it comes to PCNs issued by unregulated private parking companies, it is the unknown driver who is liable for any alleged breach of contract between them and the PPC.

In this case, as the driver is unknown the PPC requests the keepers data from the DVLA. The keeper is known and as the vehicle is leased or hired, the known keeper transfers liability from themselves to the hirer who is also known.

At this stage, the driver is still unknown. The only way the driver can become known is if the known hirer tells the PPC, inadvertently or otherwise. The PPC cannot infer or assume the known hirer is also the unknown driver.

The only way that the PPC can transfer liability for the PCN from the unknown driver to the known hirer is if they fully comply with all the requirements of PoFA. They haven't.

Because the PPC has not fully complied with the requirements of PoFA, only the unknown driver is liable for the PCN. As there is no legal obligation for the known keeper to name the unknown driver, the PPC will have no way of progressing with collecting the alleged debt.

The burden of proof is on the PPC to show that the known keeper was also the unknown driver. How do you think they can do that unless the known keeper tells them, inadvertently or otherwise?

So, without even looking at the notices (speculative invoices) you received, because you have told us that the vehicle is hired/leased, together with our knowledge that in 99.999% of PCNs issued to hired/leased vehicles, the PPC will fail to follow the correct procedures as required in PoFA paragraphs 13 and 14.

The PCN is for £100 with a £40 bribe discount designed to get the gullible to pay up without forcing the PPC to have to deal with appeals . They live in the hope that out of the 40,000 PCNs issued by unregulated private parking companies EVRY DAY, most victims either do owe them a debt or are ignorant enough to fall for what they think is a "fine" when, in fact, it is nothing of the sort.