After the Stage 2 letter from A2Dominion, the position is actually better for you than it was before.
First, what A2Dominion have effectively admitted.
They accept that parking enforcement was brought in on 22 March 2022 and that they “could have done more to clarify with residents” and that their communication “fell below the standards” they aim for. They are offering £50 for poor communication and saying they will ask PPM to cancel the PCNs “on this occasion” and update you by 12 December. They also say they are not the freeholder, that the freeholder and managing agent control the car park, and that they have “no authority over these decisions”. They then tell you that you can only park in certain bays and that you cannot use the visitor bays or any other bay.
In legal terms this letter does three things.
One, it confirms there has never been a proper, lawful variation of your tenancy in relation to parking. To change an existing tenancy, A2D would have to follow the requirements of landlord and tenant law and the terms of the tenancy itself. That means a proper variation process, not just new signs, not just a contractor letter, and not just the landlord deciding after the event that “from now on you are not allowed to park there”. The Landlord and Tenant Act and the social housing standards require clear consultation and written notice of any change to core rights. Clauses 9 to 11 of your tenancy also give you explicit consultation and information rights. A2D’s own admission that they failed to explain the changes to residents is effectively an admission that they did not go through any valid variation procedure at all. So your tenancy remains as it was: no permit requirement, no visitor scratch card requirement, and only restrictions about obstruction, nuisance etc. That tenancy has primacy over later private parking signage.
Two, the letter actually undermines the authority of the freeholder’s agent and PPM rather than strengthening it. A2D say they are not the freeholder’s agent for the car park and that “the freeholder and managing agent have control over the car park”. That may be true between them, but it does not alter your contractual position. Your contract is with A2D. A2D granted you a tenancy that includes the right to occupy the property and use the estate as described at the time. If the freeholder and its managing agent later choose to impose a private enforcement regime which cuts across those rights, that is a classic derogation from grant: someone upstream trying to take back part of what has already been granted downstream. A2D cannot simply wash its hands of that and say “nothing to do with us”. In law, they remain responsible to you for protecting your quiet enjoyment and for not allowing third parties to interfere with rights they have already granted. The arrangement between the freeholder, the managing agent and PPM may authorise PPM to walk around and put notices on windscreens, but it cannot amend your tenancy, and it cannot lawfully convert your long-standing use of visitor bays into a civil debt to a third-party parking firm.
Three, by saying they have “approached PPM to ask if they would consider removing the notices”, A2D are implicitly admitting that they did not authorise this enforcement in any way that took account of tenants’ rights and that they are now on the back foot trying to persuade PPM to step back. That is not the position of a landlord who has lawfully varied tenancies and properly instructed its contractor; it is the position of a landlord who has allowed someone else to impose a scheme without protecting its tenants’ rights or following the correct legal process.
From the keeper’s perspective on the PCNs:
The Notices to Keeper are still non-compliant with Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act because they do not state a period of parking, only single observation times. That alone blocks keeper liability. Unless the keeper has admitted being the driver, PPM have no statutory basis to pursue the keeper at all; they would need to prove who was driving and then persuade a court that a valid contract arose despite the tenancy. That is already highly doubtful.
Layered signage and a later permit scheme cannot override a long-standing tenancy that contains no permit requirement. Any contract PPM may have with the freeholder or managing agent cannot give PPM more power than those parties themselves have. They cannot contract to reduce a tenant’s existing rights without going through the proper variation route with the tenant. So in pure contract terms, even if you ignore PoFA entirely, PPM’s “offer” on the signs is inconsistent with the rights in your tenancy and is therefore ineffective against you as a resident. That is where primacy of contract and derogation from grant bite.
As to whether the operator is “operating lawfully”, there are two levels. On the ground, PPM is probably on the land with some form of contract from the freeholder or agent, so they are not random trespassers. But in relation to you, as a tenant with an existing agreement and statutory protections, they are not enforcing lawful obligations. They are ticketing in circumstances where there is no valid contractual basis to charge you and no PoFA route to make you, as keeper, liable. Whether you call that “unlawful” or “without legal basis”, the end result is the same: if they press this all the way to court, you have strong arguments to resist the claim.
So, after the A2D Stage 2 letter, the overall position is:
Your tenancy has not been lawfully varied. Your parking rights as granted in that tenancy still have primacy. Any attempt by the freeholder, managing agent or PPM to impose a new permit scheme through signage and letters, without a proper variation process complying with landlord and tenant law and the consultation clauses, is a derogation from grant and cannot make you contractually liable to PPM. On top of that, the NtKs fail PoFA, so the keeper cannot be held liable in any event.
If PPM now cancels the PCNs at A2D’s request, this becomes academic. If they do not, and they ever move to a Letter Before Claim or county court claim, your defence will rest on two pillars: PoFA non-compliance and supremacy of the tenancy/derogation from grant, supported by A2D’s own written admissions that they failed to communicate or consult and are now belatedly trying to get the tickets removed.
Where you now stand with A2D:
A2D have admitted there was a service failure. They accept they did not properly explain or clarify the introduction of the parking enforcement in March 2022, they apologise, and they offer £50 for poor communication. They also confirm this is their “final response” and signpost you to the Housing Ombudsman. That means their internal process is exhausted and you are now entitled to go to the Ombudsman.
Importantly, nothing in their letter magically fixes the underlying breach. Your tenancy has still not been formally varied in accordance with landlord and tenant law or with clauses 9–11. A2D are still your landlord and still responsible for the fact that a third-party contractor is issuing charges in circumstances that conflict with your tenancy rights. Their admission that they “could have done more to clarify with residents” is essentially an admission that they did not follow any proper variation or consultation process.
On the £50 offer:
You can accept it, reject it, or park it for now. Accepting the £50 for “poor communication” does not, in itself, stop you going to the Housing Ombudsman or defending any future court claim about the PCNs. However, to be safe, if you do accept it, you should write back and make it clear that you accept the £50 only as partial compensation for distress and inconvenience caused by poor communication, and that you do not regard it as full and final settlement of all issues, especially those relating to your tenancy rights and the PCNs. If they were to insist that the £50 is “full and final” and that you must drop the matter, you should decline the offer and go straight to the Ombudsman.
In my view it is reasonable to respond to A2D along these lines: you welcome the fact they have partially upheld the complaint and offered £50 but you remain dissatisfied because (1) they have still not acknowledged that your tenancy has never been lawfully varied to impose a permit regime or liability to a private parking firm, (2) they have not accepted responsibility for the actions of their contractor in interfering with tenants’ rights, and (3) the PCNs remain unresolved and you face the ongoing risk of further tickets. You can say you will be referring the matter to the Housing Ombudsman.
I suggest you respond to A2D with the following:
Dear Mr Tolhurst,
Thank you for your Stage 2 response and for partially upholding my complaint. I note the offer of £50 in recognition of your communication failures.
However, I remain dissatisfied for the following reasons and do not regard the matter as resolved.
First, you have still not acknowledged that my tenancy has never been lawfully varied to impose a permit regime, visitor scratch cards, or any liability to a private parking company. A change of this nature requires proper consultation and a valid variation process compliant with landlord and tenant law and with clauses 9–11 of my tenancy. You have accepted that the introduction of enforcement was not properly communicated, which is effectively an admission that no lawful variation occurred.
Second, you have not accepted responsibility for the actions of the managing agent and its appointed parking contractor, whose enforcement regime is interfering with my tenancy rights. The introduction of a private enforcement scheme without a proper variation of the tenancy amounts to a derogation from grant and has resulted in repeated PCNs being issued in circumstances where my tenancy still gives me the right to use the estate without such obligations.
Third, the PCNs remain unresolved. Until they are cancelled and until you confirm that no further PCNs will be issued to residents in breach of existing tenancy rights, the issue remains live and the risk of further interference continues.
In light of the above, I cannot accept your position as the final resolution. I will therefore be referring this matter to the Housing Ombudsman for investigation into the service failures, the lack of lawful consultation or variation, and the ongoing impact on my tenancy rights.
Yours sincerely,
[Name]
On escalation to the Housing Ombudsman:
You are in a good position to do this now. Grounds include:
1. Failure to comply with the tenancy consultation and information clauses (9–11) before allowing a major change in estate management that affects tenants’ use of parking and exposes them to private penalties.
2. Failure to act in accordance with the Tenant Involvement and Empowerment Standard by not consulting or adequately informing residents about the new regime.
3. Failure to properly manage third-party agents: first trying to wash their hands of responsibility by blaming the managing agent, then admitting at Stage 2 that they should have communicated the changes and that they have to “approach PPM” to ask for cancellation, which shows they did not protect tenants’ rights when the scheme was introduced.
4. Failure to protect your quiet enjoyment and rights under the tenancy, by allowing a contractor to ticket residents in areas they had long been permitted to use without any lawful variation of the tenancy (derogation from grant).
5. Complaint-handling failures: the Stage 1 response wrongly asserted that the matter was outside A2D’s remit and told you to deal directly with PPM; only at Stage 2 did they partially correct this, which is inconsistent with the Complaint Handling Code’s requirements for thorough investigation and ownership of complaints.
Your desired outcomes for the Ombudsman would be something like: formal finding of service failure/maladministration; instruction to A2D to ensure the PCNs are cancelled; an undertaking that no resident will be ticketed in breach of existing tenancy rights unless and until tenancies are lawfully varied; and appropriate compensation for distress, time, and trouble (likely more than £50).
In the future, if PPM were to pursue you to court and you suffered loss (for example, costs in defending a claim, or if A2D allowed repeated ticketing or authorised further interference with your parking rights), there could be a basis for a claim against A2D for breach of contract/quiet enjoyment or possibly against the parking company for misuse of data or harassment. But that is very much a “later, if needed” option. For now, the sensible strategy is to exhaust the landlord/ombudsman route and keep all the correspondence and admissions for use as evidence if anyone is foolish enough to sue you over these tickets.
