3. APCOA, Penalty notice received after 19 days of alleged contravention, Barnham rail station
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APCOA, Penalty notice received after 19 days of alleged contravention, Barnham rail station
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As the registered keeper I received a penalty notice on Friday 4 July 2025 for an alleged contravention of ‘use of private car park without a valid payment/permit’ on 15 June 2025. This was a total of 19 days between the alleged contravention and receipt of the penalty notice.

On checking with the driver, they were adamant that they believed payment was made. When checking the receipt, they realised that their car was not the default car number plate that had been selected on the app, so the payment was assigned to the wrong vehicle. No penalty notice was affixed to the car on the date in question on their return to the car park.

I feel the that the charge (£60/£100) is disproportionate to the breach of contract and doesn't accurately reflect any loss suffered by the parking company.

My question is on what basis to appeal this penalty notice?

1. That the penalty notice was not received within the 14 days as set out in the BPA Code of Conduct, and therefore is not payable as per the advice on the Citizen’s Advice website.

or

2. That the payment had been made in good faith, but a genuine error had occurred by not noticing the default vehicle was their other car, accepting that there may be an ‘admin fee’ for accepting this reason.

Any advice would be appreciated - thank you.


Both pages of the Penalty notice can be viewed here:

https://imgur.com/a/aR4Brm5

https://imgur.com/a/4S9gn01


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Re: APCOA, Penalty notice received after 19 days of alleged contravention, Barnham rail station
« Reply #1 on: »
It’s not the BPA code of conduct, it’s the law.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/9/schedule/4

If the notice to the keeper is sent later than 14 days after the parking event, the liability can not be transferred from the driver to the keeper, read https://www.ftla.uk/private-parking-tickets/read-this-first-private-parking-charges-forum-guide/ and do not identify the driver.

Your appeal will be on the failure to comply with PoFA 2012 and, as keeper, you are not liable.

HOWEVER, it’s also likely that railway bylaws apply, and as such it is not “relevant land” and therefore PoFA can’t be applied anyway.

So ignore what I’ve said for now, there is a better approach. But don’t do either of the things you propose either.
« Last Edit: July 07, 2025, 06:23:04 pm by jfollows »
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Re: APCOA, Penalty notice received after 19 days of alleged contravention, Barnham rail station
« Reply #2 on: »
Either do absolutely nothing, or appeal
Quote
I am the registered keeper. APCOA has issued what purports to be a Penalty Notice, but it is impossible for this to be a real statutory penalty. This is a fake penalty and amounts to an unlawful attempt to mislead the recipient into believing that a private company has powers it does not possess. The matter will be reported to Action Fraud for misrepresentation and potential fraudulent demand.

As APCOA will be well aware, Penalty Notices under Railway Byelaws can only be enforced through statutory mechanisms, specifically by laying information before a magistrates’ court. They cannot be enforced through private debt collection or county court action, nor can a private parking company attempt to extract payment by conflating a civil contractual offer with a statutory penalty under criminal law.

If the landowner (Network Rail or the Train Operating Company) intended to enforce Railway Byelaws, that would be within their statutory remit, but that is not what APCOA is doing here. Instead, APCOA has issued a demand for payment designed purely for its own commercial gain while fraudulently misleading the recipient into believing they are liable for a statutory penalty. This is not only a serious misrepresentation of authority, but also an abuse of process.

The registered keeper cannot be presumed or inferred to have been the driver, nor pursued under a fabricated interpretation of agency law. There is no lawful basis for this demand, and APCOA is urged to cancel it immediately. Otherwise, I will escalate this complaint to the relevant authorities, including the British Parking Association, Trading Standards, and Action Fraud.

In the end it won’t make much difference. APCOA doesn’t “do” court, so you will just have to put up with useless threats. APCOA pretends it has some kind of authority which it doesn’t actually have, but lots of people just pay up, which is what it wants.
« Last Edit: July 07, 2025, 06:46:00 pm by jfollows »
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Re: APCOA, Penalty notice received after 19 days of alleged contravention, Barnham rail station
« Reply #3 on: »
What the Keeper has been sent is a fake penalty notice. It is a fraudulent attempt to gain money without lawful reason. In other words, it is a criminal act that APCOA are undertaking.

There is a whole essay on this elsewhere on this forum that I have explained. Any attempt to recover a supposed penalty issued under byelaws, can only be challenged in the magistrates court after information has been laid and a summons issued.

APCOA will try to recover the "penalty" into their own coffers, whereas, if the penalty were challenged in court and the challenge was unsuccessful, any fine imposed would go to the public purse, not APCOA's back account. However, APCOA are offering an appeal and secondary appeal route through POPLA, which is not the platform for challenging "penalty" purportedly issued under statutory belaws.

You can read up on the reasoning here: Why APCOA have no authority to issue Penalty Notices under railway bylaws

You should also read this thread, whilst it applies to SABA rather than APCOA, it is fully relevant to this and any other "penalty" issued by an unregulated private parking firm: Saba Parking Services - Railway parking site - debt collector before initial notice?

So, I advise that you follow the advice given in that second link about SABA and you make contact with the police, not the useless Action Fraud, and report APCOA for fraud by false representation (Fraud Act 2006, s.2),

Contact your MP, report APCOA to the DVLA and your local police force economic crime unit, as per the examples in the thread linked above.

You will never pay a penny to this firm that operates outside of the law.
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  3. APCOA, Penalty notice received after 19 days of alleged contravention, Barnham rail station