As the registered keeper of a car that was issued with a parking charge notice from a private parking company, I would welcome some advice. The notice alleges an overstay in a car park for the Mulberry restaurant in Saundersfoot, SA69 9HG on the 2nd of July 2025 between 14:40 and 16:30 hours. This overstay was allegedly backed up by CCTV.
I am advised the driver parked in a car park adjacent to that location but to the best of their knowledge the only way of accessing the other car park is through a narrow alleyway which also allows access to the Mulberry restaurant car park. The car park where vehicle was parked is the Sands car park in Saundersfoot and this is controlled by a separate company, Parkingeye. The driver has a bank statement showing a payment to parkingeye and having spoken to their bank the bank confirms that that payment was made at 14:42, two minutes after the arrival time. The ticket purchased & issued by the machine on that site is no longer available.
The vehicle was never parked in the Mulberry car park and before formally contesting the matter I would welcome whether any other advice should be taken on board or whether any relevant conditions on the parking company issuing the notice have not been complied with.
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PCN
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Ymm, contravention 02-07, issued 15-07, presumed delivery on 17-07, 1 day out to hold the keeper liable.
Ymm, contravention 02-07, issued 15-07, presumed delivery on 17-07, 1 day out to hold the keeper liable.
It was only delivered today to the R/K address so I am dubious as to the claim it was issued on the 15th.
Doesn't matter. I tis the 'deemed' date of delivery that counts. (not so) Smart Parking are utterly incompetent when it comes to understanding of PoFA.
There is no legal obligation on the
known keeper (the recipient of the Notice to Keeper (NtK)) to reveal the identity of the
unknown driver and no inference or assumptions can be made.
The NtK is not compliant with all the requirements of PoFA which means that if the
unknown driver is not identified, they cannot transfer liability for the charge from the
unknown driver to the
known keeper.
Use the following as your appeal. No need to embellish or remove anything from it:
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. Smart Parking 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. Smart Parking have no hope should you stupidly try to litigate this matter, so you are urged to save us both a complete waste of time and cancel the PCN.
Come back when that is rejected for the IAS kangaroo court appeal. That will be rejected too but if you continue to follow the advice you receive here, you will not be paying a penny to (not so) Smart Parking. However, it will be a protracted process and will most likely involve a claim against you which is easily defended before they eventually discontinue or it is struck out.
As they are claiming Keeper liability under PoFA when it is impossible to do so due to their failure to give the notice within the relevant period, you should submit a formal complaint about them to the DVLA and cite their breach of the PPSCoP section 8.1.1(d) and therefore breach of the KADOE contract. You can search the forum for examples of these DVLA complaints.
For the IAS appeal when it gets to thay it'd be worth throwing in the point about their being no parking event in the first place. Where a meritorious defence exists, getting it in play alongside any technical arguments slightly increases the chances of it being put in the "too much effort" pile.
Perhaps not surprisingly they have declined my initial appeal.
The normal lie from Smart:
We can confirm that the above parking charge was issued under Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (POFA 2012). The parking contravention occurred on 02/07/2025, the registered keeper details were received on 10/07/2025, after which the PC was promptly issued within the 14 days required under POFA 2012.
The date on which “the registered keeper details were received” is irrelevant.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/9/schedule/4(4)The notice must be given by—
(a)handing it to the keeper, or leaving it at a current address for service for the keeper, within the relevant period; or
(b)sending it by post to a current address for service for the keeper so that it is delivered to that address within the relevant period.
(5)The relevant period for the purposes of sub-paragraph (4) is the period of 14 days beginning with the day after that on which the specified period of parking ended.
(6)A notice sent by post is to be presumed, unless the contrary is proved, to have been delivered (and so “given” for the purposes of sub-paragraph (4)) on the second working day after the day on which it is posted; and for this purpose “working day” means any day other than a Saturday, Sunday or a public holiday in England and Wales.
Clearly, as @DWMB2 stated above, your IAS appeal could start with the fact the driver wasn’t parked in the car park in the first place.
Clearly, as @DWMB2 stated above, your IAS appeal could start with the fact the driver wasn't parked in the car park in the first place.
Absolutely - technical arguments around PoFA are perfectly valid and should certainly be raised, but the fact that the vehicle wasn't even in the car park alleged is such an obvious appeal point that this should in my view be front and centre.
Following the expected rejection of my appeal I contacted the restaurant concerned asking for confirmation that they were not the landowner nor had any control over the car park where the vehicle was parked and also complaining about the actions of Smart Parking Limited. In fairness they replied almost straight away, asking for a copy of the PCN and a copy of the parking ticket that was obtained from the car park where the car actually was. Whilst not referring in any way to who the driver was those details have been supplied and they have said they will contact smart parking and get back to me as soon as possible. I also emailed Smart parking asking them for confirmation that the Sands car park is not controlled by their land owner and of course they said they would not provide that information.
I will leave it a couple of days to see if I hear back from the restaurant, but in order that I can prepare for the IAS appeal process apart from the anomaly with the notice being served late and also the obvious factor that I do not believe the car was parked in any of the spaces allocated to the restaurant, is there anything else that I should mention? Thank you in anticipation.
I appealed at ias with smart parking and they allowed my appeal. Ill post up the outcome in the next with hours.
Who told you to contact (not so) Smart Parking about anything? This whole appeals process is part of the scam. Unless the restaurant management gives you, in writing, that they are going to ask the operator to cancel the PCN, then you are wasting your time and quite possibly going to screw up the 99% guaranteed method of getting this dealt with, without paying a penny to them.
(not so ) Smart Parking have no way to hold the Keeper liable as long as the driver is not identified. It really is as simple as that. Whether Smart or the IAS reject any appeal, which is 99% likely, their decisions are not binding on you and have no weight going forwards. All they are hoping for is that you are low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree and will most likely pay up out of ignorance and fear.
“This PCN was issued on the basis that the Appellant's VRN was not registered on the exemption list to permit him to park there. The Appellant appeals the PCN on the basis that the Operator is seeking keeper liability under PoFA but has not complied with the requirements of the Act insofar as they did not send the NTK within the correct timescales. The Appellant is correct in this regard; the date of the parking event is 19/5/2025 and the NTK was not issued until 3/6/2025; 15 days after the date of the parking event. The Act requires the NTK to be sent within a timescale that means it is received within 14 days of the date of the parking event (taking account deemed delivery dates). Therefore, I have no option but to allow the appeal.
I have considered all the issues raised by both parties in this Appeal and I am not satisfied that the Operator has established that the Parking Charge Notice was properly issued and therefore this Appeal is allowed.”
That was my result at ias. Just gotta spell out the timescales and date and the peanut heads will just about be able to understand it.
Well done, thank you for posting the determination and it’s good to see.
In the past the IAS has not upheld similar appeals, so at least one of their operators gets it, or they’re starting to realise that their biased approach won’t put them in a good position for the future.
Also amusing because Smart jumped ship from BPA to IAS because it often fails to issue its PCNs in time, POPLA upheld appeals based on this but the IAS didn’t, until now.
Just gotta spell out the timescales and date and the peanut heads will just about be able to understand it.
If you're lucky... We've seen at least one assessor this year still trotting out Elliott vs Loake (yes, really, the mind boggles). It will be interesting to see if positive decisions become more common.
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