Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hi all,

Nothing has been done with this yet - completely vanilla at this stage, ie, no appeal or contact made.

A letter has arrived with a Smart Parking PCN for a suggested overstay of approximately 40 minutes.

The overstay is likely to do with the driver appointment being delayed and extended.

The "contravention" date was 16/12/2023 and the date issued is 16/01/2024.

There are no photos of the signs that can be posted here, and streetview is a couple of years outdated, but I can add them here if needed?

Obviously looking for assistance for how the keeper should respond.



Thanks
F82002





[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

Whatever you do, do not identify the drivers details. The NtK (PCN) has been issued to the registered keeper (RK), In law, the "driver" and the "keeper" are two separate entities.

(Not so) Smart Parking do not use PoFA and so cannot hold the keeper liable. Only the driver can be held liable and they have no idea who the driver is. Even if they had a high resolution picture of the driver, they still would not know the identity as there is no magical database the can use to try and compare a photo to with details. Besides that, they are not allowed to forensically try and identify someone from any such image. Only the police or an "authority" can do that and then only under criminal law. This is a simple civil law case.

One other thing about (not so) Smart Parking is that if this is for parking in an NHS Trust location such as a hospital, they have no contract to issue claims in their own name. This will go nowhere, especially if you follow the advice.

The first thing you must do is try Plan A, which is contact the landowner (if it is an NHS Trust site then contact PALS) and complain and ask them to get this cancelled. Following this, you move on to Plan B, which is an appeal to (not so) Smart Parking.

Under no circumstance identify the driver. No "I parked..." or "I drove..." etc. You are only appealing as the keeper of the vehicle. Do not select any options on their website that asks if you are appealing as the driver.

Use the following in your appeal:

This is an appeal by the registered keeper - No driver details will be given. Please do NOT try the usual Group Nexus Trick of asking for driver details in order to get around the fact your NTK does not comply with POFA. As there is no keeper liability then liability cannot flow from the driver to the keeper and thus is an automatic win at POPLA. Therefore, please cancel the notice or issue a POPLA code at which point you will auto withdraw.

Whilst (not so) Smart Parking will probably reject the appeal, not before trying to tell you that you must identify the driver (which you will not) otherwise they will have no option to "presume" that you were driving, just ignore that and move on to the POPLA appeal where you will win this.

@b789 - the parking location is not an NHS site, will that matter or change the response/appeal?

No - the reason b789 was mentioning it is that if you're seeking to contact the landowner, the approach is different with hospitals, as the PALS service exists.

If you use the template appeal I suggested, they'll very likely cancel.

Ok - thanks again :-)

I'll lodge the appeal now.

What about Plan A?

Interestingly, the car park is owned by a local solicitors chain - Gamlins Law.

Does that make contacting the land owner less beneficial?

Not at all. Were you there as a patron of the business? If they are the firm who contracted the PPC, they should be able to tell their agent to cancel it.

Complain about the fact that it is likely to be harmful to their business if an unregulated private parking company of ex-clampers is giving out speculative invoices for an alleged breach of a contract when you are a patron of their company.

I'll lodge the appeal directly in this case then.

Final question and then I will stop asking anymore :-)

On the appeal page they display this, as attached.

It doesn't mention the driver's name etc, just personal details for contact.

Does it look ok to enter the keeper's details here?



[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

Only the fields marked with an asterisk* are required, so you can leave the phone number one blank.

Is normal process to just sit and wait now, do nothing, but then chase on the 36th day if nothing received?

Essentially, yes. Keep an eye on your spam folder.

I recently had a charge from Smart Parking (thanks to dodgy ANPR) and didn't hear back on my appeal within 35 days, and had to chase by email. Then about a week later got a letter through the post confirming it was cancelled, so be prepared to chase if no response.