Free Traffic Legal Advice

Well, you committed a few basic errors including identifying who was driving and admitting that you breached the contractual terms. You were obviously under the assumption that UKPC and any of the other unregulated private parking companies give a single iota about your mitigating circumstances. They are ex-clampers whose customer service ethos is on a par with the Taliban's care about women's rights.

It is not a "fine". They would love you to think that but as they are simply an unregulated private parking company, they have zero statutory authority to issue fines or penalties. What they have sent you is a Parking Charge Notice (PCN) issued as postal Notice to Keeper (NtK). In other words... it is simply a speculative invoice for an alleged breach of contract by the driver.

The charge is not £60. It is £100, with a 40% mugs discount to persuade all the low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree to pay up out of ignorance and fear. The same gos for the useless debt recovery letter you have received The debt collectors are powerless to actually do anything as they are not a party to the contract allegedly breached by the driver. You can safely ignore all debt recovery letters. Shred them and use them hamster bedding or whatever. We do not need to know about useless DRA letters.

However, you are where you are now and we can deal with this as follows.

As you never received a response to your appeal and we already know that UKPC issue NtKs with defective wording regarding appeal and payment timelines in breach of the BPA/IPC Private Parking Single Code of Practice (PPSCoP), you need to submit a formal complaint. In your case, whilst an initial appeal is never accepted, they were required to provide a POPLA code for a secondary, supposedly independent, appeals process.

WE can draft a suitable formal complaint to UKPC requiring them to do a bit of work and provide evidence of their posting of the appeal response with the POPLA code and to explain their breaches of the PPSCoP. However, be aware, that they are still going to push this all the way to a debt claim in the small-claims track of the county court. That is easy to defend and I can say with better than 99% certainty that they will discontinue before it ever gets as far as a hearing.

So, are you prepared to fight this and win?

You should send your formal complaint as a pdf attachment in an email to complaints@ukparkingcontrol.com and also CC in yourself.

[Your Name] 
[Your Address] 
[City, Postcode] 
[Your Email] 
[Your Phone Number] 
 

UK Parking Control Ltd
Eastcastle House
27/28 Eastcastle St
London
W1W 8DH

[Date]

By email to: complaints@ukparkingcontrol.com

Subject: Formal Complaint Regarding Failure to Respond to Appeal & Unlawful Escalation to Debt Recovery 

PCN Reference: [PCN Number] 
Vehicle Registration Number: [Vehicle Reg] 
Date of Alleged Contravention: [Date] 

Dear Sir/Madam, 

I write to formally complain about your handling of my appeal against the above-referenced Parking Charge Notice (PCN). My appeal was submitted via your online portal on [Date], yet I received no response from UKPC. Instead, I have now received a demand from a debt recovery agency demanding an inflated amount of £170. 

This raises serious procedural concerns and breaches of the Private Parking Single Code of Practice (PPSCoP), which UKPC, as an Approved Operator, is bound to follow. 

1. Failure to Respond to My Appeal in Accordance with the PPSCoP 

The PPSCoP requires operators to provide a clear appeal process and respond within 28 days. Specifically: 

- Clause 8.4.1(b) states that an operator must respond to an appeal within 28 days or, if delayed, acknowledge receipt and confirm the timeframe for a final decision【30:1†source】. 
- Clause 8.4.6 requires that if an appeal is rejected, the operator must provide a clear option to either pay or escalate the appeal to the relevant Appeals Service (POPLA for BPA members)【30:0†source】. 
- Clause 8.4.9 explicitly states that debt recovery must be suspended if an appeal has been lodged and should not resume until the appeal process has been concluded.

 

Given that I submitted my appeal and did not receive a response, UKPC has violated all of the above provisions. 

2. Demand for Proof of Dispatch of Rejection Notice 

If UKPC claims that it sent an appeal rejection letter, I require you to provide proof of posting, in accordance with Clause 8.1.3, Note 2, which states: 

"A notice sent by post is to be presumed, unless the contrary is proved, to have been delivered on the second working day after the day on which it is posted. Therefore, parking operators must retain a record of the date of posting of a notice, not simply of that notice having been generated (e.g., the date that any third-party mail consolidator actually put it in the postal system.)”.

 

I demand that UKPC provide either: 

1. A verifiable proof of posting, not just a system-generated record; OR 
2. A declaration confirming that no rejection was issued, in which case the appeal must be reinstated and treated as pending.

 

3. Unlawful Escalation to Debt Recovery in Breach of PPSCoP 

The PPSCoP makes it clear that enforcement proceedings must be suspended once an appeal is lodged, meaning UKPC has acted unlawfully by passing my case to debt recovery. In addition to the breach of Clause 8.4.9 (suspension of enforcement pending appeal), UKPC has also violated: 

- Clause 8.4.10, which requires a minimum 28-day period for payment following an appeals rejection. 
- Clause 10.1, which states that operators must undertake reasonable endeavours to establish correct correspondence details before escalating to enforcement【30:3†source】.

 

Since I have never received an appeal response, UKPC has no lawful basis to escalate this matter to a debt recovery agency. 

4. Resolution Sought 

To rectify this matter, I demand the following: 

1. Provide a new POPLA appeal code or confirm that the PCN is cancelled. Since any previous code would have expired due to UKPC’s failure to respond, a new code is required. 
2. Provide proof of postal dispatch of any appeal rejection notice. A hybrid mail receipt or system log is insufficient; I require proof of when UKPC's mailing agent entered the letter into the postal system. 
3. Immediately cease and withdraw all debt collection activity, in accordance with PPSCoP requirements.

 

If I do not receive a satisfactory response within 14 days, I will escalate this complaint to: 

- The British Parking Association (BPA), highlighting UKPC’s failure to adhere to the PPSCoP. 
- The DVLA, as UKPC’s failure to comply with the PPSCoP constitutes a breach of their Keeper at Date of Event (KADOE) contract. This means that UKPC has unlawfully obtained and used my personal data from the DVLA, which warrants an investigation and potential suspension of their access to DVLA data.

 

I expect a response within the stated timeframe. If you require further clarification, you may contact me at the details provided above. 

Yours sincerely,
 
[Your Name]

Remind them that they have not responded to your formal complaint and have now escalated enforcement by sending a final reminder. They are therefore in breach of the PPSCoP section 11.3 because they have not even acknowledged the complaint within 14 days of receipt. You have proof of sending the email because you CC'd in yourself and that was received and shows the operators correct email address for complaints as per their own complaints policy. Also, remind them that failure to now respond will also lead to a formal complaint to the BPA and a request for sanctions.

As you now need to remind them that the have not responded to your formal complaint, you should also send a formal complaint to the DVLA about their failure to comply with the PPSCoP which means that the have therefore also breached the KADOE contract and re therefore handling your DVLA data unlawfully.