getaway (05/01/2008)
I case anyone else is caught with this, here is the legal standpoint:
A private company cannot fine you, only the police or a local authority can do this. They can obviously clamp you as long as the appropriate warnings are displayed, but if not…
The best advice is to ignore any ticket issued by a private company, and that goes for parking anywhere.
All the parking company can do is pay the DVLA to get your name & address then take you to court for ‘loss of revenue’. Since this will only be a few pounds at most they are not going to do it.
I’ve had first hand experience of this when I received a ticket for £80 at a private car park about six months ago. I found the above information, ignored the ticket and heard nothing more.
So, in a privately operated car park, if there’s no clamping signs or barriers then it’s free parking!
Hi getaway Welcome to the forums
You are correct that a private company has no power to ‘fine’ you.
I am no expert on these matters but I was fortunate enough to have been helped in this case by somebody who is very experienced in this field including managing private car parks for large companies similar to Sainsbury’s. This person has also attended many court cases involved with parking charge notices.
As I understand it the legal situation for private car parks is something like this:
By entering the car park and taking a ticket you are agreeing to a ‘contract’ between you and the car park operator. The rules of that ‘contract’ should be clearly displayed at the entrance to the car park. These rules allow the car park operator to ‘invoice’ you a fixed sum if you breach them. The ‘invoice’ usually takes the form of a Parking Charge Notice PCN.
If the car park operator decides to try and enforce the PCN they must first contact DVLA and pay fee for your name and address. Once they have this information they will send you an intimidating letter that implies you are about to be taken to court. This letter is simply intended to scare you into paying the PCN. I am told that in the industry money collected at this stage is know as “Bluff Money”.
If the PCN remains unpaid many will be quietly dropped but occasionally some will be taken to court. If it goes to court the onus is on the car park operator to prove that first you agreed with the contact, then you infringed the contract, and indeed that it was actually you (the registered keeper) who was driving the vehicle.
The letter that was drafted on my behalf pointed out a large number of weaknesses in any potential case that could be brought against me. The most obvious being that (at the time) the car park rules did note state that cars had to be parked entirely within a marked bay.
Clearly in this case the car park operator did not think it was a case that they could win and decided not to pursue it. I am sure that many other PCNs would not stand up in court.
I think you have to be a little careful though before deciding to ignore a PCN. If you are unlucky enough to be one of the people that are pursued, and the case does stand up in court, you could have costs awarded against you. Your credit record may also be affected.
I think if you receive a PCN you need to weigh up the chances of it being enforced against the likely consequences of a case going against you.