Quote: Originally posted by iank01 on 29/4/2014
You are correct in stating that one should no longer ignore these invoices dished out by these private Parking Companies however they are easily defended. IMHO for example £100 for overstaying 20 minutes etc is not justified under any circumstances.
As the op has proved, if you have a genuine reason for overstaying then charge will be lifted, if as pointed out there is no legality in any charge a private parking company can try to extract from a motorist parked in any privately owned carpark & any can at all times be successfully defended in court then this suggests a driver can ignore any parking restrictions in such a car park & park for as long as he likes & without cost if carpark is pay&display.
Is it then being suggested that a commuter for example who does not wish to pay for parking at railway station can park every day for 10hrs in a nearby retail park carpark with clearly signed 3hr restriction & at all times successfully defend any action brought against him by car park operator because their charges have no legal standing at all?
In the VCS V FINN case the judge ruled in favour of VCS,he dismissed the claim because VCS failed to demonstrate the amount claimed was reasonable.
"Bizarrely the Judge then ruled that as VCS had a landowner witness statement saying they had to pursue claims in accordance with the British Parking Association code of practice then the claimant had standing.
Signage was also quickly dealt with, the Judge again ruling in favour of VCS."
saxo1
The point here is OP contacted the bowling alley not Parking Eye. Parking Eye would not have lifted the charge with a phone call but Op could have followed the correct appeals procedure which would have almost certainly in the charge not being pursued.
Glad OP is now sorted and others can carry on proving who has the largest "feet"
I got one of these after parking at GO and spending 3h 15min there (and M&S and Aldi on same site). A good half an hour of that was looking for my silly child's toy cat which he'd abandoned in a display tent.
I wrote a letter explaining all this, and they waived the charges. I'm sure in your circumstances they would show lenience.
I can't remember if it was PE or another parking company with whom my friends had a battle royal last year. They went into a supermarket's car park to stock up before heading to the campsite. The charges were £1 per hour. They got the necessaries, had a cup of coffee and left with fifteen minutes to spare of their hour but on their way across the car park, there was a commotion and some elderly person had had a heart attack. Both friends are trained first aiders (no-one else there seemed to be able to do anything but shout and scream so they took charge, getting one person to dial 999 and sending another hotfoot to customer services in the store to see if they had a defib machine and to put over a public announcement for medical staff who might be shopping. They did CPR for 10 minutes before an ambulance arrived and could take over, but then they had all the formalities. Result, 30 minutes OTT. They enjoyed their break but came home to a £100 invoice for exceeding the hour they'd paid for. It took till March of this year to get the parking company to withdraw, despite the circumstances. Mates were prepared to go to Court, having offered to pay the 50p for the overstay plus a reasonable £20 for paperwork and postage of the initial demand. With all the documentation they had, they had a cast iron case and were prepared to claim from the parking company all their travelling costs to appear in Court 300 odd miles away. The casualty needed major heart surgery and is well on the way to recovery and getting back to work.
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