Contract Law - Conditions

[Iggle Piggle]

Hi, when using a car park, when and how do the conditions of parking need to be shown? I understand the car park being there is the offer and my parking in it my acceptance but I'm after the Statute / legislation that demands the conditions of the contract are shown to the user.
Thanks!

[Buenchico]

You won't find any relevant legislation, per se, simply because there isn't any.

British civil law is based largely upon case law (where it's ruling from earlier court cases which apply), which in turn is founded upon basic legal concepts dating back to the Middle Ages and beyond. (As an analogy from criminal law, you won't find any statutes which make murder illegal. Murder is a common law offence, not a statutory one).

There's an excellent summary of the main points of English contract law here:
http://www.a4id.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/A4ID-english-contract-law-at-a-glance.pdf
The courts use the case law referred to in that document, together with other precedents, when making rulings in favour of one party or the other in any contractual dispute. Where there is no precedent for a court to fall back upon, the court has to make a new ruling to cover the relevant circumstances.

[Jackdaw33]

There is legislation appertaining to contract law, notably the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977.

[fiction-factory]

This may help, particularly if it is a private parking company
http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?autocom=ibwiki&cmd=article&;id=56


"
PRIVATE PARKING COMPANIES RELY ON THE LAW OF CONTRACT

And while contract law can be a minefield of offer, acceptance, terms, implied terms and clauses, it can be surprisingly easy to understand in terms of every day matters such as this.

Essentially when a driver of a vehicle drives into a car park and parks his car he is implied to accept the offer for parking on the terms of the offeror (the parking company or land owner). A contract is formed and therefore the contract can be broken (or breached).

The Private Parking Company (PPC) must make the terms clear to the user of the car park. Therefore they are obliged to place ample and appropriate signage about the car park to make those persons using the facilities aware of the terms. The signs must be clear and unambiguous and it cannot be obscured, faded, covered up or in any way difficult or impossible to read and understand. Often times those terms will include a provision that if you over stay you will be penalised to the tune of £50, £70 or whatever. They may also include a clause on clamping (I will not be dealing with the issue of clamping in this article). These signs are usually displayed at the pay stations (for pay and display) and for other car parks at the entrance and at intervals about the land. If the car park is improperly signed then immediately the PPC will be in difficulty. Thus when the driver parks the vehicle in the car park and pays or otherwise he accepts by way of his actions and a contract is formed between he and the owner of the land.

ONLY THE DRIVER AND THE OWNER OF THE LAND ARE A PARTY TO THE CONTRACT UNLESS THE PARKING COMPANY ACTS AS THEIR AGENT

[Iggle Piggle]

The reason I ask is that I am looking into a situation for a friend. let me explain:
They parked in a hospital car park in an urgent situation and waited for treatment in the hospital with their patient. They then paid for parking and left.
Their query is simple - if anything went wrong with the car park (overstaying, vandalism etc.), would it be reasonable for them to read any conditions before they parked in an urgent situation.
Simple question, hard answer!

[Buenchico]

Contractual terms can be valid purely through 'custom and usage'. (It's up to the courts to decide when that applies). For example, a court might rule that even though someone parking their car on a hospital car park genuinely had no time to read the conditions laid out on the car park notices, he should reasonably expect that
(a) payment would be required to use the car park ; and
(b) that any such payment would be subject to a limit upon the time for which he was permitted to park there.