has anyone not paid a civil parking ticket

[Lastmanjack]

i am intending to not pay a civil parking ticket, having consulted, Conrad murray on watchdog, who states that you are not leagally liable to pay these fines, & that you have not committed any offence, i wolud be interested in anyone who has refused to pay & how far the agency pushed it, i am intending to go all the way,

It has been told to me that one driver, went into Mc Donalds drove round to the far side near the exit, but there were no spaces to park on that side, so he went out of the exit & back in found a space parked got his meal ate & left 20 mins later, but got in the post a PCN because he went into Mc Donalds twice in a short period of time, so when you go back because they forget to put something in the bag you will pay a �50 fine for that, also if you use the drive through then drive round again to park �50, this is not the fault of Mc Donalds directly but the companys they employ to do their dirty work, i sure Mc Donalds would not mind you buying coffee, burgers, & dougnuts every 10 mins in their resturants, but it is soon going to be impossible to do this without incurring a �50 fine.

[helpmetoo]

a friend is having fun with the parking mob who cover mc ds at gatwick airport,

firstly they write and tell you that you overstayed the time limit,
they dont enclose a pair of in and out photos,
if you ask they say you have to pay �10 admin for them!

they are having a giggle so he wrote back each time (5 i think) asking for the photos for which he was not going to pay,

in the end he wrote saying that if they were not prepared to support their claim with evidence he would be pleased to see them in court,

that was many weeks ago

looks like they have given up

[Lastmanjack]

mine was from met parking & the pis were enclosed on the fine sheet but they want �50 for the fine.

[north star]

They obviously get the name and adress of the registered keeper from the DVLA. Your first line of defence must surely be that you require evidence that you were the person who parked the car rather than just a picture of the car itself. Of course they will be unable to produce any such evidence. Case closed. Remember in these circumstances it is a civil rather than a criminal matter.

[New Judge]

Quite so. And as a civil matter the �burden of proof� upon the plaintiff (the parking company) is considerably lower than if it were a criminal matter.

I think you will find that the penalty charge is directed towards the registered keeper of the vehicle (as opposed to a speeding offence where it has to be directed to the driver). The County Court usually accepts that the Keeper is generally responsible for matters relating to vehicles registered to them, so the inability to prove who the driver was is not �end of� by any means.

These are charges, not fines (only a court can impose fines). I can imagine that a company the size of McDonalds has probably invested a bit of time and money into establishing the legitimacy of the charges raised by their sub-contractors and to dismiss them so glibly is foolish.

You do not say if you have entered into any dialogue with the parking company. If you genuinely believe you have a case you should do so. Bearing in mind the intransigence usually displayed by such organisations I doubt it will do you much good and you must be prepared to see the matter pursued to the County Court.

You should, however, engage in dialogue and state your concerns. That way it will make it more difficult for any extra charges to be added.

[Lastmanjack]

i have written to the company, but i am interested to hear from others who have refussed to pay & how far they managed to get before giving in to the demands, or if it went to court, it would be nice to hear from some lawyers as to the real legal aspects, i do have somthing up my sleeve when it comes to them getting their money even if it goes to court & passed to baliffs, but i can not say it openly, only to say they have to find me.

[factor-fiction]

It's difficult to advise you when you haven't given us the details of your case. Instead you've given a long anecdote about someone's trip to MacDonalds which may or may not be relevant.
Also please can you provide a link to Conrad Black's article which you think supports your case. Then I or a lawyer on here would have more info to help us advise you.
If your case goes to court and you lose you would be making life difficult for yourself if you try to 'disappear'. Would you really complicate your life to avoid paying in the region of �50?

[Lastmanjack]

I parked at Mc Donalds & stayed past their 1 hour maximum stay period, for this met parking have sent me a �50 ticket, i feel this is extortionate & am not prepared to pay, what i want to know is how do i stand, as this is not a criminal matter, i have not broken any laws, this is civil, do they have a legal right, if fines can only be issued by the government, how can this be backed by the court, do people just pay because they think it is the same as a council parking ticket, do people give up to easy, & it will not be �50, as i have declined to pay it will now be �100 & by the time they add on the next charge & court cost many hundreds of pounds, what i want to know is how far can they go, i am testing them to see if there is a point at which they give up, so other people in the future will be able to avoid paying, so any help with the legal side would help, its not about me getting off on a technicallity, its about not paying the charge at all, because i dont want to.


Below is a link to Lawyer Conrad Murrays statement on BBC watchdog

http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/tv_and_radio/wat chdog/reports/transport/transport_20080225.sht ml

[factor-fiction]

Thanks Lastmanjack. I've read the article in the link you provided and it doesn't seem relevant and certainly doesn't suggest parking charges don't have to be paid.
I'm no lawyer but it seems to me that this is in effect a private car park and parking charges can be levied, and if you breach the terms and fail to pay they can seek to recover through the courts.
There may be an argument however that, like excessive bank penalty charges, the �50 charge is an unfair excessive penalty charge- is this what you and Conrad Black are arguing?

[Stu Dent]

I've been looking at this issue and I asked myself the same basic question as the questioner: what is the legal basis for this charge/fine? I can see no obvious answer.

The answer I have come up with is that it is contractual: If you park here for X amount of time, we can charge you Y.

If that's the case then I see two possible remedies.

Factor30's - Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 - the OFT's application for a declaration from the High Court is due pretty soon on the issue of fairness of contractual bank charges. The OFT say any charge above �12 is automatically unfair.

Your second potential remedy is within the legitimacy of the contract term under common law contract: Were you made aware of the contract term before you could exercise your right to reject the contract terms? (Thornton v. Shoe Lane Parking). I won a parking dispute with a city council on this issue!

If the term was so obscure that it would be very difficult to see then my view is that the offeror cannot rely on that term in the contract.

My feeling is that you should stand your ground.

[Stu Dent]

No offence New Judge, but big companies want the public to believe that because they are big (and have big in-house legal departments), that they 'MUST' be right. This is not true.

Before I became a law student I challenged a major U.S. based IT company on a matter of contract law after they failed to pay me (plus nearly 100 other contractors) money they had agreed to pay if certain conditions were met. Those conditions were met and by merely pointing out their legal obligations and calmly stating that I would take court action if they did not meet their contractual obligations, they agreed to pay out nearly �100k - after only four hours!!!

NEVER, NEVER, EVER assume that because an organisation is big, that they are right. That's what they want us to think! Make these people justify their claims!!!

[{Dakota}]

For what it's worth, I got a fine for parking on double yellow lines (on purpose), I put the fine in a drawer and forgot about it, until the reminder came through. The reminder joined the original fine in the drawer and was forgotten about too. I never heard anything again.

[Lastmanjack]

Perhaps another point i might make is that although there are signs at Mc Donalds, Tescos, Asda, where ever, pointing out there parking terms, they are usually high up, small writing, & as customers to these shops, Spending your hard earnt cash to make them the richest companies in the world, we have been used to free parking, so none of us read the signs anyway, just get on with our dayly routine, but if they put up a big sign at the entrance, in big letters stating, NEW PARKING RESTRICTIONS, READ SIGNS, BEWARE YOU COULD BE FINED, we would all read them, but they dont do this, because the first 100 or so transgressors only find out when they get a �50 fine, now do the maths, quick �5000 x how many stores, someones living on caviar & champagne & you are paying for it.

[Davethedog]

Tell them to take you to court. State in the letter that you refuse to pay and state your reasons. Tell them if they wish to pursue it they need to summons you. Keep a copy and send it recorded delivery.

If they do not issue court proceedings but persit in pursuing the ticket you can go to the Police and make acomplaint of harresment showing the letter.

If they do issue court proceedings you will then have a legal right of reply, and if you are in the right every chance of winning.

[ThePresident]

Any more update LastmanJack?
Wife got a parking ticket for being 26 minutes overtime whislt shopping in THEIR shop. �50 - I'm NOT going to enter into any communication with RCP Parking Limited. I am the regestered keeper of the vehicle and I can prove I was not using the car on the day.
This link might help:
http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?autocom=ib wiki&cmd=article&id=56

[Lastmanjack]

hi folks just an update, had a letter back, stateing that i had entered into a private contract on entering the car park, which was well shown, so was liable as i overstayed,
& they were prepared to give me another 14 days to pay the lower charge, before they increased it to �100 & then put in in the hands of debt collectors & the courts if need be, having had the month i have just had, ( lost brand new phone thursday, Uncle Died Easter friday, House broken into & car stolen off driveway a week later, car recovered but a write off)
so i decided to pay up & get them off my back.

But i would still like to know, could they have backed this up, & would the courts have backed them up, if there is a proper lawyer out there let us poor saps know, are we just paying up because we are scared it could cost us more, do they have the power they say, or is it good marketing ********, if we ever find out its ******** their business will be down the drain overnight.

[ThePresident]

Still nothing heard - it's been 32 days since ticket was issued.

[xtremesurf]

I had a ticket come through the post having parked at Clackett lane services. There was a picture of my arrival and a picture of my leaving after 4 hours of having fallen asleep. Apparently there were signs on arrival and in the car park drawing attention to any time limits applied to people using he premises.

The owners of the car park have to display these details and you are accepting the terms of a contract on entering the premises, however there are always mitigating circumstances. There are 2 courses of action you can take:

1) enter into communication with the issuing company (usually a 3rd party) and explain the mitigating circumstances - in the hope these people will see reason. They wont and will issue a further penalty and threaten court proceedings.

2) The second route is to just ignore the penalty notice, they will issue a further notice again threatening court action.

In both cases one with polite communication from you (gradually making you more and more angry) and one with no communication from you whatsoever, a final demand will eventually arrive saying the case will be passed to a legal team for processing a civil claim.

In my case, that was the last I ever heard from them. Fact is, they can take you to court, however it is expensive to do so and there could be reasonable mitigating circumstances that mean they won't win. Its simply too big a financial risk for the company, so if you don't reply the final demand will probably be the last you will hear of it.

These companies simply rely on panic and guilt making unaware/uninitiated motorists pay up when they don't really need to.

I took my course of action having googled the question, so I have to add that, any course of action taken by others is of their own volition and based on their own circumstances - This is civil contract law and there is the risk of being taken to court, so you should have a defence in place in this eventuality.