PCM LTD issued PCM even though parked in own space, Any advice greatly appreciated. Options

[Peapoduk]

Hello all, a newbie here. Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated.

I know this has probably been covered before but after a bit of reading I am little confused on what my course of action should be whether to ignore or communicate again with them.

I received a PCM last week. The background is that our management housing agency engaged PCM Ltd to manage our parking garage. This was because there was a lot of parking issues with non residents parking in spaces not allocated to them. Access to the parking garage is via key fob but the gate doesn't always close due to some residents messing with it.

We didn't receive a letter from the managing agent only a letter from PCM saying that they had been engaged by the managing agent and permits were given. I've lived here for 5 years and there was no parking permit system until last November.

To be honest I didn't question it as last year my brain was not fully with it, had a really prem baby so I was always coming and going to the hospital.

Anyways sorry I'm dithering I had my permit on my dashboard and when I closed the door it fell off. I didn't notice as I was distracted by my bubba crying. So when I came back to the car I saw the PCM and panicked so immediately like a fool I know appealed and revealed I was the driver. Naively thinking it was an honest mistake as I have rights to my space e.g. it's in my lease and it clearly states my parking space number and no where does it say about a parking permit.

So obviously my appeal was denied and they have said I could appeal to IAS.

Now I know now I should have done my homework and not engaged with them because they would have needed to send me a notice to driver (I think?)

I've been looking on MSE and parking prankster and a lot of what people have said is to ignore now after reading here there is advice I should engage with IAS? On the signs it says the managing agent has no sway on PCM being cancelled.

I'm not sure what to do and with a small bubba my anxiety levels have reached through the roof.

Any advice or help would be so gratefully appreciated.

Best wishes,

Peapoduk

This post has been edited by Peapoduk: Thu, 26 Apr 2018 - 07:26

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[bama]

That is correct the freeholder is also the managing agent.

then who is the Principal ?

[Eljayjay]

The parking company’s principal is the freeholder.

[Peapoduk]

I don’t think Albert Ross’s GDPR piece fits comfortably into my last draft which is really saying to the freeholder “tell me precisely what gives you the right to police my parking space?”.

But do keep it in mind for future use.

Thank you Eljayjay. I will go with your drafted email. Will see what they say.

Hope you have/had a lovely weekend.

Best wishes,

Peapoduk

If my arithmetic is right, it is the price per day since 16/11/2017 as per the table which you supplied. So, the daily price varies according to the day of the week and whether it is a bank holiday.

Apologies me again, apologies if I sound dim, would it not be from the beginning of November?

Best wishes Peapoduk

This post has been edited by Peapoduk: Sun, 24 Jun 2018 - 09:21

[Eljayjay]

No problem.

I should have mentioned that the start date is dependent on the actual date on which the parking company commenced its operations. As I was not sure about the exact date, I simply plumped for the mid point of November.

If you let me know the exact date, I can very easily recalculate the amount. In addition, of course, it will in any event need recalculating because the end date is constantly changing.

This post has been edited by Eljayjay: Sun, 24 Jun 2018 - 11:51

[Peapoduk]

No problem.

I should have mentioned that the start date is dependent on the actual date on which the parking company commenced its operations. As I was not sure about the exact date, I simply plumped for the mid point of November.

If you let me know the exact date, I can very easily recalculate the amount. In addition, of course, it will in any event need recalculating because the end date is constantly changing.

Ahh OK makes perfect sense. According to them it's from the 23rd November 2017. I sent the email over the weekend. No replies yet but I def think the MA has gone back to PCM. I wouldn't be surprised if she just forwarded my email to them.

Hope you had a lovely weekend.

Best wishes,

Peapoduk

[Eljayjay]

I hope you enjoyed your weekend too.

What a weekend! 6 - 1 in the football. 5 - 0 whitewash in the cricket. Hamilton victorious in the French GP.

23/11/2017 to 25/06/2018 equals £983.70.

I suspect that you are right and that your last email has been or will be forwarded to the parking company.

I am not really expecting them to respond at this stage, but it will give them something to think about.

[The Rookie]

What a weekend! 6 - 1 in the football. 5 - 0 whitewash in the cricket. Hamilton victorious in the French GP.

Don't forget the Rugby (both codes....)

[bama]

The parking company’s principal is the freeholder.

Who is the principal of the Managing Agent ?
Am struggling to think who it can be as the MA has the Freehold

[Eljayjay]

Bama

My understanding of what is happening here is that the freeholder manages the location but, in doing so, poses as an agent.

If that does not answer your question, please provide some context.

This post has been edited by Eljayjay: Tue, 26 Jun 2018 - 05:57

[Peapoduk]

Good morning everyone, I hope you are all well. Just wanted to update you all. The MA emailed me today to say that PCM have cancelled my ticket. She basically forwarded my email to them and they backed down. I want to say thank you to all the posters who have advised me and kept me calm along the way.

I would like to say a special thank you to Eljayjay, your patience, kindness and more importantly your advice and drafting emails with balls (def need to grow a pair of this ever happens again) have been very much appreciated.

I will ask the MA to advise PCM that I would like confirmation in writing that the ticket has been cancelled.

Many thanks and best wishes Peapoduk

This post has been edited by Peapoduk: Wed, 27 Jun 2018 - 10:41

[ManxRed]

Got there in the end! Well done!

Don't forget to tell your neighbours, especially if you know any that also got tickets.

This post has been edited by ManxRed: Wed, 27 Jun 2018 - 10:42

[Peapoduk]

Got there in the end! Well done!

Thank you I couldn't have done it without you guys and I'm glad I preserved and didn't give in!

Best wishes

Peapoduk

[Albert Ross]

You Purchased your home from Paradigm Housing Charitable Trust:

https://mutuals.fsa.gov.uk/SocietyDetails.a...89&Suffix=R

whereas
Paradigm housing group limited:

https://mutuals.fsa.gov.uk/SocietyDetails.a...44&Suffix=R

there are four seperate company numbers associated with the group
group structure:
https://www.paradigmhousing.co.uk/about-par...roup-structure/

Your annual Service charge demand should identify the landlord:
http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKUT/LC/2012/LRX_59_2011.html

Have you ascertained who PCM have the contract with. The Principal?

Just saw the update, well done.

[Eljayjay]

I am really delighted to hear your news.

It takes courage to take on a parking company and its cronies. So, well done, you!

Obviously, I hope that you will not be bothered by the parking company again; however, just in case, do keep everything.

[Churchmouse]

But what about an alternative scenario, where a judge decides that the parking contract and the parking scheme have been made in accordance with, say, a power contained in the lease to augment it with rules and/or regulations? In this event, the third-party rights clause would come into play because the parking company would be relying on the lease.

So, put simply: either the parking scheme does not comply with the lease in which case, it is invalid and the parking charges are not enforceable; or the parking scheme does comply with the lease in which case the parking charges are still unenforceable.

Sorry I did not see this earlier, but your scenario is far-fetched. Do you have any support for it?

I guess that's a "no", then...

Congratulations to the OP. It pays to fight back!

For future reference, the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 was enacted in order to change the common law requirement that only a party to an agreement could enforce the terms of that agreement. For example, a person named as being the intended beneficiary of an agreement between two other parties could not sue to enforce that agreement even when it was clear that the sole purpose of the agreement was to benefit that person. In order to address the widely held belief that such an outcome was unjust, the RTP Act 1999 changed the common law to allow such a third party to enforce a term of a contract if, in general, (a) the contract expressly provided that he may or (b) the term purported to confer a benefit on the third party. In addition, the third party must be expressly identified in the contract by name, as a member of a class or as answering a particular description, but need not be in existence when the contract is entered into.

The RTP Act 1999 can be dis-applied, however, by the inclusion of a boilerplate clause in the contract that explicitly does this. However, the dis-application of the RTP Act 1999 to a particular agreement only has the effect of dis-applying the additional third party rights created by the Act, e.g., those rights mentioned under (a) and (b), above. Section 7(1) of the RTP Act 1999 explicitly preserves all other third party rights that exist or are available apart from the Act, so dis-applying the Act has no effect on third parties who (a) were not expressly named in the contract or (b) were not conferred an identifiable benefit by the contract.

As mentioned, a PPC does not ordinarily seek to "enforce" any term of a lease, as the lease would not have been drafted with the PPC (or any PPC) in mind as a third party beneficiary and doing so would not entitle the PPC to the outrageous fantasy damages available under its own alleged contracts. Moreover, a third party seeking to enforce a contract as a third party is also subject to all of the limitations included in the underlying contract, such as choice of law, mandatory arbitration, and limitations on damages (i.e., in this case, actual damages).

--Churchmouse

[Eljayjay]

Churchmouse,

I think there may well be an element of talking at cross-purposes insofar as you and I are concerned.

Although I thank you for your explanation about the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999, it is entirely in line with my own knowledge of the subject.

I shall attempt to explain my argument to you one last time...

Generally, if a parking company claims that it has introduced its parking scheme in accordance with a residential lease, then its attempt to recover parking charges will be thwarted by its status as a third party lacking the right to enforce the terms of the lease.

Given that, I entirely accept that a parking company would usually be attempting to enforce a term of its own alleged contract scheme with the driver as opposed to a term in the lease. The problem for the parking company in this situation would, however, be that (as in Peapoduk's and many other cases) the lease governs parking and the lease has primacy of contract over both the parking company's contract with, say, the freeholder and the parking company's alleged contract with the driver. In Peapoduk's and many other cases, the right to use an allocated parking space has been granted to the lessee, not to the parking company. Although the parking company claims that, by erecting some signage, it has a right to use the parking space for the purpose of its business, it is simply indulging in a game of bluff. The parking company has no right to use the land at all.

So, it seems to me that the simple application of common sense and logic forces one to conclude that, generally, a parking company will find itself in a Catch 22 situation in that, if it claims to be acting in accordance with a lease, it is thwarted by the lease, but if it claims to be acting outside the provisions of a lease, it is still thwarted by the lease.

There have, of course, been some well known cases where the pre-existing terms of a lease have trumped a parking company's signage.

Really, the only thing that I have added to the pot is the lack of a parking company's rights as a third party, about which little or nothing was mentioned in many residential parking threads.

[Churchmouse]

Really, the only thing that I have added to the pot is the lack of a parking company's rights as a third party, about which little or nothing was mentioned in many residential parking threads.

Nothing has been mentioned before because it is irrelevant.

--Churchmouse

[Eljayjay]

Well, what more can I say?

You are the only poster who has found fault with it.

Maybe if you bothered to make an argument instead of impolitely making bald statements, I might be more interested in what you have to say.

As things stand, however, I am not at all interested in what I believe is drivel.

[Churchmouse]

Well, what more can I say?

You are the only poster who has found fault with it.

Maybe if you bothered to make an argument instead of impolitely making bald statements, I might be more interested in what you have to say.

As things stand, however, I am not at all interested in what I believe is drivel.

In that case I defer to your expertise in this matter.

--Churchmouse

[Peapoduk]

Hello all,

Me again, the saga continues.....

Thank you all to those who advised me previously.

My first ticket was cancelled and I was assured that PCM would not operate on my parking space.

Yesterday morning I found another ticket on my car. I've emailed the housing management company who were apologetic and are contacting PCM to cancel this one.

How do I stop them ticketing my car if the housing management company have already told them to bog off from my space.

Could I bring a case against PCM for trespass?

Just don't want to have to keep contacting the housing association all the time.

Many thanks for your advice in advance.

Peapoduk