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APCOA - Parking Debt Passed To Lease Company
BlueSkyBlue
post Fri, 15 May 2020 - 13:03
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Hi, I'm after some advice please. I've used this forum's knowledge to my benefit previously.

I have a lease car thorough 'Leaseplan'

On 7th May 2020 Leaseplan notified me that they had received a letter from Debt Recovery plus regarding an outstanding PCN from St David's Railway Station Car Park. The car park is controlled by APCOA.

The letter from Debt Recovery was dated 27/03/2020 and the offence date was 01/11/2019. The amount requested is £170 although LP have offered to pay £110 towards it.

I have contacted LP and obtained permission to speak to Debt Recovery.

The car was parked there a that time & a parking ticket was purchased using cash. Obviously given the timescales there is no record or ticket for this.

The car park is one where you enter the vehicle details so there may have been a typo.

My plan is to contact Debt Recovery, make no admissions about the driver & state that parking was paid for ( there may have been a typo entering the vehicle details)

Is there anything that I should or should not be doing a this stage?

Thanks very much
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post Fri, 15 May 2020 - 13:03
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hcandersen
post Fri, 29 May 2020 - 07:24
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No guess. Info posted. Info now modified/clarified - to a degree - so view reconsidered.

OP, if you have cancelled their charge then the next step is with them. Apparently you have done this unilaterally despite them undertaking to refund you their direct costs should the creditor refund them. What would you expect to happen if you were them? Forget the minutiae, they lease you a car, they receive what they consider to be a legitimate charge which arose when you were the user, they paid. You've now reversed this therefore leaving them out of pocket. They told you they would reverse their charge, but you've resorted to self-help anyway and not explained to them why.

So put yourself in their shoes. Forget the minutiae, how do you intend to deal with LP? Let them respond to your action, explain what you've done and why? Or effectively say to them, suck it up, you shouldn't have paid in the first place! And if so, your legal support for such a view would be??

At present we're not even certain how much money is involved - and potentially further charges which they might make pursuant to your agreement following you reversing the charge. You first wrote that it was £170 but that they were going to pay £110.

Until we know how much money is involved and you can compare the proportionality of what you hope to gain with charges and actions which the lessor might levy/take, then what's this about?

And not a mention of b****y bylaws, APCOA etc.
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nosferatu1001
post Fri, 29 May 2020 - 07:57
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Or to sum it up = you need to tell us what your lease states.
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BlueSkyBlue
post Fri, 5 Jun 2020 - 15:11
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A bit of progress today, however it would appear to be one step forward two steps back.

A copy of my agreement arrived, below is the paragraph that addresses the payment of fines:

2.2 You must pay all fixed penalty charges, fines, congestion charges or any other penalties or charges in connection with the Vehicle or its use, including any fine in connection with the failure to register the Vehicle on the Motor Insurance Database. If we pay or transfer liability to you for any of these sums on your behalf you will repay us upon demand any sums so paid and an administration fee.

I fully accept that I should pay LP as they have paid the fine.

I logged onto the APCOA site & entered the PCN details & it stated the matter is settled. Their online chat is not working so they are not contactable.

Called Debt Recovery Solutions - they informed me they had not received my email via APCOA about contesting the charge & as Leaseplan have now paid the outstanding money the matter is closed. Their representative told me they would only speak to Leaseplan anyway, she was completely unprofessional throughout, vague and obstructive. I have emailed a list of questions, the 3rd party permission letter & copy of the chat with APCOA

Coincidentally I received a letter today from Leaseplan about the outstanding £75. Contacted them & ran through the whole sorry debacle. My concern is that other than the letter from DRS six months after the incident, both LP & I had no knowledge of the PCN. At my request LP have sent me all of the correspondence they have received. It looks like the earliest they knew about was 30th April 2020 ( offence date 01/11/2019). I asked where the £75 figure came from & they don't know.

I'm at a loss really - LP have paid the fine, APCOA are not contactable & have passed it to DRS, DRS are happy as the fine as been paid & the matter is closed.

When I spoke to the accounts team at LP they guy mentioned making a complaint - looks like they have dropped the ball, hold few documents & not really given me the opportunity to contest the fine or pay at a reduced rate. However morally it feels wrong as APCOA & DRS are the villains.

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Jlc
post Fri, 5 Jun 2020 - 17:07
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QUOTE (BlueSkyBlue @ Fri, 5 Jun 2020 - 16:11) *
2.2 You must pay all fixed penalty charges, fines, congestion charges or any other penalties or charges in connection with the Vehicle or its use, including any fine in connection with the failure to register the Vehicle on the Motor Insurance Database. If we pay or transfer liability to you for any of these sums on your behalf you will repay us upon demand any sums so paid and an administration fee.

The highlighted part is unfortunate. Whilst it's not a fine it is a charge.

But they still have a duty to minimise any costs and act in a timely fashion.


--------------------
RK=Registered Keeper, OP=Original Poster (You!), CoFP=Conditional Offer of Fixed Penalty, NtK=Notice to Keeper, NtD=Notice to Driver
PoFA=Protection of Freedoms Act, SAC=Safety Awareness Course, NIP=Notice of Intended Prosecution, ADR=Alternative Dispute Resolution
PPC=Private Parking Company, LBCCC=Letter Before County Court Claim, PII=Personally Identifiable Information, SAR=Subject Access Request

Private Parking - remember, they just want your money and will say almost anything to get it.
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Gary Bloke
post Fri, 5 Jun 2020 - 17:19
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If Byelaws, then it was neither a fine nor a charge. It would have been a contractual offer to avoid prosecution. This is not covered by their wording?
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Jlc
post Fri, 5 Jun 2020 - 17:46
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It's still a charge in the loosest sense.


--------------------
RK=Registered Keeper, OP=Original Poster (You!), CoFP=Conditional Offer of Fixed Penalty, NtK=Notice to Keeper, NtD=Notice to Driver
PoFA=Protection of Freedoms Act, SAC=Safety Awareness Course, NIP=Notice of Intended Prosecution, ADR=Alternative Dispute Resolution
PPC=Private Parking Company, LBCCC=Letter Before County Court Claim, PII=Personally Identifiable Information, SAR=Subject Access Request

Private Parking - remember, they just want your money and will say almost anything to get it.
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anon45
post Fri, 5 Jun 2020 - 19:16
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QUOTE (BlueSkyBlue @ Fri, 5 Jun 2020 - 16:11) *
2.2 You must pay all fixed penalty charges, fines, congestion charges or any other penalties or charges in connection with the Vehicle or its use, including any fine in connection with the failure to register the Vehicle on the Motor Insurance Database. If we pay or transfer liability to you for any of these sums on your behalf you will repay us upon demand any sums so paid and an administration fee.

IMO, Leaseplan were wrong to pay the charge.

I make no claim to special expertise, but I'm sure I recall, in a similar past case, it being strongly suggested that a contractual term of this nature was potentially unfair (and, if so unenforceable), insofar as it effectively binds the motorist to pay potentially unenforceable PPC invoices of an unknown amount without any opportunity to challenge them, and at a time when the lease company has the ability to quickly and simply discharge any liability by naming the hirer prior to court action. (Indeed, if the parking was subject to railway byelaws then Leaseplan could not be held liable in any event).

I would argue that the phrase "other penalties or charges" should, under a consumer-friendly construction, be construed to mean "other penalties or charges which Leaseplan was legally obliged to pay".

Leaseplan stated:
QUOTE
Please note : As LeasePlan are the registered owners of the vehicle, all fines will automatically come to us.
For the majority of PCN’s received, LeasePlan will transfer liability of the fine to the customer and send this back to the issuing authority for them to pursue with the driver personally. For all our customers, our preference would be to transfer liability for these fines, however there are some companies who do not allow us to do so, and as we are the registered keepers of the vehicle, we are obligated to pay for the fines and recharge the customer. In result of this, invoice number #518 was raised and sent to you.
The fine in question will need to be disputed directly with the issuing body providing evidence as to why the fine is not due. If your dispute is up held, LeasePlan will receive a refund on the fine paid and this will be passed back to yourself, minus the administration fee which has been issued accordingly to your contractual agreement terms and conditions.

It is irrelevant whether the PPC "allows" Leaseplan to "transfer liability" as if Leaseplan comply with the statutory conditions then liability is transferred and the PPC has no say in the matter (and, here. there likely was never any RK liability to recharge in any event). It was thoroughly incorrect for Leaseplan to state that "we are obligated to pay for the fines and recharge the customer".

This post has been edited by anon45: Fri, 5 Jun 2020 - 20:43
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anon45
post Fri, 5 Jun 2020 - 19:33
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QUOTE (hcandersen @ Fri, 29 May 2020 - 08:24) *
Or effectively say to them, suck it up, you shouldn't have paid in the first place! And if so, your legal support for such a view would be??

Yes, this is exactly what the OP should have done. The legal support for this view is so tritely obvious that it need not be spelled out.

I would have done exactly the same as the OP, and the OP has the right to contest charges which he or she reasonably believes he or she did not authorise and which he or she reasonably believes were not enforceable. Evidently, the OP's bank agreed with the OP that the charge was invalid and reversed the charge on this basis.

OP- you now seem to be under the (at, best) dubious assumption that Leaseplan were right to pay the "fine" and that you are obliged to reimburse them.

To repeat, there was probably no liability on Leaseplan in the first place (which is why the question of railway byelaws is relevant), and, if there was, they could easily have discharged it simply by naming you, the hirer. They were under no obligation to pay a penny to APCOA.

If you agree that the correct interpretation of your hire contract was that you are automatically liable for all parking invoices, irrespective of merit, and irrespective of whether Leaseplan was actually obliged to pay them, then please give me Leaseplan's details so I can set up my own PPC, whip up a few fake parking invoices, sorry "charges", and make hundreds of pounds at your expense (and, in passing, also allow Leaseplan to make a thumping profit at your expense from heavily inflated so-called "admin charges")?*

If you have your money back following the reversal of the charge, then it's your money and you may as well keep hold of it rather than giving it to Leaseplan.

*This is in jest, as I have no intention of actually doing this, but it illustrates just why the contract term you quoted ought to be construed in a consumer-friendly way, having regard to the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Leaseplan, having made a mistake in unnecessarily paying APCOA, ought not to be able to use a unilaterally drafted contract term to recover the consequences of their own foolish mistake (and for their betterment on the side via the inflated admin fee).

The Beavis case disallowed 'loss' as a defence, but did not automatically make all PPC charges automatically enforceable; each case still turns on its own facts. It is possible that the driver, even if known and named (and I acknowledge that, even in the absence of RK liabiliity, it is open to PPCs to assert in claim forms that the defendant was driving and all but force a defendant-driver to admit this, since a defendant is obliged to (truthfully) admit or deny assertions in particulars of claim unless genuinely not known), might nevertheless have a defence based on the peculiar facts of the case (e.g. signage sufficiency)- and by paying, Leaseplan have denied the driver- if indeed the OP- his/ her opportunity to defend on the facts.

This post has been edited by anon45: Fri, 5 Jun 2020 - 20:42
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ostell
post Fri, 5 Jun 2020 - 22:19
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It says that "you must pay........" etc. They paid it for you, contrary to your agreement
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Gary Bloke
post Sat, 6 Jun 2020 - 06:59
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Good posts Anon45!
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BlueSkyBlue
post Mon, 29 Jun 2020 - 15:58
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Good afternoon all

Thank you all very much for the useful comments.

I have been in contact with the debt recovery team, emailed over my compliant & copies of the documentation I have received. I have not had a response. Their attitude was 'if its been paid the matter is closed'. That was over three weeks ago.

I've spoken to APCOA & they offered to reset the fine so I can appeal as it looked like the debt recovery company were not prepared to do anything. I asked for a formal email explaining the situation and I haven't received one.

However I have received a response from Leaseplan after three weeks, which was a shoddy lift from a spreadsheet, it said :

We have never received the original fine and the first we knew anything was when we received the debt recovery plus notice. Parking fines are £60 which is standard and the customer has been charged the lower amount & we absorbed the rest.

If the customer has been in touch with DRS then they should be able to provide the original PCN which have the amount of the fine.


It looks like they have just made up a price for me to pay. I have reversed the fine request again so it remains unpaid.

Given the three parties involved are incapable of acting in a sensible manner is there an dependant body I can go to - the guy in Leasplan's finance told me to complain to the Financial Ombudsman.


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ostell
post Mon, 29 Jun 2020 - 17:36
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Leaseplan are still saying it is a fine rather than an invoice. It looks as though they still don't really know what they are talking about.


As it was a high car then there is a high probability that the charge would have been cancelled if it had been handled correctly.
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BlueSkyBlue
post Sun, 23 Aug 2020 - 20:49
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Its been a while & I have an update.

First of all I would like to thank everyone for the advice provided, ts been first class.

I've still had no communication from the car park company, the debt service or Leaseplan. However on two days last week two separate invoices from Leaseplan were emailed to me. One a credit of £60 & the other a credit of £75.

I called them & they couldn't really offer any explanation other than one was 'probably' a refund & one was 'probably' a goodwill gesture. Both of these amounts have now credited my account so I suppose the whole sorry tale is over

What has stood out throughout is the appalling level of incompetence & interest shown by all three parties. Armed the advice gained from these forums I was able to keep pushing until it has been resolved.

Thanks again.
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