VCS 9 PCN's for not clearly displaying parking permit Options

[Lynne R]

My son has recently purchased a leasehold flat with allocated parking space. He was given a VCS parking permit which he displayed on the dashboard (I am the registered keeper). He only uses the car intermittently so he was surprised to see 6 tickets when he next went to drive the car which he ignored as he was displaying the permit. Then a further 3 arrived. Consequently I received the NTKs and appealed. The reasons given for the fines were that the permit was not clearly visible and a photo of same showed a portion of the permit was partially hidden by the shaded area around the perimeter of the windscreen. However, the permit valid from date, the allocated parking bay number and the permit registration number were clearly visible. Also the angle of the photo meant that it looked as though more of the permit was hidden than was actually the case. If you actually personally looked through the windscreen at an angle you could see most of the permit. As most of the permit was clearly visible I appealed informally to VCS stating the right to park an an owner/occupier and that the majority of the details on the permit were visible. They rejected the appeal but offered to reduce the amount to £20 per ticket which considering there are nine in total is still £180. I have 21 days to take this to IAS in which case their reduced offer is cancelled.
Do any of you think that it is worth pursuing through formal appeal?


Thank you in anticipation of your replies.

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[Albert Ross]

No one will endorse an appeal to the IPC IAS.

the lease is key to the allocated bay purchased.

Was the lease purchased from a former resident, or the freeholder on a newbuild estate for example.

[Jlc]

Has the driver been revealed? Do the NtK's state 'keeper liability’ or mention Protection of Freedoms Act? I'm guessing tickets weren’t placed on the car?

Do the signs have a 'per 24 hour' clause? (I presume the car wasn't moved between tickets?)

But lease is key. There's a high chance of a court claim with 9 tickets in play. (>£1k)

...but I reckon they're trying it on!

This post has been edited by Jlc: Mon, 6 Aug 2018 - 21:12

[ostell]

So get the lease out and see what it says about parking. Was the space also part of the property, ie included in the demised property?

[Lynne R]

Thanks for your prompt replies.
Lease states exclusive right to park a motor vehicle in allocated space, need to get a copy of lease to read if anything else relating to parking such as MA right to enforce parking restrictions by use of contracting parking company (VCS) to police parking areas.
Have not divulged driver's details.
Lease for flat and parking space was purchased from a previous resident
Would it help my doing the formal appeal to IAS if this proceeds to court?

[Eljayjay]

VCS have just received a very bloody nose from a Judge as a result of the resolve of Pearlofwisdom. Take a look at her thread.

Parking companies do not offer to reduce a parking charge to £20 out of kindness. They do so because either (1) they realise that they are on a hiding to nothing (perhaps because of Pearlofwisdom) and feel that £20 is better than nothing or (2) they will take £20 from you and use it against you as an admission that you owed money to them.

What precisely did you say in the original appeal?

Do not appeal to the IAS. It is a kangaroo court.

Based on what you say, this seems like a quite easily defended residential parking case. Most cases involving allocated parking spaces are easily defended.

You do, however, have to do your homework and, very often, persevere all the way to court. The parking contractor will be banking on you losing your nerve and backing down. That's how they make their money. Don't let them do it to you.

If you or your son do end up receiving a County Court claim, quite possibly, you will want to make a counterclaim because, when a parking contractor finds itself up against someone willing to assert their rights, the contractor often tries to discontinue the claim just before the court hearing. Submitting a counterclaim prevents this happening.

Your son's lease is his and your greatest friend. If you can, get it scanned as a searchable pdf document - you need something better than the free version of Adobe for this. Then conduct a search for "park". Copy and paste every bit of the lease mentioning "park" into a new document.

Then go through it again to look for anything that makes provision for changes to the lease to be made or for rules and regulations to be added by the landlord and/or the management company. Copy and paste those bits to the new document.

Do the same again but, this time, looking for anything about "rights of third parties". Copy and paste again.

Search for "rent", "charge" and "permit". Copy and paste anything of relevance.

Do not just select extracts which suit your case, copy and paste everything of relevance. The reason for this is that, if the parking operator gets a copy of the lease, you need to figure out how to defend yourself from extracts that they throw at you.

On each search, go through the lease from beginning to end.

Post what you find.

If your son does not have a copy of his lease, a copy should be obtainable from the solicitor who handled the purchase for him. Failing that, you or your son can obtain a copy of the lease from the Land Registry by completing form OC2 and paying a small fee. The lease is important because it governs both the relationships between the parties to it and their rights and obligations about all sorts of things, not just parking.


This post has been edited by Eljayjay: Mon, 6 Aug 2018 - 22:52

[Lynne R]

Thanks Eljayjay for your very comprehensive response. Will ask son if he has the copy lease or get it through solicitors and go through it with fine tooth comb!

[Lynne R]

Sorry if I am using wrong box but wanted to update.
Still waiting for copy lease. In the meantime I thought I would appeal through IAS as I felt it would look better if I tried all avenues open to me if/when it goes to court!

They have replied with a list of 20 items justifying why they feel entitled to issue me with the PCNs.
One of the points states as follows:

Whilst we maintain that we do in fact have the authority of the landowner to operate on this site (being the principal in the contract) the existence if this document has no legal gearing in the contract with the motorist. See VCS v HNRC (2013) EWCA Cuv 186 para 22 per Lewison L J . As this is a commercially sensitive document and is irrelevant to the issue at hand, this is not provided as evidence on this appeal, which may be accessed and circulated by the appellant. A copy of the Landowners Authority was provided to IPC as part of th audit process for this car park and is available to the Adjudicator for their perusal.

They also state that the appellant's lease (which has not been supplied to date) would not exempt them from the requirements to park in full compliance of the contractual T and C s displayed, did not negate thevappellant's contractual responsibility to VCS and do not nullify their liability for the PCN.

The contravention photos clearly B show that the gay number for which thevappellant'sthe permit was valid was NOT visible at the time of inspection by the PO. Therefore the PI could not ascertain the permit's validity and the vehicle was parked in contravention of the clearly advertised contractual T and C s

I then have to choose to either

1 -?submit my response
Or
2 - refer straight to arbitration

All comments most welcome, my brain hurts!

Apologies for typos on above post. Hope you get the gist. Particularly the bay not gay number!!

I am away now for a week and not sure if I will have wifi where I am going so please don't think I am ignoring all your valuable advice if I don't immediately respond !

[Eljayjay]

If you had read through some other threads, you would have found that the usual advice is not to appeal to the IAS which is a kangaroo court.

The first priority here is to understand your son’s rights so that you can assess the strength of his position. You cannot do that without a copy of his lease.

The IPC will accept a parking contract signed by any Tom. Dick or Harry as evidence of its member’s right to act on behalf of the landowner. In my own case, the parking contract was signed by an Andrew who was no better than T, D or H. He was not a director of the freeholder as he purported to be. The parking contract was not fit for purpose. The Judge found the entire scheme to be invalid and that the parking company had no right to issue parking tickets on the land.

The fact that the parking company is not willing to provide a copy of the parking contract at this stage almost certainly has nothing to do with commercial confidentiality - they seldom contain anything of that nature. It could, however, be that they know there is something very wrong with it.

For the time being, enjoy your holiday but let’s get down to determining the true situation by reference to the lease on your return.

This post has been edited by Eljayjay: Thu, 9 Aug 2018 - 21:40

[Lynne R]

thanks Eljayjay, I am still waiting for the lease. However, as Inhave just been reading some Other comments regarding private parking companies and somewhere it states that if the notice to driver ticket was put on the car ((which it was 9 times) the parking company have to wait 28 days before asking the DVLA for registered keeper details, is this still correct as I have noticed that the notice to keeper letters to me range from 6 to 8 days from the so called parking infringement. Does this mean they have contravened POFA 2012?!?

[Eljayjay]

That’s about the size of it insofar as POFA2012 is concerned but, although it is good to know something about POFA2012, this is a residential parking case where it is usually irrelevant.

Furthermore, this is about VCS who have just been given a very bloody nose by a Judge. See Pearlofwisdom’s thread. She has launched a counterclaim for over £4,000 against VCS which I believe has a good chance of success. We are, therefore, eagerly keeping our fingers crossed for her.

[Lynne R]

Understand. Also, found out after posting re POFA that mine was not a NTD but just a "windscreen ticket" so that obviously cannot be construed as an NTD. Off to airport now - will be back on forum next Sunday - hopefully having seen the lease by then. Kind regards to all who are helping me.

[ostell]

If it was on the windscreen then it could very well be a windscreen ticket and notice to driver unless they are using that weird piece of paper that says "this is not a notice to driver".

Now is the time to contact the DVLA to enquire how many time the keeper details have been requested. They have to request details every times.

[Lynne R]

Thanks Ostell, have emailed DVLA so hopefully they will respond. Will come back to forum on my return to UK in a week.

[ostell]

Enjoy your holiday

[Lynne R]

Back from hols. Still waiting for copy lease - should get copy this week so will be able to go through it with regard to residential parking. However, have just been going through the nine NTKs and notice that two of them were received well in excess of the 14 days and the wording on these is different in that it doesn't state all the info about Data Protection and Data processing through DVLA?? Also I have received two letters from VCS relating to these two NTK offering a discounted rate of £20 in view of mitigating circumstances but this discounted rate has not been offered fon the other seven. Further, having queried whether VCS had legally obtained my information as Keeper on each separate occasion, DVLA have written back to me stating only eight requests for my details.

So to summarise, two of the NTK PCNs were outside the 14 day time frame and one of these had not requested my details from DVLA. Do you suggest I inform DVLA or whoever of this data breach or keep this information to use later in case the lease details are n strong enough?

Thanks to all who have been advising me
.

[Jlc]

Outside 14 days only relates to keeper liability. (They rarely use it anyway)

The DVLA might be interested in missing out of their £2.50 but a 'data breach' is quite a stretch. But the lack of request can be used in the defence.

[Redivi]

In the meantime I thought I would appeal through IAS as I felt it would look better if I tried all avenues open to me if/when it goes to court!

Completely the opposite

As far as the Court will be concerned you've put VCS to the expense and effort of the IAS appeal with no intention of accepting the result if it went against you

[Eljayjay]

When it comes to leasehold properties, behaviours, relationships, rights and obligations are governed by the leases.

It is very rare for parking schemes involving parking permits and parking charges to be valid in cases where the leaseholder has an allocated parking space.

This is because the rights and obligations set out in leases have primacy over a parking contract between the parking company and its principal whoever it may be out of the freeholder, the management company or managing agents.

Have a read of post #18 in karenep's thread where you will find an analysis of the lease. In the same thread, have a read of post #29 where you will find a draft statement of defence.

Try to get your head around the issues involved in residential cases by reading those threads.

It is good to have things like poor signage and POFA 2012 issues to fall back on, but the lease is likely to trump everything else.

[Lynne R]

Yes Eljajay, I have ben following the karenap thread with interest. Have just read it again The defence is brilliant. I have copied it for possibly future us, though parts will need tweaking as my son is the lessee and I am the RK. Will post again when I hav the lease