Deliberately Misleading Car Park Signs designed to catch you out?

[styles]

Whilst true, you forget that the parking companies attending court have to pay for someone to attend, at a court local to the defendant, and this will cost them far more than they would ever extract for a simple one-off unpaid parking invoice pursued under contract law. The “experienced lawyers for the other party” don’t usually turn up because the case is usually dropped before the court fee has to be paid. But it’s all about intimidation, threats, liberal use of red ink and especially mentioning “CCJ” which the majority of people do not understand, so they pay the £60 rather than fight it.

I understand why people give in and pay up.

They can also add on reasonable legal costs to their claim bear in mind.

Obviously if you're in Scotland the letters are basically free toilet paper mind

 

[Bald Rick]

I’ve won at POPLA (albeit not recently, and on a technicality), and also at the London tribunals for a public one. 100% success rate!

 

[jfollows]

They can also add on reasonable legal costs to their claim bear in mind.

Obviously if you're in Scotland the letters are basically free toilet paper mind

Agreed, but that might mean the total will be £200 including fees on the Small Claims Track in England and Wales.
The bulk litigator will then charge their client at least this much for time spent on the case plus representation in person - so the parking company will lose out.
This requires the defendant to be savvy enough to ensure that the court hearing is in person at a court local to them of course ……
And in Scotland you can just tell them to bugger off if you can be bothered, I agree!

 

[thejuggler]

This is all well and good advice in principle, but if we're being honest, the vast majority of people would rather pay £60 for an unfair parking fine than take a day off work (often more than £60 cost) to attend court which most people avoid like the plague. It's intimidating and if you're self-representing, you have a fool for a client, especially up against experienced lawyers for the other party. It's way easier, and usually cheaper, to just pay the charge, rightly or wrongly.

I am petty enough to take things to court even if it's just a few quid for a pizza not delivered properly, but most people will just stump up £60, like @John Luxton, to move on with their life and not have to deal with the nonsense any more.

In many, many cases there is no need to take a day off work. The papers arrive, but the court fee is never paid so the case never moves to hearing, for the reasons stated. It costs more for the parking company to attend court than they would win on the day.

Serving papers is the last throw of the dice to get a payment.

 

[jfollows]

In many, many cases there is no need to take a day off work. The papers arrive, but the court fee is never paid so the case never moves to hearing, for the reasons stated. It costs more for the parking company to attend court than they would win on the day.

Serving papers is the last throw of the dice to get a payment.

Exactly, and it's not even the last throw of the dice, an amazingly large percentage of recipients of a county court claim either pay up out of fright or completely ignore them - and get a default judgment against them as a result. And in neither case is there any cost to the claimant. So the small percentage remaining (OK, let's say 25%) who defend properly can be written off because 75% pay and it costs nothing.

I have little faith in our education system which does not prepare people for this sort of thing, and doesn't educate people in what it all means. Good for all those who got their GCSE results yesterday, but they won't know this stuff unless they are unusual. My Latin O Level in 1977 (grade B) certainly didn't. Perhaps ignoring the grade C in English Language at the same time!

 

[Bikeman78]

Whilst true, you forget that the parking companies attending court have to pay for someone to attend, at a court local to the defendant, and this will cost them far more than they would ever extract for a simple one-off unpaid parking invoice pursued under contract law. The “experienced lawyers for the other party” don’t usually turn up because the case is usually dropped before the court fee has to be paid. But it’s all about intimidation, threats, liberal use of red ink and especially mentioning “CCJ” which the majority of people do not understand, so they pay the £60 rather than fight it.

I understand why people give in and pay up.

I had all of the above. The parking company got a debt collection agency involved and of course the amount demanded went up. I politely pointed out that I wouldn't be paying and they gave up. I wonder what percentage of non paying people get taken to court.

 

[styles]

It's hard to find wholesale stats for the number or percentage of cases taken to court for parking specifically.

However I did find this from one smaller parking operator:

Combined Parking Solutions - Record month for CCJs issued for private car park tickets. -

combined parking solutions issues record number of ccjs for unpaid parking tickets issued in the uk for private land parking tickets issued

www.combinedparkingsolutions.com

During Q1 of 2022 we will be enforcing over 1000 more via the courts including over 50 people with multiple tickets who have also chosen to ignore them.

So that's about 11 a day from one parking operator I'd never even heard of. The larger ones like Parking Eye or Euro Car Parks are presumably much higher.

It seems from government sources that around quarter of such cases get dropped before being heard, largely owing to court capacity (to the extent that the government was considering lowering the High Court threshold to £200 so they could deal with them instead!)

How many people pay off their CCJ within 30 days to get it scrubbed from their credit report is unknown, but it certainly seems that court action is quite common.

 

[jfollows]

Do the percentages based on a total of 40,000 notices issued daily, and it comes to a lot of court cases, however the significant majority of these will be discontinued before reaching court (although after a time and date for a hearing in person is allocated).
Most people think ”CCJ” means immediate impact on credit report, and don’t realise that paying within 30 days of losing in court means that the record can be removed.

 

[styles]

Do the percentages based on a total of 40,000 notices issued daily, and it comes to a lot of court cases, however the significant majority of these will be discontinued before reaching court (although after a time and date for a hearing in person is allocated).

According to the House of Commons Library, a quarter are dropped before court. So actually a lot are still going to court, and mostly default judgements from neither party turning up.

Most people think ”CCJ” means immediate impact on credit report, and don’t realise that paying within 30 days of losing in court means that the record can be removed.

Yes. I'm not sure what proportion of parking charge CCJs get scrubbed by being paid off within 30 days.

 

[Kite159]

It's hard to find wholesale stats for the number or percentage of cases taken to court for parking specifically.

However I did find this from one smaller parking operator:

Combined Parking Solutions - Record month for CCJs issued for private car park tickets. -

combined parking solutions issues record number of ccjs for unpaid parking tickets issued in the uk for private land parking tickets issued

www.combinedparkingsolutions.com

So that's about 11 a day from one parking operator I'd never even heard of. The larger ones like Parking Eye or Euro Car Parks are presumably much higher.

It seems from government sources that around quarter of such cases get dropped before being heard, largely owing to court capacity (to the extent that the government was considering lowering the High Court threshold to £200 so they could deal with them instead!)

How many people pay off their CCJ within 30 days to get it scrubbed from their credit report is unknown, but it certainly seems that court action is quite common.

And you believe what they say?

Might I interest you in a bridge over the Thames?

(In my eyes, the law regarding parking tickets needs to be changed, so the private parasites only have 6 months to start proceedings rather than 6 years as they do at current. That way they can't sit on aged parking tickets for 3/4 years before attempting to claim money)

 

[styles]

And you believe what they say?

Might I interest you in a bridge over the Thames?

(In my eyes, the law regarding parking tickets needs to be changed, so the private parasites only have 6 months to start proceedings rather than 6 years as they do at current. That way they can't sit on aged parking tickets for 3/4 years before attempting to claim money)

I mean I don't think 3 tickets a day going to court is particularly wild?

 

[Bikeman78]

And you believe what they say?

Might I interest you in a bridge over the Thames?

(In my eyes, the law regarding parking tickets needs to be changed, so the private parasites only have 6 months to start proceedings rather than 6 years as they do at current. That way they can't sit on aged parking tickets for 3/4 years before attempting to claim money)

That's a good point. Hardly anyone will keep a pay and display ticket for a few years. I was lucky that I still had mine after a few weeks.

 

[styles]

That's a good point. Hardly anyone will keep a pay and display ticket for a few years. I was lucky that I still had mine after a few weeks.

I take photos of everything like this, for precisely this reason.

 

[DelW]

"You and Yours" on BBC Radio 4 tomorrow (12.04 on Tuesday 25th August) is about experiences with private parking companies. The programme information also mentions the Competition and Markets Authority investigations into the industry and particularly its appeals procedure.

Contact details: email youandyours@bbc.co.uk, or phone 03700 100 444 after 11.00 tomorrow.

 

[John Luxton]

The saga of the St Anthony Car Park continues the council are now looking into it.

Interestingly the car park was once owned by the council but was apparently gifted with the former council owned pool as a way of generating additional income.

"Jubilee Pool probe launched by Cornwall Council over 'illegal' ANPR cameras at car park​

Drivers recently sent fines they blame on the conflicting signage say they are taking legal action against the pool. 'It absolutely stinks.'"​

https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/jubilee-pool-probe-launched-cornwall-11118494

 

[Bikeman78]

I take photos of everything like this, for precisely this reason.

That's a good plan. Recently I stopped off at Coed y Brenin. The parking there is ticketless. I'm not sure if there was a receipt option (I didn't pay for the parking) but we didn't get one. More amusing was that it suggested using an app to pay. I had no phone or internet signal so zero chance of downloading an app, or using it.

Regarding the six year thing, as I understand it that is the deadline for taking the matter to court. Is there a shorter deadline for parking companies to make first contact?

 

[styles]

That's a good plan. Recently I stopped off at Coed y Brenin. The parking there is ticketless. I'm not sure if there was a receipt option (I didn't pay for the parking) but we didn't get one. More amusing was that it suggested using an app to pay. I had no phone or internet signal so zero chance of downloading an app, or using it.

Regarding the six year thing, as I understand it that is the deadline for taking the matter to court. Is there a shorter deadline for parking companies to make first contact?

Not that I'm aware of.

Note that it's 5 years in Scotland. It's actually subtly different because in Scotland it's a prescription rather than a limitation. That is to say, in England & Wales, the debt still technically exists, but there's no real recourse to recover it, whereas in Scotland after 5 years it's like the debt doesn't exist at all. It sounds a bit semantic, but there are some important differences, such as in Scotland the defender will need to actually be served within the 5 years, whereas south of the border it's sufficient to merely lodge a complaint with the courts.

For the situation in England & Wales, I recommend Debt Camel: https://debtcamel.co.uk/statute-barred-debt/comment-page-7/ I've had some pretty hefty debts written off by following their advice.