Parking ticket issue, should we pay?

[ScottishStottie]

So recently dp got a letter through from a debt collection agency detailing a parking ticket that had been unpaid, passed to them and was not going to cost over £100. He had no idea when this was from so phoned them up for more information.

Turns out that the parking ticket was from 2016, and from dp parking in a hotel car park for work.

As part of his job, he travels to different sites daily, usually hotels, restaurants etc. The normal arrangement with most hotels, and was in place for this particular hotel was when leaving, you gave the car details to the staff and they added it to their staff records to make parking free.

After this letter came through, dp remembered that he had got a parking ticket through at the time, passed it onto the hotel.who said they would sort it and recall the fine. Left it at that and didnt think any more of it.

Until now, and it appears the hotel never did recall it. Dp hasld since moved which is why he wasn't aware of other letters chasing until now, where i assume the debt collection agency have sourced his new address.

Tried contacting the hotel again now, but they have changed ownership since 2016, and although was helpful and have tried to recall it, due to minimal staff, they cant get hold of any response from parking eye regarding this. Debt collection agency wont cancel or even freeze the fine unless they hear from parking eye. Tried calling parking eye but there doesnt seem to be any way to speak to someone, only automated payment lines.

Also spoke to CAB, who said it was worth sitting tight atm, they would need to escalate to court to continue chasing fines which was unlikely but not impsosible, but they did say that if it went to court it would increase in value, and we would possibly lose as there is no concrete evidence that there was an arrangement in place that he wasnt to pay for parking. Ie its not in the concract for the terms of work on site or anything. More just an unwritten arrangement, but with a company that isnt there any more, and at a site that he hasnt had a contract to work at for years now.

We would be able to provide evidence of other site visits where parking wasnt paid for, but not sure if that would be enough evidence to prove he didnt need to pay this time.

With a lot of other stuff going on, dp doesnt like this hanging over him and is tempted to just phone up and pay the £175 to get it done with.

Is it worth hanging fire or better to just pay it off, especially as if it went to court we might have to pay anyway? How likely is it that they will escalate to court?

Just getting to the basics of the fine....do they have proof of the reason for the fine? Actual proof that you can’t argue with? It’s nearly 5 years ago now, seems a bit of a reach on their part.

Since it’s that long ago I’d be arguing its validity. Not an expert but have got out of a few fines in the past (I did a job similar travelling around) and used to be quite pernickety in my appeal 😂

They’re allowed to chase fines for six years so are in time.

Parking Eye won’t care about all the stuff about the hotel said they’ll cancel it, etc. They’re ruthless. They do often take people to court but you’re right you can sit tight and see if that happens and then argue it infront of a judge. At that point if you lose pay it. You can ignore any bailiff letters, etc before then. The only letter you need to respond to is a letter before action, which is generally the precursor to court proceedings.

Other option is to ring them up and offer to pay something like 50%. They might be happy with that.

Sorry, technically it’s a charge not a fine.

As far as I know, they (parkingeye at least) get your data from DVLA. As your DP moved home (and presumably updated this with DVLA) you could argue that if they had the correct address as they should have, this could have been resolved as the hotel would have still been owned by the same owners. It seems unfair that just because they didn't have the correct information, your DP is now being penalised as so much time has passed. Maybe something to query with them. Once you have the established dates/time line. You could even ask them for copies of the previous letters (which should be date stamped) to prove DVLA were updated prior to those being sent. This is only my thinking and very limited knowledge, so more than happy to be told this is incorrect etc, but thought it was worth mentioning just in case

Another thing to consider is to look at the hotel website and see if they validate tickets for guests. If they do, this may support your case as it shows that there is a validation process. Granted it's not cut and dried as he was a contractor not a guest and parking policies can change over time, but it may help.

Yes they have proof of the time and date of the fine, and it ties in to do being on site, the car park has normal charges but dp wouldnt have paid as per usual procedure for a site visit there. Normally the staff just sort it. Not sure how but no charge is normally generated. So not disputing that he was there and used the car park.

Interesting that parking eye get their info from dvla, as dp will have defo kept that up to date with house moves. Issue with investigating and querying this though is that we cant get hold of anyone at all from parking eye. Im guesing its worse due to covid staffing, but all we can get is an automated payment line. And due to it being passed to debt collection agency, we cant even pay parking eye direct. The debt collection agency isnt interested really in the reasons why we feel it isnt justified, they have a contract to get the money and dont really care why its been generated.

Any idea how to contact parking eye to explain the case? The hotel have tried contacting parking eye as well with no success.

Just had a look at the hotel website, parking for guests is chargeable, not free, but im guessing staff arrangements are different.

But im aware that dps status on site is a slight grey area as he isnt a guest, but not staff either really. Thats what would make it difficult to argue a case if it went to court i think and why CAB didnt seem to confident in our chances if it got that far.

Might find something of interest here www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/private-parking-tickets/

The debt collection agency might be a sub section of Parking Eye. Might be worth googling them and seeing what you come up with. I’ve had this with a different parking firm.

All parking forms initially get name and address from the dvla. But they only do this once, they have to pay for the info. So parking eye have messed up by not checking for up to date information and you could certainly use this as an argument.

The hospital where I work employ parking eye to hand out fines. Staff frequently get fined even though they pay for a staff permit. In the wrong car park, not displaying a pass, parked in an unofficial spot when the car park is full, etc. They chase all the fines, they’re not interested in people saying they’re staff and are allowed to park there but forgot to put their permit on the dash, etc.

I wouldn't be paying that (I I usually pay private car park charges). Write to parking eye - send it recorded delivery and say that you were working as a contractor on those dates and that your contract with the hotel stated that parking would not be chargeable, hence no charge was ever due.

Parking eye is also member of the BPA and their code says that:

21.8 While we have an expectation that operators will seek to
use the POFA legislation, it is appreciated that there will
be occasions where this might not be possible. If a non POFA Notice to Keeper is being issued it must be sent
out as soon as possible and no later than 7 months after
the original parking event.

You can also contact the BPA direct if you have a complaint.

Thats interesting about the 7 months thing, but would that be in relation to the first letter being sent out?

Dp vaguely remembers getting a fine at the time of this happening (it was before we met) but contacted the hotel straight away who said they would sort it and didn't think anything of it, and never heard anthing more. Its not uncommon for this to happen in this line of work, but normally contacting the site fixes it, so dp never really paid much attention to it after he had contacted the hotel.

CAB said that its worth hanging fire until.we get the pre court action letter, but pretty much said if we get that through its probably worth paying it as in court the situation is dodgy regarding the right to free parking.

Its not stated in the contract that he is entitled to free parking, it's normally just something done with on the day permission from site. Some sites do require payment for parking which he can claim back from the company so its not like it would have cost him anything to just pay it, could that reasoning be used as a defence if it came to it? Or is that not a concrete enough argument?

If I could afford to I would pay to make the mess go away.

Yes the 7 months is the first letter. Known as the notice to keeper.

Yeah we can afford to pay it, and tbh thats what we are leaning towards doing, just to take the stress of it away.

Its really unsettling dp, as hes never had any sort of debt or anything, amd doesnt want a black mark against his name or file in any way. Its just annoying that its come to this, but with covid making it unable to speak to anyone, the hotel changing hands, and the orginal hotel contract that the company had to carry out work was lost a long time ago, so we dont even have any contact info or names for anyone that we dealt with at the time.

Easier all round to just pay it unfortunately.