To not pay a civil parking charge order

[K8eee]

Basically I over stayed my welcome in a lidl car park, and received a letter with a fine from a company called Athena parking. Dh received one of these 2/3 years ago, googled it and by law he didn't have to pay it. Didn't do so, got a couple more letters threatening with bailiffs to come round to take away his car.

I'm just wondering whether anyone else has ignored these and been ok?

Ive ignored them and been fine. Their claim is a contractual claim. they are effectively saying you acted in breach of contract by overstaying. For a contractual claim they have to show they have suffered loss but unless the car park was packed full they won't be able to show this.

I ignored one I got in a (staff) hospital car park and heard absolutely nothing else from them. I was a student on placement and other staff members advised me to ignore it as they had in the past and nothing came of it. Not sure of this would translate to your situation or not though...

I have googled it, and even though they have provided me with a photo of my car entering & leaving the car park, they have no way of proving I was driving the car, which they should do so apparently. Dh too ignored them and still has his car

Things have changed now you do have to dispute them now. Good advice on a website think it's pepipoo

I know the advice used to be to ignore it but the law changed in 2012 meaning they can now take you to court.
Be careful.

How did the law change? its still a contractual claim, the law on breach of contract hasn't changed for many many years.

www.britishparking.co.uk/Private-land

The law changed in respect of the fact that previously they had to pursue the person driving at the time of the offence. There was no requirement for the registered keeper to give them that information so they had to show who was driving. They are now allowed to pursue the registered keeper regardless of who was driving.

Previously the advice was to ignore them but it has changed. I know MSE forums have good advice on this. Might be worth checking it out.

Looking at the photo, there is no visible driver

Protection from freedoms act they now don't have to prove who was driving.

Ignore
They're not fines, they're essentially an invoice.
No court would enforce the extortionate amounts normally charged as they are penalty clauses which are not enforceable in contract law.

Really, don't ignore it. They're perfectly entitled to come after you to enforce payment and, if they do, it will get a whole lot more expensive.

It doesn't matter that it's a civil contract claim. You made the contract on entering the car park and agreed to abide by their terms. You could fight it out in court if you want, but again that is going to be at best time-consuming and at worst expensive.

From the website Oblivion has linked to:

It is not true that any parking operator must wait until receiving a court judgement before recovering parking charges.

Court action is in fact the final stage that an operator would use if all other avenues have been exhausted. When dealing with private parking, the outstanding parking charge is - in most cases – the result of a broken contract where the motorist has failed – for whatever reason – to abide by the terms and conditions for parking in the car park.

In pursuing the outstanding parking charge the operator is entitled to charge for the recovery of the costs of carrying out the enforcement of the parking. Should this charge not be recovered then the operator is allowed to pursue the charge through the court process.

I got one in May. Ignored it and haven't heard any more about it.

Ignore, we did and all fine

I believe the rules have changed, I ignored one at the start of last year, but MoneySavingExpert has much better advice that is up to date.

I ignored mine but they sent threatening letters for 18 months

Ignore it, they are scoundrels.

forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showforum=60

This site can advise

Oh and I got "threatening" letters for many months in an interesting variety of shades of green, then blue, then red, THEN SUPER BOLD RED, then a change of company name, then finally a pleading letter that was quite pitiful in a way, bleating for an "amicable arrangement".

I suppose next will come the "breaking of thumbs" threat.

But somehow I doubt it.

I was advised to ignore it but then the started court proceedings so I paid.

Well actuslly dh did as it was his fault and he was driving but I'm my car!

When I got one (Different company) they were happy to let me off if I had spent more then £60 in the shop.

Easier to knock it all on the head now by following the advice on MSE or Pepipoo. You send a "soft appeal" to Athena, they reject it but must send you a POPLA code. You then send a much fuller appeal to them - refer to MSE for advice before you do this. There are loads of templates of successful appeals. Email it to POPLA and you should win. Ends all the threatening letters and phonecalls now and costs them money to deal with it.

Yeah, my letter from years back said they were starting court proceedings too. Bunch of liars. They wouldn't go to court for what was essentially about a loss of £3, not even to them, but to a multi-national supermarket.

I couldn't have appealed mine as I was in the wrong, as I left the car park I was parked in.

My mum had one of these in Aldi from Parking Eye, called Aldi's head office, said she was a customer and had shopped there on the day, gave a reference from her receipt and they cancelled the ticket.

Worth a try, but the advice is not to ignore it as these companies are now taking people to court if they don't pay - the advice has changed.