To not pay my parking fine?

[Sp3849]

I am really annoyed. I have recently relocated and found an amazing home bargains a little while away from my house. It's truly huge with cafe and everything. Hadn't seen my mum in weeks and it was my birthday so we arranged to meet there as it was halfway from hers to mine. Did some shopping had a coffee had a lovely few hours out. Then to my surprise I have know received a fine! So has my mother for being in the car park too long?! A picture of me going in and the leaving. Not once had I seen a sign saying there was a maximum time of staying in the 4 times I have been there. The fines are 100 pound each but reduced to 60 if we pat in the 14 days! I feel really annoyed. I spent a hell of alot of money in that shop on that day in particular well over 100 pound and also bought food and drinks in the cafe and now am being fined for being thier too long! If I didn't pay it what can they do? Is there any suggestions to help me?

DH recently got 6 parking fines for parking in a place that used to be free until recently. We appealed them using info found online and got all 6 cancelled. Don’t ignore it - you definitely need to appeal. There are lots of grounds for a successful appeal though so it’s worth doing some research.

A lot of the bigger HB stores are in retail parks with a 90 min policy. The one near me which is a fairly small store - no limitation on parking at all.

As a general point I don't 'get' the 90 mins - why? Most of these stores are at out of town retail parks (there's one near my DP which is like this). It's not near a station or the centre of town or indeed anything else except other shops in the same retail park. There seems no point to limit parking to 90 mins other than as a potential money making exercise - it's not like people will 'abuse' the free parking by leaving the car there all day, there's nothing in walking distance!

I would advise appealing, there's lots of guidance online. Don't pay if you can avoid doing so.

it's not like people will 'abuse' the free parking by leaving the car there all day, there's nothing in walking distance

It might be on a car share route, where people working in the same place meet up and continue in one car, leaving others behind.

Or it might even be to stop staff using the car park, if there has been a shortage of customer spaces. That's what's happened at a tiny retail park near me that just has a HB, Wilko and frozen food shop. Parking is limited to 2 hours, fine for shopping but not if you work there. There's probably only around 50 spaces in the car park, so the staff could have been taking up 10 of these unless they banned them from doing that with a time limit. In this case they can park at a free town centre car park about 5 mins walk away.

Your best bet is to appeal to the store manager. They can override the parking company (assuming it is actually the store car park).

I got a ticket once because it took me longer than 15 mins to pay for my pay & display ticket (problem with the website & had to queue for change) in a cafe car park. The owner told the parking company to drop it and they did.

I think landowners should have to get a special permit to charge for parking in retail parks when people are clearly there to spend money in the shops and you have to drive there as it's not close to any public transport. Permits would be given only if people are likely to abuse the facilities - commuters etc. Even then there are other things you can do instead of ANPR parking. Pay for parking upfront but get it reimbursed in store.

These charges are mostly a nonsense and they make money from people being scared and paying up.

Things are currently different is Scotland but if this is elsewhere in the U.K. follow the advise above and try and get it cancelled but don’t ignore.

Go and see if there is actually clear signage. If there is, pay the fine.

Sorry this thread is mad. So many people thinking their experience reflects the only possible experience.
Don’t ask the store
Do ask the store it’s your only chance
Don’t appeal just pay it
Go and appeal using x website
Just ignore it

Honestly op I don’t know what you were expecting but I imagine a bit more of an idea on next steps

There is a lot of good advice, among people talking out of their arses, as on any MN thread.

I was given a fine for parking somewhere with a time limit.
I told the manager of the venue i wouldn't be paying it, then everytime they did a promotional tweet, I tweeted below telling everyone they were a disgrace and ultimately trying to intimidate me into payment.

They tweeted back asking me to call them, they quashed the fine, but told me not to tell anyone as they didn't want to encourage people with valid fines trying to get out of them.

In my situation it was a 3hr stay allowance unless you put your reg in their ipad.(they said i didnt, i said i did)

In your case OP what did you have to do to stay longer or was it just you must leave after that time?
Go back amd check the signage as others have said

I'd go and check out the signs. To see if you should have spotted them.

So I contacted the store. I know its not thier fault but was after thiet advice as to what to do. I told them that I received the fine and they explained it was not thier fault an outside company ran the carpark now. I explained that I had been there on numerous occasions. Last time being a month ago.ninhave never seen any signs and she explained that it was only taken over the week before I got the fine. I said to her honestly I did not see any signs. Are there signs there? She said yes there are signs in the car park. However, we have had alot of complaints from people who have been fined and we are telling everybody to appeal. So I do not expect to get very far with that to be honest. However as I said to her if many people are also like me not seeing the signs, surely they need to put them somewhere that they will?! She suggested is make this suggestion to the parking company. I will travel down there tomorrow and find the signs take photographs of signs if they aren't well displayed. She said they home bargains have appealed this to the parking company and requested the time limit be extended as they are a very large store and they would like a 2 hour parking limit. I am coming to terms with the fact that I may have to suck up and pay the flipping fine though!

It is not a FINE its a speculative invoice; not a fine. A parking charge if you want.
Honestly this comes up again and again!! Appeal, OP.
Money saving supermarket and pepipoo also have great advice OP but don't ignore it
Good luck

OP if there genuinely were no signs, then you simply tell them you didn't enter into any contract to pay a parking charge for staying more than 1.5 hours and you will see them in court. They'll let it go, unless they think the signs are clear enough. Double check the signage before you do it.

Don’t pay. Just keep replying to their letters saying the signs were not clear and that your shopping took longer than expected. Make sure you appeal within the set time limits and they’ll probably let you off. Even if they don’t they will not be able to do anything until after a court has ordered it (they can’t send bailiffs etc before that) so there is plenty of time to pay.

Generally free car parks attached to shops have a 90 minute to 3 hour limit, this is to ensure there's spaces for customers rather than someone using it as a park and ride. Most shops have a system to extend it if you need to eg if disabilities slow you down but you need to tell them at the time. Unfortunately if there's signs I don't think you will get out of it

OP, I can you the draft letter I used to successfully appeal my fines if you like. I used to a template from MSE

As I said earlier in the thread I have recently successfully appealed two fines. Pay the fine anyway and email the parking company. Its worth a try.

Why would you pay the charge and then appeal?! That makes no sense.

Appeal first.

Because if you pay within the first 14 days you only have to pay half the fine. So if you don't pay then lose the appeal you have to pay double what you would have done. That's why.

If there wasn't adequate signage then you can't have entered into a contract with them to pay if you stayed beyond a certain length of time.

If the signs were obvious but you ignored them, you'll probably have to pay.

Advice on ignoring these fines is outdated, you will be pursued and additional costs.

These companies ensure adequate signage is displayed, otherwise they cannot operate. The fact you say you didn't see it is irrelevant, you park somewhere, its down to you to find out if its ok and how long you have.

The parking company couldn't care less if you spend £1M a day in home bargains, they're separate companies.

My advice is pay the £60, learn from it and don't overstay agsin

@Shitzngiggles

Because if you pay within the first 14 days you only have to pay half the fine. So if you don't pay then lose the appeal you have to pay double what you would have done. That's why.

That still doesn’t make any sense.

If you appeal within the 14 days, and your appeal gets rejected, you still only have to pay the reduced / half fine.

If you pay, you’re accepting fault so your appeal will not succeed and you will not get your money back.

@Whammyyammy

Advice on ignoring these fines is outdated, you will be pursued and additional costs.

These companies ensure adequate signage is displayed, otherwise they cannot operate. The fact you say you didn't see it is irrelevant, you park somewhere, its down to you to find out if its ok and how long you have.

The parking company couldn't care less if you spend £1M a day in home bargains, they're separate companies.

My advice is pay the £60, learn from it and don't overstay agsin

Actually lots of places have very poor signage.

Op is being sensible by going to look at the signage before throwing the towel in.

That's assuming the appeal is dealt with within the 14 days. In any case the correct procedure to follow is to pay then appeal. That's what I did twice so I do have experience.