Teenage DS and parking fine.

[Whathaveilost]

Teenage DS parked on some yellow hatched lines of a local car park outside of a newly opened buisness. The previous business that had been in that building had shut down years ago and it had become common practice for people to park there while the nipped into the Spar as Spar only had 4 parking spaces. Any way a new owner has come along and started handing out fines.

DS didn't mention it to us when he got his first letter. He got a second one and his boss told him they can't do anything about it and he believed him.
He has now got a fine for £149. The company I UK Car park Management and it is in the hands of Debt Recovey Plus.
Any advice please ( apart from don't park there again)?

By ther way I mentioned he is a teenager because he is still finding his way around in life and not a fully grown adult running to mum!

I don't think you can really do anything apart from pay the fine and don't park where you're not supposed to anymore?

I heard only parking fines handed out by the Council are enforceable but I don't know how true that is

you can pretty safely ignore it if it's not from the council - ie if it says PARKING charge notice rather than PENALTY chrage notice. not as 100pc sure as it used to be but the chances of them referring it to popla and them finding in the new owners favour are very small. The new shop owner would also have to prove that he owns the land your son parked on, which he may not.

Of course you want to encourage your son not to do it again so maybe send the original parking charge amount he should have paid. £149 is disproportionate. If he wasn't supposed to pay anything and they are just invoicing him for parking on private land I think that is even harder for them to enforce, rightly or wrongly (rightly imo due to all the years of disproportionate rip off charges)

I heard only parking fines handed out by the Council are enforceable but I don't know how true that is

Not true.

Parking companies have recently taken people to Court, and won.

Advice - yes. Pay. Him not you. Which is what he should have done in the first place and it would have been much less.

Anyone that says ignore isn't aware that there is now a legal precedent which means such fines are proportionate and therefore valid.

perfectly aware that there is now a legal precedence, but that's one out of tens of thousands that never made it to court, and there's popla appeals before that. Depends whether you want to chance it but it is still a dry very good chance that you won't hear anything more, especially if the shop owner is not the land owner, which you could probably look up. money saving expert site has some good up to date and correct info www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/private-parking-tickets

up to you how you want to proceed.

perfectly aware that there is now a legal precedence, but that's one out of tens of thousands that never made it to court

The legal precedent was set after a change in the law which made it easier for parking management companies to enforce their fines. As it was made in the Supreme Court it is binding on all courts. Only one precedent is needed.

the chances of them referring it to popla and them finding in the new owners favour are very small

CPM do not need to refer it to POPLA. Indeed, they cannot do so. The OP's son could take it to POPLA if he had appealed to CPM and lost. In the absence of any successful referral to POPLA by the OP's son, CPM can enforce their fine. And I have no idea on what basis you think the chances of POPLA finding in favour of CPM are small. There is nothing in the OP's post that would give rise to a successful appeal. As long as CPM were engaged by the owner of the land and the signage is adequate any appeal is likely to fail.

OP - As this has gone to CPM's debt recovery agents it may be too late to appeal. You son could sit tight and not pay in the hope they will give up but, now they have the law on their side and no longer need to identify the driver, car park management companies are more likely to go to court. I think he needs to pay.

Firstly, is there signage? What does it specify? I'd photograph it and the area where he parked in case it changes and you need to later.
These fines are a contract and there is case law in England which supports it.
If you are in Scotland don't contact them. They have to identify to driver and cannot pursue the keeper in the driver's stead, so file under B1N

Do you think every parking company in the country is taking every single person who they issue a parking charge notice to to court just because they can? the courts would be at a standstill. I have received 6 parking charge notices from my local station in the last 3 years and have ignored all of them, after appealing and being refused a previous 3 (because I can prove I paid using their app) and am yet to be taken to court.

It's up to the OP to decide whether or not to pay but let's be realistic about the chances of her son being take to court.

Do you think every parking company in the country is taking every single person who they issue a parking charge notice to to court just because they can?

No because most people pay the fine. The few that don't will be taken to court.

The few that don't will be taken to court.

no, a few, of the many, will be taken to court.

no, a few, of the many, will be taken to court

That used to be the case because parking management companies had to prove the person they were taking action against was the driver. Even if they managed that the outcome was uncertain. The picture has changed dramatically since the law changed. Prior to the new law there were around 600-800 cases per year. In 2014, the most recent year for which I can find statistics, there were around 35,000 cases. This is more than a few of the many. Based on other statistics available, it looks like it may be most of the many.

He was unlucky, but a fine is a fine and if he owes it, he should pay it. He did break the law. Also, you can never really tell how these things might snowball - what if he is the example they want to make? What if it goes on his credit rating? What if he say, wants to get a visa to work abroad and a derelict fine gets flagged, or get a job in the police etc etc etc. You genuinely never know when these things can come back to bite you on the bum. Pay it, move on.

What 35,000 people last year were taken to court over unpaid (non council, non police) fines? I find that hard to believe.

OP I would ring the company up and see if you can negotiate to pay something but not the £149. Loads of my colleagues get fines at work and some have ignored for a bit and then lost their nerve and some have rung and offered £60 and that's been accepted. Different company though.

It isn't a fine it is an invoice for parking on the land. As long as the signage complied with POFA 2012 then he entered into a contract to pay the charge by the act of parking on private land.

I have successfully appealed 4 charges but in each case the signage was not compliant & the drivers were not parked where they shouldn't (contractors working on a site but the only signs/instructions were on the public car park not the contractors compound)

I'm assuming the charge is so high because he ignored it & its increased. He should not have parked on private land. People do that to us at work & its really annoying. Unless the signs were not clear then he needs to pay.

I find that hard to believe

It was 2014, not last year. Given the trend I suspect the figure for 2016 was even higher. The figure I quoted was given by the Courts & Tribunal Service in response to an FoI request.

Wow, they really are cracking down then.

I'm with the pp. I have had 8 fines from the station and 3 from a privately managed car park at a hospital in last 5 yrs . ( I will never pay hospital car park charges as I pay for hospitals through national insurance and will never agree with this type of double charging all the time they have moved our hospital to an area we MUST drive to) ... they send 'fines' . I always ignore. Eventually they go away..