6min 31 seconds - parking fine.

[Deftandglory]

I went to pick up my son from a pub in a quiet town at 9.30 pm. The town is pedestrianised so I drove into car park with 24 hour charges. Empty car park
Knew I wouldn’t be long and thought the grace period was 10mins ( it is, but for returning once paid).
Got a fine for £60 - appealed on the grace period - went to £100 and now £170 with legal fees.

Apparently it is quite likely it will go to court via a mass booking system by the solicitors. And as the grace period for buying a ticket is 5 mins I have breeched the conditions .
Court or pay up?

Look up Contester Legal on Facebook and contact them. They may be able to assist.

Pay or you will end up even more in the shit money wise

Just pay - annoying but delaying payment is costing you a lot more than the original charge

The grace period for “finding a space” is 5 minutes.

Thats an industry minimums standard. 10 minutes grace if you bought a ticket.

If it’s a council car park it’s a £45 fine.
Private car parks are absolute sharks.

The car park was empty . No loss of potential earning etc.

I was just listening to a programme on shoplifting. Would have got less for staling.

But you’d found a space and were in it. You weren’t looking around for 6 and a half mins to find a space.

Was the 5 min grace period clearly noted in signage?

I’d be citing Lord Denning’s red hand rule in Spurling v Bradshaw

OP the type of car park, how busy it was, what you were doing, how long it was after the five minutes is completely irrelevant. You keep making excuses and none of them get over the fact you were wrong and need to pay. It’s not hard.

You parked in a payable parking space without any intention of paying!

You should have just paid the £60 fine.

I imagine the 5 min grace period isn't intended for people who only want to park for a very short period - i.e. it isn't another way of saying "Free parking for five minutes". It is intended as a way of robustly defining what counts as being parked for the purposes of the contract (to achieve clarity in cases where people say something like "I wasn't parked; I just paused to read the list of parking charges so that I could decide whether to park or not.")

And arguing against the fine on the grounds of only "being a minute and a half over" is daft, since it implies that the grace period should itself have an additional grace period before the fine comes into play.

At this point just pay. You have no real defence, frustrating as it is. I would’ve just paid the £60 to forget about it. Probably my son would’ve paid, then I’d have given him a few more lifts in lieu of cabs. Btw not rich just minimum wage but would be too stressful to leave it, for me.
I got my first PCN a few weeks ago (not proud) paid straight away so as to not feel so stressed. I’ve always said when I get one, I’ll average the cost out across all my years of driving. Turns out it’s the second most notorious place in London for PCNs. That’s my lesson learnt!
Chalk it up to experience, OP 😔

We live in sad times where you can't hang around in an empty car park for 6 mins to pick someone up.

I would pay the fine to make this issue go away, because it would stress me out. It is disgusting though.

Pay up before it becomes inflated to a silly amount of money. You have no defence.

Pay for parking next time or drive a bit further out and park on a residential road that has no restrictions.

How is this disgusting? I am against parking companies taking the piss when people make genuine mistakes but OP brought this on herself.

• Knew that the parking charges applied 24 hours a day
• Decided not to pay the parking charge
• Then decided not to pay the fine at the reduced rate

No sympathy whatsoever.

You've already gone from £60 to £170 by barely doing anything. Are you Jolyon Maugham?

i can’t believe the number people on here telling the OP just to pay up. Do you really think a £60 charge for 6 minutes of parking is reasonable? No wonder these private parking companies do what they do, if people
pay up so readily.

OP if you’ve appealed to the parking company and been rejected, then you can appeal to POPLA. You could try doing this on the basis that 6 minutes is an unfair contract term, as it hardly gives you time to check the signage and leave if you won’t want to pay up. This should put any legal action / increases in charges on hold until POPLA make their decision.

Doris, the OP knew that it was not a free car park. She knew she had not paid. The length of time she was in the car park is irrelevant as once she went over the 5 minute grace period she was liable to either pay the parking cost or incur a fine. She would also have been informed that failure to pay the fine within X number of days would incur further charges, and she chose to ignore that information willingly. She chanced her arm and lost. Pay the fine and the additional charges.
(I too do not care that the word ‘fine’ is not applicable in this instance but I do not care, I will continue to use it)

"Do you really think a £60 charge for 6 minutes of parking is reasonable?

Well, no - but that not what the charge is for is it.?

If she'd actually paid she might have had to pay a few pounds as most have a minimum charge for up to 1 hour say

She's incurred a penalty charge because this is a private business which is required by law to make clear the terms by which they provide parking. OP has not abided by these terms ( or even read them properly apparently) so legally she has no recourse/ defence.

If she doesn't pay further action will be taken and the cost to her will continue to increase. ...

I don’t understand why you didn’t just pay up when it was less money? You accept you were wrong. So you pay. 🤷‍♀️

I honestly think you would win on the grace period being too low but honestly if the car park belongs to the pub and not an independent one then chances are they will remove the fine when you explain what you were doing.

I went to watch my son at a sports club. I usually turn up 10 mins from the end to watch the last few mins. For some reason I got there 16 mins early one week and thought the grace period was 20 mins but turns out is was 15 so I got the fine. I called up the club and explained and they removed the fine and told me to pay next time if over 15 mins. All sorted easily with one phone call and an email.

Yes, also she knew the grace time for “finding a space” (which she didn’t actually need as there were plenty) was five minutes, used this to wait for son and still went over that! She could’ve left after 5 minutes if she really didn’t want to pay at all.

@Doris86
“No wonder these private parking companies do what they do, if people
pay up so readily.”
I think it’s more of an incentive to pay the correct parking fee at the time. It is shocking, but we all know that these car parks exist and they’re going to be extra vigilant due to the money they can make. If the fine was a tenner and they didn’t bother to review footage (even if they went to the expense of cameras) people would soon wise up, nobody would pay and the car park would always be full.

Any parking ticket I've had has had the option where if you pay within 14 days you only pay half, you should've just paid it. You didn't buy a ticket, ergo the fine is justified. You could've just walked away with a £30 hole in your pocket, which isn't excessive at all. You've made it excessive by disputing it with no grounds at all to do so.

If it goes to court you could end up paying a lot more than £60.

@Fayaway Yes to a point these parking charges do need to discourage people from parking there, for example at supermarkets to keep the car park free for genuine customers.

However there is also a large element of greed to the way these companies operate. The most disgusting example is at motorway service stations. The only reason you stop at a services is to take a rest from driving so you remain safe on the road. They are in the middle of nowhere. It’s not like you can park there, and go to work all day at the office block next door. Yet they are disincentivising people from taking a long break, and penalise you if you do.

I think you should go to court and take @doris86 to make your case. Then report back for our entertainment.

Yes happy to help, as everyone else on here seem to be such pushovers.