Private Parking Ticket - Scotland

[Yellow85]

Wondering if anyone has any experience of private parking tickets (or invoices I should call them).

DF got one for overstaying in a shop car park, decided to ignore it. Has now received letter from Debt Collector and has had fine increased substantially. He’s still adamant he’s ignoring it as it not enforceable, but is he right?

I’m thinking the next step would be debt collection calls/door visit or a summons to small claims court? I assume they’d drop it before then, but who knows.

He needs to write to them. i think there might be a template letter on the money saving expert site. he'd be better getting it removed than leaving it. But yes he has no obligation to pay and DON'T tell them who was driving either.

might be something in this:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/private-parking-tickets/

Thanks. Looks like his only hope is to challenge it as being ‘unfair’ which I’m not sure is completely accurate.

He has a disable badge as my DH has very reduced mobility so they just took longer than the car park allowed, I don’t think he thought to check tbh.

DM not DH!!

My friend definitely had one cancelled from one of the shopping centers in Glasgow. She just copied a letter example and sent it off. I don't think there was any specific mitigating circumstances in her case.

I would think the disability angle might be a way to go but if they don't have evidence of who was driving it can't be enforced as far as I know.

@Yellow85 I'm pretty sure the shop has the ability to cancel the ticket. It is their car park after all.
He should go back to the shop and explain they took longer shopping there due to your DMs reduced mobility and ask them to cancel it

They have to prove you were the one parking, I got numerous tickets for a dodgy car park where I had paid and simply sent letters saying I was not driving that day and each appeal had been accepted.

The problem is your DF is outside the appeal window so the parking company won't accept an appeal now.

The parking charges are now enforcable in Scotland so I don't know what his next move will be. It's worth googling the company and seeing what has happened to other people or contact CAB for advice.

There’s some really good information on the CAB website www.citizensadvice.org.uk/scotland/law-and-courts/parking-tickets/appealing-parking-tickets/parking-tickets-on-private-land-s/

Basically they can take you to civil court if they choose to - as @Gingerkittykatsays the law in Scotland changed a while back. There’s always posts about this on our local Facebook group and the consensus is not to engage with them but to ignore the letters which do get more threatening with time, and eventually they give up as they don’t want the expense of taking people to court. I’m not sure if I could be that brave though.

Update on this one. Finally caught up with DF, turns out he didn’t even go in to the shop 🙈 he’s pretty old school so doesn’t understand the concept of private company car parks so I’ve given him a ‘lesson’. They’ve now had a letter from debt collection agency who have clearly bought the ‘debt’. DM panicked and wanted to pay it although the agency increased it to £200!!

I may have told a little white lie and said he never received the initial fine and asked for proof of postage/receipt which they could give. So I haggled it back down to £100. They settled up.

The letter from the sect collection agency was quite frankly horrible. Gives details of a Dundee case where a woman was forced to pay £24.5k for parking fine. Total scaremongering as once I googled the case in question it’s because she piled up £20k of actual fines. Not one fine like the letter suggested.

*couldn’t give