Private property parking fines....

[j2 lot]

Should she pay or ignore?

Cheers
Mark

Ignore

+1
We've had 3 tickets from various locations over as many years -ignored and after a while they give up but some are more persistent and become increasingly threatening. Like Rossybee , my other half didn't trust me to ignore them & insisted in writing to the first lot so we asked them to provide evidence of who was driving as we didn't know - and heard nothing more.

[jason]

English Supreme Court - different jurisdiction?

Like I said in my post above: No. Same. Supreme Court is highest authority in Scotland for civil law. It doesn't change our ability to ignore up here, but it does support the ludicrous fees being invoiced.

[campbell]

Ah well. Such car parks best avoided then.

The motorist is fast becoming lowest of the low. Easy target. Massive growth in qty and ownership of vehicles.

Long live internet shopping


PS Sorry for skim reading

[jason]

Mrs Bee's lot are "Parking Eye"

Mrs Jason's are that bunch too. Over two years on, and she still gets threatening letters. She ignores them. I guess even a small success rate makes it worth their while printing and sending thousands of these letters now and again.

[Mikie711]

When you look into these private land parking companies i turns out that they are backed by civil law.

If you park on private land, such as a supermarket car park or a privately owned multi-story car park, you will have entered into a contract with the landowner. If there are clear signs displayed in the car park setting out rules for using the car park, then these are the terms of the contract. If any of these rules are broken, then the car park owner can take steps to enforce them.
If you breach any conditions imposed by the owner, then the owner or someone authorised by them, may give you a parking ticket. It's a notice that the owner of the car park or the private car park operator intends to take you to a civil court, and will offer to let you pay the charge to settle the case out of court.
The car park operator issues the notice on the basis that you have broken the terms of the contract between you and the landowner. There is no specific legislation dealing with parking on private land in Scotland. The general principles of contract law apply. This means that for a binding contract to be formed between you and the landowner, the rules about where and when you can park and what charges apply must be displayed clearly throughout the car park (particularly at the entrances). They must be clear enough so that no reasonable person could claim that they were not aware of the rules.

[Scotty C]

https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp/new ... urt-case1/

[campbell]

I had thought the England-Scotland diff was due to difference in trespass laws.

I understand the contract principle but was taught in Mercantile Law at uni that notices etc are not always sufficient etc.

[robin]

This means that for a binding contract to be formed between you and the landowner, the rules about where and when you can park and what charges apply must be displayed clearly throughout the car park (particularly at the entrances). They must be clear enough so that no reasonable person could claim that they were not aware of the rules.

If the sign contains 200 words; a few big ones saying "Park here for more than 2 hours: £100" and then 100s of small ones underneath and these are displayed to drivers then it's clear to me at least that nobody could read and understand the small print without stopping their car, probably getting out, and reading them. The only way to be sure that the driver has read the contract is to put it somewhere that cannot be avoided on entrance, so typically it will be placed on the entrance lane.

I don't understand anything about contract law, but I do wonder whether a contract can have been entered into if you cannot have read the small print.

If we really wanted to be obstinate we could seek out car parks that have big notices like this on entrance, drive up to just before the notice, stop the car, get out and read it (thus holding up all the traffic behind you for 5 minutes). Get back in your car and drive round the block, repeat. Preferably get a few friends to do the same thing. I would guess that the signs will go away quite soon. We could organise a national "read the contract" day

Cheers,
Robin

[tut]

That would be fun especially if we could get the so called Enforcement Officers there at the same time.

tut

[neil]

I'm currently in discussions with the factors at my flat as they've decided to introduce permit parking and hand the car park over to one of the cowboy parking companies. I'd have thought they'd need a majority ballot of the owners before they could do this whereas the first I knew of it was the letter telling me it was happening. From my initial exchange with them they're adamant it's happening. Any ideas on how to proceed other than just pass it over to my solicitor?

[Dominic]

I'm currently in discussions with the factors at my flat as they've decided to introduce permit parking and hand the car park over to one of the cowboy parking companies. I'd have thought they'd need a majority ballot of the owners before they could do this whereas the first I knew of it was the letter telling me it was happening. From my initial exchange with them they're adamant it's happening. Any ideas on how to proceed other than just pass it over to my solicitor?

I have no idea about the legalities, but would imagine that it would be worth speaking to your neighbours and assuming they feel the same as you, collectively lobby the factors, or even ditch the factors??

[campbell]

What's in your contract with the factor?

[neil]

I don't appear to have a contract with the factor - they were appointed by the builders. I have found the deed of conditions which state that car parking is "Common Parts" and has the following blurb on the Property Manager:
The Property Manager shall have the authority to discharge and perform the various functions to be exercised in the care, maintenance, and management of the Common Parts including the power as hereinbefore stipulated to call meetings.
I guess they could argue that they are simply managing the parking which falls under their remit.

I'll have a word with the neighbours before I do anything as it could be I'm the only one who thinks this is a bad idea. The main thing I've found odd about this is normally when somethings needing done that's not just normal maintenance (eg when they replaced the security doors) they wrote to all owners in advance for permission. I guess the difference this time is there is no cost as cowboy parking co provide a "free" service

[Dominic]

I was talking to one of my clients the other day, they were telling me that they had requested to have a grit bin put in their shared private car park, but it did not go ahead, apparently because one other owner objected to it, and it required 100% approval from the owners.

[campbell]

I'd press them to "hereinbefore call a meeting".

If you pay a fee to the factor, there should be some kind of contract terms? If not...why are you paying