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So I have received a Parking Charge Notice from Civil Enforcement Ltd for a parking violation when i stayed at a friends apartment and parked in the Multi Storey Car Park connected with the property. The question i have is should i pay this and if i don't what are the consequences ?
Depends. Were you allowed to park there? Did you ignore some signage?
The old advice used to be to just ignore it, but that doesn't apply any more.
There's a website (can't recall the name) dedicated to this sort of thing, forums, expert advice, all on there. I had a ticket from a local shopping area's car park (completely empty at the time I parked for an hour over the allowed time) and went on the site to see what to do. In the end there was so much information I couldn't be arsed and paid the fine.
Popla is owned by the parking companies
Step 1; don't ignore it. Used to be the case that you could but then the law changed and they can now pursue the keeper if the driver isn't identified (previously you could '5th amendment' it and they didn't know who to pursue)
Step 2; ignore the people that will be on here in the minute saying it's an invoice / civil companies can't levy fines / unfair penalty clauses / genuine estimate of loss - that went out the window a couple of years back (you can google it if you don't believe it - Barry Beavis vs parking Eye iirc) and the courts found that it was fair to charge a 'penalty' as a means of dissuading errant parkers
Step 3; you can sometimes get it cancelled by the owners of the land that the Private Parking Co (PPC) are working on behalf of - eg: if you can show you go to a supermarket and spend £100's every week they may be inclined to write to the PPC and tell them to drop it. But unless you can get the landlord to do that on the back of your mate confirming you were legitimately there.... I wouldn't hold out hope.
Step 4; check Pepipoo, there are still some (legitimate) ways to challenge, based around all sorts - inadequate signage for example - but that might involve you doing more legwork and time than you can be arsed to do.
And to do an appeal i think you pretty well have to go to the PPC first, they'll summarily reject anyway (because it's their business model to ignore you until you either pay up and go away or you ignore them sufficiently for them to sell the debt to bailiffs / issue court papers) and at that point you can request a POPLA appeal which they have to pay for, so that might be a point where they drop it (only might)
Pepipoo will give more detail.
Yeah, that's it [url= http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showforum=60 ]pepipoo[/url] (not surpised I didn't remember the name) - takes a fair bit of effort!
I ignored one last year and nothing happened. Although if I got another one I'd probably just pay within the amount of days to get the reduced fee and avoid the worry.
I ignored one last year and nothing happened.
Depends entirely on who issued it, but that's generally not good advice. JonV has it.
Exactly as theotherjonv says. Although I followed all th pepipoo advice (forgot to take a free parking ticket for max 1 hour free, was only there 5 mins!), 18 months of hassle and ended up at the court stage at which point I bottled it and paid £160.
Lesson learnt.
Note the appeals people like popla are actually owned by the parking companies. As are the solicitors who will send you notices saying theyll send the bailiffs in. Bloody scam.
Not strictly true - POPLA is an independent service funded by the PPC's, I believe through the fee per appeal, and the actual tribunals (is that the right word?) are conducted by an Ombudsman Service, not POPLA employees.
It's not the same as 'owned' by which insinuates they work for the PPC's, and if that were the case I'd be having words given they allow around 50% of appeals.
"but that’s generally not good advice"
I wouldn't recommend it. Dreading every envelope through the door for six months is no way to live.
I took a bit of advice from Pepipoo to challenge Parking Eye and won, which apparently is rare these days because they're a right bunch of c***s. I suggested to them that the terms of the lease of the property from which they were effectively running a profit-making enterprise as a sub-tenant forbid any such thing, amongst various other lesser points. They backed off without a fight which was a surprise, a relief and a disappointment all at once. I was caught bang to rights as well.
Fight it, these parasites need to be beaten into extinction.