This is the third time iv posted this...........
You CANNOT be FINED by a PRIVATE COMPANY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What they try to give you is an UNSOLICITED INVOICE!!!!!!!!
IT HAS NO LEGAL MERIT AND IS UNENFORCEABLE IN COURT!!!!
Let me explain EXACTLY why this is.
1.The Road Traffic Act only Applies to PUBLIC LAND, ie the public Highway and council owned car parks.
2. Only the Council and the Police can issue you with a fine that is enforceable in a Court. You must pay these.
3. No one else can issue a fine on public land. No one at all can issue you with a fine for parking on private land!! Not the police, not the council, not the landowner, not me, not anyone!!!
4. When you park on private land, they will try and say you formed a contract. Thats why they put the 'terms and conditions' on a big board. Its meaningless. To prove you agreed to there contract to park, there has to be an offer, a consideration and proof of acceptance. Did you agree to accept there contract? No, you didnt, you a re parking there only as a trespasser, and the only redress they have in that case is to escort you off the land.
5. SO lets just give them the benefit of the doubt and suppose we were stupid enough to agree to there terms, they are still legally unenforceable. If we have a contract, then if i breaks that contract by parking over two bays, or staying too long, the other party has NO LEGAL RIGHT to impose a penalty or fine on me. Its ILLEGAL!!! YOU CANNOT PUT A PENALTY ON BREACH OF CONTRACT IN ENGLISH LAW!! All the other party can do is Sue you for ACTUAL LOSSES incurred.
If i park in a £1 an hour car park without paying, for 1 hour, the ACTUAL losses are...........£1. Thats it, thats all they can sue you for. Thats all they have lost. If i park over TWO bays without paying, there ACTUAL losses is £2.
The dodgy parking companies know this, so they make there tickets look as close as they can to official council ones, in hope you cant tell the difference and pay. And 80% of the time it works, the mugs pay up. They break numerous laws, and any one of those legal breaches (even if you ignore the lack of proof about forming a contract with you) is enough to scupper there claim. They will not take you to court if you ignore them, they know they will lose, the handful of times they have tried in the last few years the consistently lose to a half good defence.
And the crap they send is appalling. Apart from making there tickets copies of official ones (illegal), the make there followup letters and threats look like solicitors letters and debt collection agencies, threatening you with bailiffs, CCJ's and other crap, and its all ******, You just need to have the nerve to ignore them ,after a predetermined sequence of letters, all ******, they give up.
The worst thing you can do is engage them, because they they think 'oh oh, we have a live fish, just need to reel him in' and they will keep at you for up to 18 months. Buts its all crap, they havent a leg to stand on.
Its a numbers game. They write out 20 tickets a day for £50, even if half the mugs pay up on the first letter (thats £500) and then they jack it up to £125 and half of the ones left pay at threatening letter #2 (another £625) and the other 5 dont, its still £5000 a week for doing nothing.
Believe me, i post on a speeding and parking forum, there a bunch of con men, and if you pay a private parking ticket, you've been mugged.
