Mrs M has just got two tickets from a local (SCOTTISH) private car park for over-staying what she'd paid. Now, the ridiculous bit is that the penalty charge for overstaying by 20 minutes is £100 (£60 if paid in 14 days etc).

Now, my understanding (reading CAB on this) is that the car park operator needs to demonstrate their loss. Given that the parking charge is 50p an hour and one of the tickets was after 6pm in a half-empty car park, I'm thinking that the owner is going to find it difficult to demonstrate any loss let alone £60-£100.

Anybody any specific advice (remembering this is Scottish law)?

I have had a couple of these from Private Scottish companies over the years. The most recent one was about a 18 months ago in Livingston. I simply ignored all correspondence and it went no further. The other one I informed them I had no intention of paying and it too went no further. Can't remember the legal position but was advised to ignore it by lawyer and read same on various forums.

Definitely.

As it is a private car park, and they are clearly taking the piss with their penalties, they won't pursue it.

check out pepipoo

What Rudidudi said. I'm fighting one myself there at the moment, come on in the water's lovely! The advice on there includes the differences between Scottish and English law particularly with regards to pursuing the registered keeper. Don't admit who was driving in the first instance. I'm not advocating lying, just being careful with wording, look at what was suggested to me on my thread there. There's a link on my recent thread.

The big important difference as far as I can see (IANAL) for Scotland is that they can't pursue the registered keeper for the fine (they can in England subject to following certain laid out guidelines) so if they don't know who was driving there is nothing that they can do.
Did she the driver (see what I did there?) get a ticket on the windscreen or was it a letter generated by an ANPR camera?

Procedures are here, actual flowcharts further down the thread.

The fine not being representative of loss as you mention is something else that should be in the response if you make one.

Thanks. She responded to one before I got involved. Both are the same car park that we've been using for years. Makes me wonder if there's a problem. Certainly the one I responded to you can't see (from the camera shot) who is driving.

But both are for about 20 minutes and the parking charge is 50p per hour. A charge (invoice) of 120 hours (or 200 hours - 8 days) is absurd. I read that Smart Parking aren't too much trouble.

Mine is with SmartParking too and my research brought up the same opinion of them when challenged. It's two weeks today that I sent in my appeal to them which I think means that they've just folded after receiving my appeal. Fingers crossed anyway.

I had to appeal as I received a notice to keeper which as it was in England meant that I could be held liable regardless of whether I was driving or not. I wasn't but that's another story, you couldn't see from the photograph on the letter but when I appealed on their website you could see their 'evidence' which was higher resolution. It wasn't even me driving not that it's so relevant in England (it is in Scotland).

In any case, charge not an accurate pre-estimate of loss or absurd or unconscionable (take your pick if you should hear more).