County Court Judgments

Does anyone know if there’s a way to find out about upcoming county court claims being made?

Backstory;

My wife received a parking ticket (private company) at her place of work (a large hospital). She wasn’t displaying the permit for that particular car park and received a PCN. She then forgot about it and it didn’t come up until I found it in pile of junk mail I was going to throw out (yes, I know, she’s very silly).

We haven’t heard anything from the company (presumably because if they have written, they’ve sent it to our old address) and I’ve contacted them to furnish them with our new address and to ask for a copy of whatever correspondence they’ve sent out until now.

My worry is that their easiest option is to ignore me, issue county court proceedings against my wife which she won’t know about and won’t defend.

Part of me thinks I should just pay them the £100 to make it go away but I’d like to avoid it if possible. My wife is an overworked nurse being penalised for parking at her place of work and the guys on Pepipoo reckon the ticket isn’t valid anyway.

My advice is use email or make copies of everything you send and when. They will be idiots but ultimately will want paying and happy for the contact. We ignored/ forgot about a parking ticket and 4 years later had high court enforcement turning up demanding payment or goods to 450 quid! Bloody expensive lesson....

My advice would be before you do anything else check and see if the private company is BPA or IPC registered.If not they would not have access to the DVLA register and will have obtained your wifes details illegally- if this has occurred that is fraud. This may explain also why they do not have your new details.

If it is a private company offer them a payment that is less than the amount they claim is owed and includes a goodwill gesture to aviod further proceedings. After all your wife did have a parking permit, just not for that particular car park. This will not look good for them if it gets to the county court stage.

I have successfully helped a number of people avoid completely or drastically reduce the amount requested by private parking companies. Their correspondence looks impressive and quotes all kinds of legal sanctions that ultimately are not open to them.

whatever advice you take good luck!

also- forgot to add that in the case of non council run car parks the landowners actual losses incurred are important which are never as much as the parking charge and why you offer less to settle the issue.

Ballypete unsurprisingly knows his stuff

I've been looking into this a lot recently as my car was issued with a PCN by UKPC on uni land - for which I have a permit.

The law in Scotland is different, but I'd like to add to the abov e advice that on no account should their correspondence or ticket refer to a "fine" or "penalty" - either makes it illegal.

Google the private company and see what it throws up - there are good threads on MoneySavingExpert for a start...

Ballypete, please my I PM you re a PCN my daughter and a car in my name ...>

Sure go ahead

Thanks for the responses folks.



They are, with the IPC.

I have a thread on Pepipoo and some of the people there have suggested that the signage in the car park is "forbidding" as it only offers a contractual agreement to permit holders (IE. if you're not a permit holder, then you can't possibly be entering into the contractual agreement and the only claim against you would one of trespass by the land owner).

Others are suggesting that we decline to tell them who the driver was at the time and leave it at that.

Not sure if the law is different here but this is what can happen if you ignore a load of tickets for parking without a permit in a private car park :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-39478203

Ouch!

I'm not ignoring it though, quite the opposite. I want them to communicate with me so we can see if there is a valid claim to avoid the charge or not.

Make the tea, sit down and have a read http://www.parkingcowboys.co.uk/private-parking-tickets/