Premier Park Exmouth Pier Head, parking charge, advice please

[Lama]

I have received a parking charge from Premier Park for not having a valid ticket in the Exmouth Pierhead car park. I had in fact paid for my parking but had in error entered only the last 3 digits of my registration number in line with other parking machines in the area. Premier Park have photographs of my car leaving within the timeframe for which I had paid but issued a charge because according them I didn’t have a valid ticket. They rejected my appeal as did POPLA. I have not paid the £100 fine as I believe it to be unreasonable as I had paid for my parking and have the ticket to prove it. I have now received 2 chasing letters from a debt recovery agency, pplegal, and the charge has increased to £170. I don’t plan to pay the fine unless Premier Park threaten to take me to court. I believe they need to send me a letter before court before this can happen, however the last letter from pplegal states that if I do not pay:
“proceedings will be commenced before the civil courts for recovery of the monies owed together with allowable legal costs without further reference to you”

I would be grateful for any advice or experience of Premier Park and pplegal taking non paid parking fines to the civil courts. Also is it the case that court proceedings will not commence until I have received an official letter before court from Premier Park or is the last letter from pplegal all that is required and Premier Park could take me to court without contacting me further

[ostell]

Premier Parking would be silly to take you to court when you have the tickets. I would think that a judge would find the reason de minimis and that you had complied and that they should have taken into account local custom.

Debt collectors have nothing to offer except bluff and bluster. They are supposed to issue a Letter before Claim giving you 30 days notice before issuing an actual claim, but it's not unknown for this to be "forgotten".

"Allowable legal Expenses" are £25 for claim and £50 for solicitors expenses.

It's not a fine, it's an invoice for breaking one of the conditions of parking that you agreed to. As they will be claiming against the keeper then they cannot claim more than the original PCN (£100?)

It's in RoboClaim mode now, letters are raised without any thought of how sensible they are.

[Lama]

Thank you that is very helpful.

[charitynjw]

In your communications with PP & POPLA, have you revealed who was driving/parking on the day in question?
(Just 'yes, I have' or 'no, I have not'.....do not ID the person if the answer is 'no'.)

[Lama]

Not specifically but by default as I wrote the appeal and I talked about myself. I didn’t realise at the time the relevance of driver versus keeper issue. Although I can’t actually find my appeal now as I did it online and the POPLA site doesn’t appear to let me access it anymore.

[charitynjw]

Not specifically but by default as I wrote the appeal and I talked about myself. I didn’t realise at the time the relevance of driver versus keeper issue. Although I can’t actually find my appeal now as I did it online and the POPLA site doesn’t appear to let me access it anymore.

Yep....one of the many reasons why I wouldn't use those online forms (except for MCOL, that is.)

[Lama]

I have today received a letter before court from bwlegal. They state the contravention as “whole period of parking not paid for” and include a paragraph which refers to a limited contractual licence and not complying with the terms and conditions displayed. They don’t explain why this is the case. I want to fight this as I believe the fine to be unreasonable given that I did actually pay for my parking and have the ticket to prove it and simply made a mistake in not entering my full registration number but only the last 3 digits, the photo of my vehicle entering and leaving the car park clearly demonstrates that this is my vehicle and the charge was therefore paid. Am I right in thinking that the next stage would be to write and ask them for all the information that they intend to rely on in court, I assume that should include the appeal decisions.