Parking Charge Notice - Equality Act and POFA Defence Scotland?

[SBaxter92]

Hi everyone, first time poster here, so please be gentle!

I'm posting this in *anticipation* of a parking charge notice from a private company; I have 2 (potential) defences if that letter does eventually arrive through my door...

The event happened on Sunday the 13th of November. I *think* I may have overstayed the 2 hour free parking in a Tesco car park by around 15 minutes - outside the 10-minute grace-period, although I'm not 100% sure; I may have just gotten out with seconds to spare. I actually have a genuine reason though - I suffer quite badly from anxiety and OCD - my Dr recently changed my medication, and as a result, I had a bit of an 'episode' in the toilets of Tesco (to whom the car park belonged).

I'm fairly certain an extension of parking fine would have to be viewed by the operating company as a reasonable adjustment, as detailed in the Equality Act 2010 - as the over-stay was explicitly as a result of my mental health condition - my disability (as defined by the Equality Act 2010).

Notwithstanding, I think I could potentially rely upon the POFA act, as today (Monday the 28th of November) is the 15th day after the incident took place. My understanding *was* that this means the parking company could be out of time... However, I have just read that the POFA does not apply in Scotland, and that the relationship is *purely contractual; that there is no statutory protection from POFA.

My questions:

1) Is it likely that my Equality Act defence will hold water, with a short time extension due to my disability being a reasonable adjustment as required by law?
2) Can the POFA 14-day timeframe defence be used successfully if the parking incident took place in Scotland?
3) If the answer to 2) is no, would it then be possible to use the POFA 14-day timeframe defence IF the parking charge notice letter mentions the protection of freedom act?

Thanks in advance

[Bazzaboy]

Hi There
I am in much the same position as you, my ticket offense was on 16/11/2022 for parking on private land, and got a. ticket sent to me today 07/12/2022, my question here was much the same as your number 2 question after 14 days is it void from offense date which mines is, but as you have said POFA does not seem to be law in Scotland, so I googled POFA and it is basically stating if you live in Scotland and your offense is in Scotland only the motorist is liable for the ticket, not the keeper. the parking company may write to the keeper requesting the name of the driver or pay the charge (which my ticket does say) as such the keeper may write back advising them as such or ignore it completely, the parking company's only recourse would be to try and enforce in court, although as of November 2014 this seldom happens, so I am not going to contact them at all and I am certainly not going to name the driver of the car, I got one of these tickets about 7 years ago in a retail park in Scotland from Parking Eye and I did not respond to them all they years ago, they did hound me a bit with letters and putting the charge up, but eventually they stopped and they went away totally, I hope this is helpful to you as I have asked much the same question on here today and waiting on any reply help on the matter.