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Last year my husband purchased a car for my stepson. My husband is the Registered Keeper on the V5, but the owner and driver of the vehicle is my stepson. The vehicle is kept at my stepson's address - my husband insures the vehicle as a secondary driver in order to ensure that the vehicle is insured as my stepson is not the most responsible parent.
On 25 February 2017, my stepson (allegedly parked on the Waterworld, Stoke on Trent car park and either overstayed or did not purchase a ticket). I am not sure which applies as we never received a parking notice (ANPR site).
The first we knew of an offence was at the end of April when we received a letter "Notice of intended court action - unpaid parking charge £160) from DRP dated 20/04/17. This gave the date of the offence as 25/02/17, the vehicle registration, Location and the reason as "overstayed paid time" - so I assume a ticket was actually purchased.
This was then followed by a "Final chance to pay" - same details provided dated 30/05/17 and an "Offer to pay by installments" dated 05/05/17.
Then they changed tack and the debt company changed to Zenith - two letters so far, 19/06/17 (contact us now) and 03/07/17, (final warning of legal action with a deadline of 17/07/17).
Doubting the validity of the charge notice I made a trip to Waterworld. I did not pull onto the car park, instead I parked in the driveway of a vacant business premises as the entire length of the road leading to and from Waterworld is under double yellows. I walked back to inspect the signage. At the entrance to Waterworld are two eye level bright yellow signs belonging, not to Smart Parking, but to UKPS North West Limited.
We have not made any contact with DRP aka Zenith, but did write to Smart parking stating that my husband had not received a parking notice, and also requesting a copy of the original PCN with photographic evidence showing dates and times and also the proof that a ticket either was or was not purchased at the time. From what I know of other APNR sites that we have used, you have to enter your vehicle registration into a machine to buy a ticket. We also stated that he was not the driver and that had we been given the opportunity to do so we would have disclosed who was driving (no disclosure was made) and that as he had not received a PCN or been given an opportunity to dispute/challenge the charge that he felt that his rights under SOPA had not been adhered to and requested cancellation of the charge or a POPLA number. We have already obtained confirmation from DVLA that an electronic request for Keeper Details was made by Smart Parking on 28/02/17 citing "Breach of T&C's of a private car park"
Today we received a response from Smart Parking citing paragraph 22.7 of the BPA code of practice and stating that "all appeals must be submitted to us within 28 days of the Notice to Keeper being issued. Due to the length of time your PCN has been open, we have now referred this to a debt recovery (Debt Recovery Plus) who are handling the matter on our behalf. Please contact them directly if you wish to discuss this matter further"
At no time have we appealed the PCN, we have challenged it which in my world is asking for a reconsideration an is one step below an appeal. However that said, we would rather see them in court than acknowledge and pay a fine that is not our liability.
To date Smart Parking have:
1. Not sent us a PCN
2. Not supplied the Photographic proof of the offence that was requested.
3. Processed my husband's data without our knowledge or consent by passing it to a 3rd party Debt recovery company (? Contravention of DPA 1998 ?) and...
4. I assume by their response to our request are saying "we have no intention of giving you your statutory rights or a POPLA number either"
I am sorry for the length of this post but would appreciate any advice you can offer on where to go from here
On 25 February 2017, my stepson (allegedly parked on the Waterworld, Stoke on Trent car park and either overstayed or did not purchase a ticket). I am not sure which applies as we never received a parking notice (ANPR site).
The first we knew of an offence was at the end of April when we received a letter "Notice of intended court action - unpaid parking charge £160) from DRP dated 20/04/17. This gave the date of the offence as 25/02/17, the vehicle registration, Location and the reason as "overstayed paid time" - so I assume a ticket was actually purchased.
This was then followed by a "Final chance to pay" - same details provided dated 30/05/17 and an "Offer to pay by installments" dated 05/05/17.
Then they changed tack and the debt company changed to Zenith - two letters so far, 19/06/17 (contact us now) and 03/07/17, (final warning of legal action with a deadline of 17/07/17).
Doubting the validity of the charge notice I made a trip to Waterworld. I did not pull onto the car park, instead I parked in the driveway of a vacant business premises as the entire length of the road leading to and from Waterworld is under double yellows. I walked back to inspect the signage. At the entrance to Waterworld are two eye level bright yellow signs belonging, not to Smart Parking, but to UKPS North West Limited.
We have not made any contact with DRP aka Zenith, but did write to Smart parking stating that my husband had not received a parking notice, and also requesting a copy of the original PCN with photographic evidence showing dates and times and also the proof that a ticket either was or was not purchased at the time. From what I know of other APNR sites that we have used, you have to enter your vehicle registration into a machine to buy a ticket. We also stated that he was not the driver and that had we been given the opportunity to do so we would have disclosed who was driving (no disclosure was made) and that as he had not received a PCN or been given an opportunity to dispute/challenge the charge that he felt that his rights under SOPA had not been adhered to and requested cancellation of the charge or a POPLA number. We have already obtained confirmation from DVLA that an electronic request for Keeper Details was made by Smart Parking on 28/02/17 citing "Breach of T&C's of a private car park"
Today we received a response from Smart Parking citing paragraph 22.7 of the BPA code of practice and stating that "all appeals must be submitted to us within 28 days of the Notice to Keeper being issued. Due to the length of time your PCN has been open, we have now referred this to a debt recovery (Debt Recovery Plus) who are handling the matter on our behalf. Please contact them directly if you wish to discuss this matter further"
At no time have we appealed the PCN, we have challenged it which in my world is asking for a reconsideration an is one step below an appeal. However that said, we would rather see them in court than acknowledge and pay a fine that is not our liability.
To date Smart Parking have:
1. Not sent us a PCN
2. Not supplied the Photographic proof of the offence that was requested.
3. Processed my husband's data without our knowledge or consent by passing it to a 3rd party Debt recovery company (? Contravention of DPA 1998 ?) and...
4. I assume by their response to our request are saying "we have no intention of giving you your statutory rights or a POPLA number either"
I am sorry for the length of this post but would appreciate any advice you can offer on where to go from here
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