Churchill Park is a small development in Hounslow TW4. Because of an ongoing parking problem with non-residents using residents bays on the estate the management company employed the services of Parking Ticketing Ltd (PTL) of 83 Ducie Street Manchester M1 2JQ.
This Company is run by Mario Ireland. The management company issued residents with permits supplied by them to display while parked on bays. The scheme worked well to start, but after a few months reports started to come to the management company about residents being ticketed. They directed Parking Ticketing to void these tickets as they could vouch for the resident having a permit; however, Parking Ticketing refused. Residents appealed via the ways as advised on the rear of tickets only to find the appeals rejected. It would also appear that the appeals company that they were informed to appeal to was run by the same person. Under BPA rules the management company were under the impression that even during an appeal the clock stopped ticking on the ticket. However, Parking Ticketing Ltd continued to add no payment time onto the ticket and so some residents were presented with bills for hundreds of pounds.
The management company contacted Parking Ticketing Ltd again, asking them to stop this practice of issuing residents with tickets, even when the management company could prove residents had a permit which they had issued.
Things quietened down for a while and then there were incidents of miss-ticketing involving the same person's car. The permit was clearly displayed on the dashboard and the resident showed the management company a photograph proving this. Because of past form the management company paid the ticket as they felt it was morally unjust to ticket a car that had a valid permit displayed on the dashboard. Also because of previous events with the company they wished the bill not to escalate into the hundreds of pounds.They paid the bill out of their funds as over the years they have had a good working relationship with the gentleman who had been ticketed and did not wish this relationship to be affected by the overzealous actions of Parking Ticketing Ltd. They reported Parking Ticketing Ltd to trading standards who felt that Parking Ticketing Ltd were acting in an immoral way.
Parking Ticketing Ltd has a very unusual clause in their contract. The management company wrote to them giving 30 days notice to cancel a contract as they had had the contract for over a year. However, within the contract, there is small print that states that if they do not give a cancellation notice within 30 days of the anniversary of, the contract it will run for a further 12 months.
The Churchill Park management company are now gathering evidence where Parking Ticketing Ltd have miss-ticketed and therefore are in breach of contract. They now have two cases of this where valid permits were on display, yet the resident was issued with a parking ticket. The management company noted that the resident who had been targeted was one who complained about the practices of Parking Ticketing Ltd.
The management company wrote to The Prankster so that more people could be be made aware of the practices of Mario Ireland's company as it would appear there are many examples of him doing this in the press over numerous years. He also had a previous company that was removed from the BPA.
The management company will be writing to him again saying the contract is terminated because he has breached his terms and conditions.
Prankster Note
The company Mario Ireland was previously running was notorious clamping firm Magnaco Limited which was expelled from the BPA for unpaid CCJs and entered voluntary liquidation.
This cautionary tale shows that management companies should take extreme care when contracting with a car parking company and that all terms and conditions should be carefully scrutinised.
If you don't like the contract, don't agree to sign it. Either get the contract changed, or find a different parking company. For a residential contract it is important to include a term stating that genuine residents and their visitors will not be charged and if a ticket is accidentally issued then it will be cancelled.
Paper permit schemes should be avoided as they are routinely abused by parking companies. In this day and age electronic schemes are common where residents can register their and their vistors vehicles via apps websites and telephone.
Happy Parking
The Parking Prankster
Abuse of domestic parking is one of those areas that many would support, but even then these parasites can't do the job in a way that actually benefits their customers (the land owner/occupier).
ReplyDeleteAm I missing something? If these are resident parking spaces, should it not be obvious that no breach has occurred if the RK address is at the location in question?
ReplyDeleteYou are missing the fact that Mario Ireland would make less money if he only targeted non-residents.
DeleteI have little sympathy with most, if not all, companies who employ PPC's.
ReplyDeleteHowever this MA seems to want to do what's best for their residents but have really botched things up.
The first botch up is that they have allowed Mario's mob to contract with them to operate on land that already has leaseholder rights to it. That is a clear case of tortiuos interference by the MA, however well intentioned they were.
The 2nd botch up is in not ensuring the contract was agreed and signed in acceptance by all affected residents.
The 3rd and perhaps the main one, was in not ensuring full cancellation of any true resident/guest tickets by having this provision in the actual contract.
A good-will situation where they did what they thought would be for the benefit of the residents has gone awry and if anyone who had already paid a ticket was to lay a claim against the MA for the tortious interference and damages to the extent of the amount paid they would find they would be likely to make good on them all.
in terms of the lease to properties the management company where permitted to implement rules and restrictions that enabled the smooth running of estate. Also spaces are allocated by management company . Notice was given to residents to display permits 30 days before the implementation.
Deleteon occasions peoples permits dropped from dash boards and windcreens so when were contacted by the resident we could vouch for there entitlement to park there. We were not interfering with the cars and we instructed PTL to cancel tickets.
I am pretty sure that rolling contracts where you only have the ability to cancel at the time of the automatic renewal have been deemed to be unfair and not binding.
ReplyDelete...but for consumers or businesses?
DeleteAn automatic renewal clause B2B is actually very common. For consumers it may be an unfair contract in certain circumstances and on the facts of the particular case
DeleteCourts also tend to consider businesses are big boys and if they make a bad contract, tough!
DeleteThis lovely firm have taken over the parking enforcement in our block in east london. They are currently harrassing residents for £150 per ticket despite those residents having pre existing leases for those parking spaces.
ReplyDeleteAlso given that we have a gate that protects the car parking spaces we don't really have an issue with abuse of the car park so there are very few valid targets. Over the last couple of weeks they have moved on to ticketing the vans of contractors employed by the management company.
It has become clear in the communications with the management company that they have no control over Parking Ticketing Ltd and are unable to cancel tickets. So another fine mess awaits as we have at least 9 months of the contract to run.
If you want to email then I can advise if tenants have a data protection claim against PTL, for which £250 seems to be the going rate. prankster@parking-prankster.com
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