UKPC v Mr McCarthy 15/12/2016 Luton
Mr McCarthy's vehicle was often to be found parked in common residential areas. This behaviour was allowable under his lease agreement. UKPC attempted to unilaterally impose new terms and conditions which Mr McCarthy ignored, resulting in the issue of a number of parking charges.
UKPC filed a claim for £840. Mr McCarthy filed a counter-claim for £1,000 for harassment.
The Hearing
The claim was partially dismissed and the counterclaim partially allowed. The judge awarded amounts which cancelled each other out.
Prankster Note
A score draw.
The Prankster suspects that if McCarthy had used different arguments it would have been a clear home win, and UKPC would have been sent packing. So next time, use 4-3-3, not 3-3-4.
An analysis of the legal issues around residential parking is here.
It is clear that parking companies have no idea of the laws which govern their own industry. This sad state of affairs has been compounded by unscrupulous shysters of the likes of Will Hurley and John Davies who cruelly convince parking companies they have a valid case, while actually the reverse is true. Instead of guiding the companies to be within the law, they actively encourage sharp practices and the issuing of tickets in situations where they cannot, in the Prankster's opinion, possibly be valid.
The case of ParkingEye v Beavis revealed that something like 80% of tickets are not valid. While not all of these will give rise to an enforceable claim against the parking company, it is likely that a good percentage will.
A total of 16 million keeper enquiries were made in 2015 and 9 million in the first half of 2016. Extrapolating these figures would mean that something like 29 million parking charges have been improperly issued over the last 2 years. If each driver managed to get £250 per ticket, this would mean that parking companies are in the hole for around £7 billion.
Claims can go back up to 6 years, which would mean the actual liability is substantially more.
Given that driverless cars may substantially alter the way we park over the coming years, The Prankster thinks that anyone investing in a parking company right now may be throwing their money away.
Happy Parking
The Parking Prankster
Putting the fun back into parking
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That KADOE Volumes spreadsheet is fascinating. If you filter on Business = Car Parking Management you get 102 companies making over a million requests a quarter, a third of which comes from Parking Eye. At £2.50 a request, this is real money that the DVLA is collecting. I think DVLA needs to be be held to account for their role in improperly sharing data.
ReplyDeleteWell take it up with your elected officials, the DVLA is an Executive Agency of the government it doesn't set the rules and it isn't their job to double guess the will of Parliament. If the law needs changing or clarifying then that's up to the politicians.
DeleteMy understanding is that the DVLA is authorised to provide driver and keeper details where there is an appropriate reason. I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with that. I am suggesting that the DVLA is giving out Keeper details via KADOE to parking companies where there is not an appropriate reason. Specifically a significant number of parking companies are claiming to have a contract when the reality is that no contract exists. If the DVLA is not taking enough care to ensure that the parking company requests are legitimate, then the DVLA is probably not doing their job under the Data Protection Act.
DeleteThe problem with that assertion is that they rely on the membership of PPC's to their respective ATA's as being sufficient for the purposes of reasonable cause.
DeleteAs we all know though, that gives no realistic opportunity for the DVLA to question a KADOE request as in the case of written requests.
At best all we can do right now is to make a complaint every time there is an unreasonable access and to follow it up with the same complaint to the ICO.
If we start suing the PPC's for the DPA breach it won't even do much to reign them in either as it'll be pence off the overall pounds taken from unlawful use.
If the landowner/ managing agents are brought in as well on tortious interference claims it may get some residential contracts swiftly re-thought.