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The Law Private parking companies issue parking charge notices when they believe that you have not parked in accordance with the terms and condtions set out in the signs. The reason that they call it a parking charge notice is in the hope that you misread it as a penalty charge notice as per the Road Traffic Act. The parking charge notice is not a parking fine it is just an invoice. The only action they can take is to claim breach of contract. To pursue a claim for breach of contract they must know the identity of the driver and be able to prove in court that they had a valid contract with the driver. Under contract law, there is no obligation for the registered keeper of the vehicle to release information about who was driving the vehicle. If the registered keeper was not driving then it is up to the supermarket or private parking company to discover the identity of the driver. Contract Law Put simply, contract law requires an offer and an acceptance. The supermarket or private parking firm offer you parking in accordance with the terms displayed. By reading the terms and parking you have accepted the offer and must comply with the terms. If you breach the parking contract, then the supermarket or private parking firm can only claim the actual amount they have lost. For instance if parking was offered for £2 per hour and you paid for 1 hour but parked for 2 hours, then the maximum they can claim is £2. If you are unable to read the signs because they are inadequate, badly positioned or obstructed then you have not entered into a contract and therefore the parking charge notice is not enforceable. Data Protection Act As many supermarkets and private parking companies use automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) surveillance cameras then they are required by the Data Protection Act to display adequate signs showing that you are entering an area covered by CCTV. In many instances, these signs are extremely small and there is no way you could read the sign whilst remaining in control of the vehicle. These signs must alert you before the cameras record you so that you have the option of turning away and not being recorded. It is therefore possible that in many instances the use of these cameras falls short of what is required by law. Unfair Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 As the parking contracts that are offered by supermarkets are of a standard nature and not individually negotiated, I believe that they breach the Unfair Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 as the contract has a significant imbalance in favour of the supermarket or private parking company which contravenes section 5(1) below. 5. (2) A term shall always be regarded as not having been individually negotiated where it has been drafted in advance and the consumer has therefore not been able to influence the substance of the term. (3) Notwithstanding that a specific term or certain aspects of it in a contract has been individually negotiated, these Regulations shall apply to the rest of a contract if an overall assessment of it indicates that it is a pre-formulated standard contract. (4) It shall be for any seller or supplier who claims that a term was individually negotiated to show that it was. (5) Schedule 2 to these Regulations contains an indicative and non-exhaustive list of the terms which may be regarded as unfair. Section 5(5) refers to Schedule 2 of the regulations which contains a list of terms which may be regarded as unfair. Schedule 2 1(e) states:
Authorisation of Justice Act 1970 Section 40 of the Act is available below and Section 40(1)(d) states that a person commits an offence if they utter a document falsely represented by him to have some official character of purporting to have some official character which he knows it has not. Why do supermarkets and private parking companies issue documents called Parking Charge Notices and then refer to them as a PCN. Well it's quite simple. In my opinion it is to make you think that it is a Penalty Charge Notice (also called a PCN) which is issued by a police force or local authority which is a legally enforceable parking fine which is the traditional type of parking fine that we think of which is enforceable by the courts. That is why they don't title their letter "Breach of contract" because they hope that most people will see the initials PCN and pay up or advise who the driver was. 40 Punishment for unlawful harassment of debtors (1) A person commits an offence if, with the object of coercing another person to pay money claimed from the other as a debt due under a contract, he- (d) utters a document falsely represented by him to have some official character or purporting to have some official character which he knows it has not. |
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