Gibbo2286 wrote: ↑20 Dec 2017, 12:34
Thanks Marc, that is interesting.......but I think the writer is being something of a bar room lawyer and some of his arguments would fall down if he
was taken to court.
The suggestion to 'do not appeal' is wrong, there is a procedure to follow which starts by appealing, politely, to the parking company then if that's rejected to move on to the trade body's appeal system and if that fails to then say 'see you in court' which will no doubt bring out the debt collectors who really have no power but to threaten you and try to frighten you into submission.
I have not read the article, but I should imagine that the advice to not engage with some contrived appeals process operated by the parking operator is that I should bet in beginning the process you have admitted to being the driver. Thus, NCP will now seek to recover damages for an alleged breach of a contract formed with the driver at the time of parking.
Had you not admitted to being the driver, NCP would have, to recover contractual damages, been required to demonstrate the same on the balance of probabilities. As you might guess, doing so is usually v.difficult/impossible, and certainly far more difficult/impossible than would be justified for the sake of £100.
As it is, it is unclear what the basis for your appeal might be. You seem to have admitted that through your own error you parked in the car park and did not pay. Your only arguments now would appear to be that the terms of the contract allegedly formed were unreasonable, or indeed that the nature of the signage is such that no contract should be considered to have been formed, neither of which argument would appear particularly certain.
Whilst I am not a fan either of the armchair lawyer parking online forums, which tend to be full of a lot of misguided opinions, my advice in this sort of situation in the future would be to ignore any requests for parking charges which are said to be owed by the driver as contractual damages, and if the operator intends to use the provisions of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 to transfer liability to the registered keeper, to inform the operator of the driver identity (I usually nominate some poor chap living in the darkest depths of North Korea), thereby preventing transfer of liability to the keeper.