Forum Topic

Morrison's parking

Has anyone else heard from a company  called Equita recently?  I believe they are working on behalf of Parking Eye Ltd and are now in the process of trying to collect outstanding parking fines from 2 years ago.  They just sent me an incredibly threatening letter quoting a Supreme Court decision of 4th November 2015.  If anyone has any views on this I would be delighted to hear them.

Tony Loftus ● 3972d8 Comments

Richard Jennings is your man - he looks here occasionally but you can DM him through ChiswickW4. If he says fight, then do.In the meantime, the usual advice is not to answer the letter.

Sara Nathan ● 3972d

Tony has contacted me, and I've asked him for more information."the usual advice is not to answer the letter."Since the Supreme Court judgement last month in the Beavis case, that advice may not necessarily be right, but it depends whether the circumstances match those considered by the Court.  I found a website this evening that says that Equita are using the Supreme Court decision as justification for pursuing much higher charges than the £85 in the Beavis case.http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/parkingeye-shamelessly-dredge-up.html"On the back of their Supreme Court win ParkingEye have issued a huge mailshot dredging up historic cases, many over two years old. ... The correspondence comes from Equita - both Equita and ParkingEye are controlled by Capita, so in essence this is a Capita-controlled exercise."

Richard Jennings ● 3972d

Unfortunately, before someone decided to take this all the way to the Supreme Court, the law was unclear as to whether the parking companies were entitled to their "fine" or whether it was an unenforceable penalty (a legal term).  While the law was unclear, some parking companies would not actually issue court proceedings but would generally do nothing more than write letters/send demands.  However, now the law has been clarified in that those provisions are contractually recoverable, the car parking companies have had the uncertainty taken away and may feel more confident about taking people to court to recover the fines.  Whether they believe it cost effective to do so is not clear. Hope this helps.

Anne Brown ● 3971d

But there must be a limit on how far back they can dredge up cases surely.Anyone know what it is?

Sara Nathan ● 3971d

Six years (Limitation Act).  If they try it on with anything older, just point that out to them.

Anne Brown ● 3971d

"But there must be a limit on how far back they can dredge up cases surely. Anyone know what it is?"Well, it's a civil debt, so probably 6 years.  But Equita are arbitrarily inflating the charges to figures like £185 or £200, even when there has been no previous correspondence. I think they'll find that tactics like that will take them outside the terms of the Supreme Court judgement.  The mass mailing of such letters appears to be a scare tactic that they hope will prompt some people to pay up.  But if the debt did get to the County Court, I understand that the maximum payment required would be less than the amount that Equita are now demanding.

Richard Jennings ● 3971d

Thank you everyone.  I will keep you all informed of developments.  In the meantime.let me wish you all a very happy Christmas.If there is any justice, the directors of Equita will be receiving visits from a few ghosts on Christmas Eve.

Tony Loftus ● 3971d

On the other hand, and I'm just saying, it is very frustrating when you try to park in Morrison's to do shopping, and the car park is clearly full of cars that don't belong to customers, vans, etc.  It is just a shame Morrison's don't use the same system as Sainsbury's.  Another reason not to visit.

Anne Brown ● 3970d