Difficult area but lawyers I know say just ignore them. Others say don't ignore them. I think the middle ground is that you acknowledge receipt and depending on circumstances say that you are not paying. I have never yet met anyone who has been taken to court but I'm sure they exist. As you say, only the local authority and the Police can fine you. In essence, all you are technically guilty of is trespass and that carries a £5 fine at worst.
It appears you have done your homework well. Good luck...
Thanks Keith,
Big problem is this, you have to appeal to Excel parking first, they then decide whether or not your appeal is upheld. So you are relying on the judge jury and executioner to say yes we got it wrong. I would love to know how many times if any they have accepted they made a mistake.
Next step if they reject my appeal is the option to use their “independent” appeals service AIS, they used to use POPLA for appeals, when at least you had a chance of winning. Unfortunately, AIS who they now use have been described as a kangaroo court by many, so I will not be using them. Also, at this point they put their £60 invoice up to £100 if you decide to use AIS.
To show what AIS are like it is a basic principle of a fair appeals service that each party is given the opportunity to see the other party's case and to comment upon it. This is the position at POPLA. Appellants should obviously see the evidence in it's entirety.A party may challenge the contents of a particular document and this will be carefully considered but in the absence of evidence to the contrary, what is produced in all of the circumstances might contain some or all of the information required to determine the issue.
Here is step 3 of the IAS appeals process
OPERATOR RESPONSE TO COMPLAINT
The operator is provided with 5 working days to provide written representations and evidence in support of their response to you. You will be notified by email when this has been submitted and the case will then be placed before an adjudicator for a decision to be made.
Please note, you are not able to respond to these submissions but you can view them by logging into the system.
As the IAS does not allow motorists to see and comment on the operators entire evidence. In a number of appeals seen, the parking company has submitted false evidence or distorted the truth, yet the motorist has been refused permission to bring this to the attention of the assessor.appeal. The IPC have also refused to reconsider any verdict.
In contrast, in cases where false evidence has been presented to POPLA which has come to light after the event, the case has been reheard.
Only 20% of appeals heard by AIS are upheld I believe with POPLA it is around 50%.
So after their rejection you have a £100 fine to pay, debt collectors letters start usually (as Andy found out) followed by notices to proceed with a case, (at which point they have pushed their costs up to a few hundred pounds), where you then have the stress and have to spend time filling in fairly complex legal forms.
Simon Renshaw-Smith is the owner of Excel and his attitude to the law is well known. When he lost a court case against Martin Cutts he described the court ruling as "an embarrassment to the judicial system" and described the judge as "not fit to serve the civil courts". The car park in question, the Peel Centre, remains one of the most complained about car parks on forums. The signage at the Peel Centre remains appalling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBV5tlCsaFI
It is of course a matter of record that on BBC WatchDog an undercover journalist caught IPC company PCM UK admitting they provided false information in appeals.
So I expect like most when my appeal fails with Excel I will end up paying the £60 invoice as any further appeal is probably futile and in my opinion AIS is basically a kangaroo court.