Dont pay and ignore the letters. It cant be inforced
By using a space at a private car park, you have entered into a civil contract - police won’t take you to court for not paying.
Argue your case and stand your ground if you get a ticket – fewer than 5 per cent of cases are taken to County Court. If they are, most are found in the motorist’s favour.
Citizens Advice adds: 'A parking operator has no power to recover a parking charge without first taking court action. The company may continue to send requests to pay and you can continue to ignore these unless they decide to take you to the small claims court.
'If the parking operator does take you to court, you may be able to defend the action, for example, on the grounds that you did not park in breach of the parking rules and/or that the fee being demanded is unreasonably high.’
Under The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, landowners can hire third-party parking attendants to hand out charges, though they can no longer clamp.
What these private firms do not advertise is that they are not legally allowed to fine or penalise drivers for misusing private land – they can only impose a charge for potential losses or damages. And if you refuse to pay, the only way they can get the money off you is to pursue you through the civil courts.
That's not quite true, Marcus. It CAN be enforced, but there are a lot of things that the parking company has to do very precisely, in order to comply with the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, and many people will be able to find a loophole which would cause a District Judge in the County Court to find in their favour.
HOWEVER, while Citizens Advice is a great organization (my wife is Ops Manager at one of their member branches), their advice to ignore anything short of court action is now seen to be unwise.
IF you get a ticket OR a subsequent Notice to Keeper in the post, go to a great legal help website called the Consumer Action Group, where they have an entire section on parking on private land (
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/forumdisplay.php?88-Private-Land-Parking-Enforcement). This site is free, but they welcome donations. I have no personal link to this site, so am telling you about it solely to inform.
Incidentally, one of the loopholes is that the Parking Company need to have the permission of the landowner, as Marcus says. Tesco will probably only LEASE the land at Arena Park, so if it is them that has appointed the Parking Co, they may well NOT have the permission of the OWNER.
The other thing to note is that a recent Supreme Court judgement means the Parking Co does not have to prove what their costs have been, provided that the amount they are claiming is not "unconscionable" (unreasonably excessive).
Sorry for the legal bollocks, but be very careful before using Tesco to park!