Hi there all,

Recently i met up with little Nicky and his spanking f2 (fantastic colour, that silver)

Basically we were parked in the Mc Donalds, had a drink inside, and then sat talking about coupes (as you do)

Little Nicky has just recieved a fine from the parking enforcement agency, and basically im now waiting for mine to come through too

Please, please can someone help and advise on any help on the legality of this, and if they can actually do us. We were sat in there id say about 60% of the time we were parked there, but - can they legally do that?

Neither of us can afford this 2 weeks before xmas, and i certinately refuse to pay anything unless i have to

Many thanks in advance

there was another post recently and some links were added to the post.

i think the general rule was that unless its a council car park, or you are paying on entry or leaving then you can just ignore the bill... don't quote me on that one but try and find the post...

Thats brilliant, thanks mate

I rung the duty manager of the McDonalds, and explained the situation - and she said "ok, give me the PCN and your Reg number and i'll cancel it now"

£125!

Im just waiting for the ticket now, but thankfully McDonalds have sympathy for us.....

Theiving bas*ards, these companies.

Thanks for the help though mate, much appreciated

no problem buddy, glad to be of service.

well done just be cautious nothing comes these companies can legally get your details from DVLA

A couple of things to point out here; firstly you shouldn’t have contacted McDonalds as this could possibly be used as evidence that you were the driver of the car (only the driver of the car not the registered keeper can be penalised), never admit to being the driver of the car at the time the ticket was issued. The best course of action to follow in these situations is to send a letter back to the parking enforcement company informing them that even though you are the registered keeper you weren’t the driver of the car at the time, so they need to send the penalty charge (it can’t be legally called a fine as it’s not been imposed by the appropriate authority) to the driver of the vehicle. Also tell them that you do not want any further contact from them or you will consider it harassment. You have no responsibility to inform them who the driver of the car was and they cannot demand you tell them. If the enforcement co send you any more letters save them but totally ignore them. They cannot and will not pass the penalty charge to a debt recovery co as they have to take it to court first and as you have no legal obligation they know it will be a waste of money and time on their behalf.
To answer Duples response, yes the parking enforcement co can pay the DVLA to supply the details of the registered keeper of the vehicle but that just proves who owns the car not who was using it at the time, so unless they have evidence that it was the registered keeper person driving the car they can’t do a thing about it.

Thats cool, thanks Albert - I will definately keep this is mind incase it ever happens again..


I rung the McDonalds in this case as the carpark is covered with CCTV, and so in the case of me denying having the car, they could have obtained the tape and proved I was lying. I had a look into the clauses, and one is that if you have the land owners permission to stay somewhere longer than the limit (in this case 75 minutes) then they cannot issue a ticket - and as McDonalds emply this agency, it seemed correct to check this.

As Nickys car was broken down i asked behind the till if we could stay longer, and as a representative of the company, the employee gave me permission to stay - combined with the fact we had bought food from there aswell I thought it ok

Guess we were lucky on this occasion, and the lady had some sympathy.