Astonishing Supreme Court Ruling To Change Parking Fines
Thursday, 19. November 2015
As you know, as it has been the subject of previous blog posts, things have been a little confusing when drivers are given a parking ticket for overstaying the time paid for in private car parks.
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Many articles have been written about private car park owners who have issued a £100 ‘fine’ to motorists for overstaying their allotted time considered to be a ‘penalty’ which in English law is not allowed unless by statute, such as a speeding ‘fine’ or on road parking ‘fine’.
The argument has always been that had the driver vacated the space the parking company could have sold that space for the time that the car was ‘illegally’ parked, let’s say an hour plus a ‘reasonable’ admin fee. But thanks to a Supreme Court ruling this is all about to change. Mr Beavis took action when he was given an £85 parking ticket when he overstayed the two hour parking limit by just under an hour. Mr Beavis took the private parking company, Parking Eye, to court.
The case of Beavis v ParkingEye hinged on whether the fine charged by Parking Eye was classed as a penalty, which would make it unlawful unless it equates to actual losses incurred by Parking Eye. Open and shut one would think as the company didn’t appear to sustain a loss from the overstay. Not so said the Supreme Court who ruled, ‘The fine was not a penalty as the charge authorises the company to control access to the car park in the interest of customers and the wider public’.
The judgement said fines were beneficial to motorists themselves as they make parking spaces available to them which might otherwise be clogged up by long stay users. I have not read about this case anywhere else other than my one secretive source and yet the findings have a massive impact on the basic understanding that if a commercial ‘penalty’ doesn’t reflect a loss incurred it ain’t lawful.
This is what John de Waal QC of Hardwicke Chambers who represented Beavis had to say about this monumental decision, ‘The case sets a new test for ‘take it or leave it’ consumer contracts as the law was last considered at this level 100 years ago’. He went on to say, ‘Until today, charges that had been agreed in advance, payable on breach of contract, were disallowed as unlawful penalties unless they could be justified as a genuine pre-estimate of loss.
Today’s judgement sweeps away that rule and says that deterrent charges will be allowed if there is some commercial justification for them’. A very strange decision on the part of the Supreme Court but no doubt one that will have all car park owners, other than local authority car parks, singing in the streets! By Graham Hill
