01-15-2026, 04:46 PM
I am advising on this case. I have seen the Hirers lease for this residential property. This is my evaluation of the situation so far:
This is a residential parking case involving a hire vehicle, multiple PCNs, and a managing agent who has attempted to wash their hands of responsibility after appointing a parking contractor years after the tenancy was granted.
The tenant’s assured shorthold tenancy commenced on 12 October 2023. The tenancy agreement is a standard but important one because it expressly defines both the “Property” and the “Common Parts” as including parking spaces, unless specifically excluded. There is no exclusion. The tenancy also grants uninterrupted access to the Common Parts for the duration of the term and, critically, contains two separate clauses stating that the landlord’s agent has no authority to amend or vary the tenancy unless expressly authorised by the landlord in writing.
In October 2025, the managing agent sent a circular to residents stating that responsibility for parking enforcement had been transferred to Parking & Property Management Ltd, with enforcement commencing on 28 October 2025. This is over two years after the tenancy was granted. That timing matters. The parking operator was appointed after the tenancy came into force and therefore sits beneath it in the contractual hierarchy.
The tenant pays for parking and had an existing whitelist/authorisation arrangement with the managing agent. When the tenant changed vehicles to a hire car, the managing agent confirmed in writing that the new vehicle was authorised. When PPM took over enforcement, that whitelist information was not properly carried across. PPM then issued a run of PCNs, all alleging “unauthorised parking”.
Every PCN was initially sent to Hertz as registered keeper. Hertz charged the tenant £20 per PCN as an “admin fee” and, at one point, remotely disabled the vehicle due to unpaid admin fees, causing loss of work. Hertz then named the tenant as hirer, and PPM issued Notices to Hirer.
Those Notices to Hirer are materially defective. None of them were accompanied by the mandatory documents required by PoFA Schedule 4 for hire vehicles. Instead, they state that documents are “available upon request” and instruct the hirer to request them within 14 days. That is not PoFA compliance. For hire vehicles, PoFA requires that the Notice to Hirer be accompanied by all of the following: a signed statement from the hire firm confirming hire at the material time, a copy of the hire agreement, a copy of the statement of liability signed by the hirer, and a copy of the original Notice to Keeper served on the hire company. Failure to serve those documents with the Notice to Hirer is fatal to hirer liability. That defect cannot be cured later.
One early appeal was submitted by the tenant after Hertz forwarded an NTK, before any Notice to Hirer was received. That appeal was rejected. The wording of that initial appeal is being treated cautiously, because everything turns on whether the driver was inadvertently identified. On the material available so far, the tenant consistently wrote as hirer and did not explicitly identify the driver, but this still needs to be locked down via SAR disclosure.
The operator’s rejection letter is the usual boilerplate. It asserts PoFA compliance without addressing the hire-specific requirements. It states that documents are “available upon request”, which is effectively an admission of non-compliance. It relies on signage and ANPR entry/exit times. It also asserts that the PCNs are valid because the vehicle was not registered on their system, ignoring the tenancy, the pre-existing authorisation, and the managing agent’s written confirmation.
The key legal position is this:
First, supremacy of contract. The tenancy predates the operator. The tenancy grants rights to use parking spaces and the common parts without interruption. The managing agent has no power to vary the tenancy, and the parking operator has even less. A permit scheme or ANPR enforcement introduced two years later cannot override or rewrite the tenancy. Signage cannot create a new contract with a tenant exercising existing rights. This applies regardless of whether the operator has ever seen the tenancy agreement. Knowledge is irrelevant.
Second, authorisation. The tenant had express written authorisation from the managing agent. An administrative failure between principal and agent does not turn an authorised resident into an “unauthorised Parker”.
Third, PoFA. Hirer liability fails outright because the Notices to Hirer were non-compliant. In the absence of PoFA compliance, the operator can only pursue the driver. The driver has not been identified.
Fourth, standing. PPM has produced no evidence of landowner authority capable of overriding residential rights or conferring standing to contract with tenants and pursue charges in their own name.
Where we are now is that multiple PCNs are live, some appealed internally, some not. The managing agent is refusing to intervene, claiming the charges are “valid” and must be appealed, despite the fact that they caused the problem and have contractual control over their agent. A formal complaint is ongoing.
The next step is to submit IAS appeals for each PCN, not with any expectation that the IAS will fairly adjudicate a residential supremacy-of-contract case, but to create a clean, consistent paper trail. Each IAS appeal will use identical wording, asserting hirer-only status, denying driver identification, setting out the PoFA failures, asserting supremacy of contract and lack of standing, and putting the operator to strict proof. This locks the issues in place for any later Letter of Claim or court proceedings.
Parallel to this, a SAR is being pursued against the operator to obtain full disclosure of correspondence, notes, whitelist records, and the exact wording of all appeals and notices. The Hertz admin fees will be dealt with separately, depending on the wording of the hire agreement and whether private parking invoices fall within any permitted category of charge.
At this stage, the case is legally strong. The operator’s position relies on signage, ANPR, and a permit system imposed long after the tenancy began. The tenancy and PoFA both cut straight through that.
The following is the suggested IAS appeal, for what it's worth, but establishes the paper trail that they have been advised of their legal position.
This is a residential parking case involving a hire vehicle, multiple PCNs, and a managing agent who has attempted to wash their hands of responsibility after appointing a parking contractor years after the tenancy was granted.
The tenant’s assured shorthold tenancy commenced on 12 October 2023. The tenancy agreement is a standard but important one because it expressly defines both the “Property” and the “Common Parts” as including parking spaces, unless specifically excluded. There is no exclusion. The tenancy also grants uninterrupted access to the Common Parts for the duration of the term and, critically, contains two separate clauses stating that the landlord’s agent has no authority to amend or vary the tenancy unless expressly authorised by the landlord in writing.
In October 2025, the managing agent sent a circular to residents stating that responsibility for parking enforcement had been transferred to Parking & Property Management Ltd, with enforcement commencing on 28 October 2025. This is over two years after the tenancy was granted. That timing matters. The parking operator was appointed after the tenancy came into force and therefore sits beneath it in the contractual hierarchy.
The tenant pays for parking and had an existing whitelist/authorisation arrangement with the managing agent. When the tenant changed vehicles to a hire car, the managing agent confirmed in writing that the new vehicle was authorised. When PPM took over enforcement, that whitelist information was not properly carried across. PPM then issued a run of PCNs, all alleging “unauthorised parking”.
Every PCN was initially sent to Hertz as registered keeper. Hertz charged the tenant £20 per PCN as an “admin fee” and, at one point, remotely disabled the vehicle due to unpaid admin fees, causing loss of work. Hertz then named the tenant as hirer, and PPM issued Notices to Hirer.
Those Notices to Hirer are materially defective. None of them were accompanied by the mandatory documents required by PoFA Schedule 4 for hire vehicles. Instead, they state that documents are “available upon request” and instruct the hirer to request them within 14 days. That is not PoFA compliance. For hire vehicles, PoFA requires that the Notice to Hirer be accompanied by all of the following: a signed statement from the hire firm confirming hire at the material time, a copy of the hire agreement, a copy of the statement of liability signed by the hirer, and a copy of the original Notice to Keeper served on the hire company. Failure to serve those documents with the Notice to Hirer is fatal to hirer liability. That defect cannot be cured later.
One early appeal was submitted by the tenant after Hertz forwarded an NTK, before any Notice to Hirer was received. That appeal was rejected. The wording of that initial appeal is being treated cautiously, because everything turns on whether the driver was inadvertently identified. On the material available so far, the tenant consistently wrote as hirer and did not explicitly identify the driver, but this still needs to be locked down via SAR disclosure.
The operator’s rejection letter is the usual boilerplate. It asserts PoFA compliance without addressing the hire-specific requirements. It states that documents are “available upon request”, which is effectively an admission of non-compliance. It relies on signage and ANPR entry/exit times. It also asserts that the PCNs are valid because the vehicle was not registered on their system, ignoring the tenancy, the pre-existing authorisation, and the managing agent’s written confirmation.
The key legal position is this:
First, supremacy of contract. The tenancy predates the operator. The tenancy grants rights to use parking spaces and the common parts without interruption. The managing agent has no power to vary the tenancy, and the parking operator has even less. A permit scheme or ANPR enforcement introduced two years later cannot override or rewrite the tenancy. Signage cannot create a new contract with a tenant exercising existing rights. This applies regardless of whether the operator has ever seen the tenancy agreement. Knowledge is irrelevant.
Second, authorisation. The tenant had express written authorisation from the managing agent. An administrative failure between principal and agent does not turn an authorised resident into an “unauthorised Parker”.
Third, PoFA. Hirer liability fails outright because the Notices to Hirer were non-compliant. In the absence of PoFA compliance, the operator can only pursue the driver. The driver has not been identified.
Fourth, standing. PPM has produced no evidence of landowner authority capable of overriding residential rights or conferring standing to contract with tenants and pursue charges in their own name.
Where we are now is that multiple PCNs are live, some appealed internally, some not. The managing agent is refusing to intervene, claiming the charges are “valid” and must be appealed, despite the fact that they caused the problem and have contractual control over their agent. A formal complaint is ongoing.
The next step is to submit IAS appeals for each PCN, not with any expectation that the IAS will fairly adjudicate a residential supremacy-of-contract case, but to create a clean, consistent paper trail. Each IAS appeal will use identical wording, asserting hirer-only status, denying driver identification, setting out the PoFA failures, asserting supremacy of contract and lack of standing, and putting the operator to strict proof. This locks the issues in place for any later Letter of Claim or court proceedings.
Parallel to this, a SAR is being pursued against the operator to obtain full disclosure of correspondence, notes, whitelist records, and the exact wording of all appeals and notices. The Hertz admin fees will be dealt with separately, depending on the wording of the hire agreement and whether private parking invoices fall within any permitted category of charge.
At this stage, the case is legally strong. The operator’s position relies on signage, ANPR, and a permit system imposed long after the tenancy began. The tenancy and PoFA both cut straight through that.
The following is the suggested IAS appeal, for what it's worth, but establishes the paper trail that they have been advised of their legal position.
Quote:I am the hirer of the vehicle. This appeal is made strictly in that capacity. No admission is made as to the identity of the driver and I will not be identifying the driver.
PCN reference: [PCN REF]
Vehicle registration: [VRM]
Site: [SITE / ESTATE NAME AND ADDRESS]
Date of alleged event: [DATE]
Notice to Hirer issue date: [NTH DATE]
Allegation as stated on the notice: [ALLEGATION]
1. No hirer liability under PoFA Schedule 4 due to mandatory document failures
The operator seeks to hold me liable as hirer under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (PoFA). In the case of a hired vehicle, Parliament imposed additional and more onerous conditions before liability can be transferred away from the unknown driver. These conditions are not procedural niceties; they are the legal gateway to hirer liability.
Paragraphs 13 and 14 of Schedule 4 create a tightly defined statutory mechanism. Paragraph 14(2) is explicit: a creditor may only recover a parking charge from a hirer if the Notice to Hirer is accompanied by specified documents. Those documents are not optional and are not capable of being supplied later at the creditor’s convenience.
The statute requires that the Notice to Hirer be accompanied by:
(a) a statement signed by or on behalf of the vehicle-hire firm confirming that, at the material time, the vehicle was hired to a named person under a hire agreement;
(b) a copy of the hire agreement itself;
(c) a copy of a statement of liability signed by the hirer under that hire agreement;
and, as part of the statutory chain in paragraphs 13 and 14, a copy of the Notice to Keeper served on the hire company.
The function of these documents is obvious and deliberate. Together, they are the only lawful means by which a parking operator can demonstrate that the person it is attempting to pursue is in fact the hirer, that the hire agreement existed at the material time, that the hirer accepted contractual liability under that agreement, and that the underlying Notice to Keeper complied with PoFA in the first place. Without all of them, Parliament has not permitted liability to be transferred.
In this case, none of those documents were served with the Notice to Hirer. Instead, the notice states that documents are “available upon request” and instructs the recipient to request them within 14 days. That approach is legally ineffective.
An operator cannot lawfully require a hirer to take additional steps (such as requesting documents) to activate statutory liability; the statute places the burden squarely on the creditor to serve the documents with the notice.
PoFA does not permit liability to arise conditionally, prospectively, or upon request. The statutory wording is framed in the present tense and requires that the Notice to Hirer is accompanied by the listed documents. An invitation to ask for them later reverses the statutory burden and defeats the purpose of the safeguard. If “available upon request” were sufficient, the statutory requirement to serve the documents would be rendered meaningless.
This is not a technical defect. It goes to the root of jurisdiction. Where the mandatory documents are not served with the Notice to Hirer, the statutory right to pursue the hirer never arises at all. There is no discretion for an assessor to overlook this failure, and no power for the operator to cure it retrospectively by later disclosure or by producing documents during an appeal.
Even if the operator now produces some documents in its evidence pack or during an appeal, that does not remedy non-compliance. The statutory condition is that the Notice to Hirer was accompanied by the documents at the time of service. If they were not enclosed then, PoFA hirer liability never arose.
Accordingly, as a matter of law, hirer liability does not arise in this case. In the absence of full and contemporaneous compliance with PoFA Schedule 4, the operator’s only remaining cause of action would be against the driver. The driver has not been identified, and I am under no obligation to identify them.
2. No contract formed with a resident exercising pre-existing tenancy rights and authorisation
This is a residential location. My tenancy commenced on [TENANCY START DATE]. PPM signage was present on site, however the managing agent/landlord controlled and issued resident permits and authorisation and required payment for parking. On [ENFORCEMENT TRANSFER DATE] the managing agent transferred day-to-day administration/enforcement to this operator and (by their circular) asserted that resident bay allocations and vehicle details had been provided. The present PCNs arise from a failure in that administrative handover and/or whitelist data, not from any lack of resident authorisation.
My tenancy contains the following wording (verbatim) which is relevant:
Quote:“Property means the property identified in the Tenancy Particulars and (unless specifically excluded) includes any loft, cellar or other spaces within the building together with boundaries fences garden parking spaces garages and outbuildings (if any) and any part or parts thereof belonging to the Landlord.”
“Common Parts means those parts of the Building retained by the Landlord or Superior Landlord (if any) for the provision of services to the Building and/or for use as common access ways and facilities in common with by other residents of the Building and includes any boundaries fences garden parking spaces garages or outbuildings…”
“For so long as the Tenant complies with the Tenant’s Obligations to give the Tenant exclusive possession of the Property, the use of the Contents and access to the Common Parts without interruption during the Term.”
“The Landlord’s Agent shall have no authority to amend or vary this agreement. No amendment or variation of this agreement will be effective unless confirmed in writing by the Landlord or subject to the Landlord’s express prior written authority.”
Whether present on site or not, the operator cannot impose new contractual obligations on a tenant exercising pre-existing tenancy rights and authorisation granted via the landlord/managing agent, nor can signage convert an administrative permit/whitelist failure into a contractual debt. The operator cannot impose new contractual terms on a tenant by signage or ANPR operation in a manner that overrides the tenancy grant and the tenant’s authorised use. The tenancy does not confer any power on the landlord’s agent or a third-party contractor to unilaterally vary the agreement and charge the tenant for parking as though the tenant were a transient visitor contracting with a stranger.
Further, I have written authorisation from the managing agent confirming my vehicle was permitted/whitelisted and a parking arrangement existed. The operator’s assertion of “unauthorised parking” is therefore denied. Any failure to migrate whitelist data is an administrative failure between principal and contractor and does not create a contractual breach by an authorised resident.
3. No standing shown and no proof of authority to contract and litigate
The operator is put to strict proof of standing. It is not sufficient to assert that it manages the car park.
The operator must prove, by production of a contemporaneous and unredacted contract, that the landowner (or a party with sufficient proprietary interest) authorised it, at the material time, to:
(a) offer parking contracts in its own name;
(b) impose and recover parking charges; and
(c) pursue legal proceedings in its own name.
In a residential context, where land is already subject to tenancy rights, the operator must also demonstrate that its authority genuinely permits interference with those pre-existing rights and does not exceed the landholder’s own powers.
No such proof has been provided. In the absence of strict proof, the operator has no locus to pursue this charge.
Given this is a residential site with permits/whitelisting historically issued by the managing agent, the operator must also prove it was authorised to cancel or override resident authorisations and to levy charges against authorised residents for administrative ‘non-registration’.
4. Signage incapable of overriding tenancy rights or forming a contract in any event
The operator relies on signage requiring a ‘valid E-permit’ or vehicle registration. That does not create liability for an authorised resident where permits were issued/controlled by the managing agent/landlord and the signage does not state that the permit must be issued by PPM or that an existing resident permit would become invalid.
Separately, the operator is put to strict proof that the signage was present, prominent, readable, and capable of forming a contract at the material time, including strict proof of:
(a) the exact signage relied upon and its wording at the time;
(b) its location relative to where the vehicle was parked;
(c) the prominence of the parking charge term; and
(d) evidence of a period of parking rather than mere entry and exit timestamps.
Conclusion
This appeal must be allowed because:
(a) hirer liability under PoFA fails due to the absence of mandatory documents served with the Notice to Hirer;
(b) the operator cannot form a contract with a tenant exercising pre-existing tenancy rights and express authorisation;
(c) the operator has failed to prove standing or landowner authority; and
(d) no contractual formation or actionable breach has been established.
Procedural fairness and competence of determination
Finally, I note that the IAS states that appeals are determined by legally qualified assessors, typically solicitors or barristers. Decisions are anonymous and unsigned and provide no verifiable indication of the assessor’s qualification, practising status, or independence.
Given that this appeal turns on core legal issues including contract formation, the distinction between prohibition and contractual offer, evidential proof of parking as opposed to momentary presence, locus and landowner authority, and statutory compliance with PoFA, I invite the IAS, in its decision, to confirm (without disclosing personal data) whether the assessor determining this appeal is a practising solicitor of England and Wales, a barrister holding a practising certificate, or another legally qualified person, and to confirm that no conflict of interest exists.
If the IAS declines to provide even this minimal confirmation, I request that it explains how that position is compatible with transparency and confidence in ADR that expressly relies on claimed legal expertise as a marker of credibility. If the appeal is dismissed, I further request that this is done by reasoned legal analysis engaging with the issues above, rather than by conclusory assertions.
Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience. - Mark Twain
