LPS Ltd - PCN - Private Access Road - Delivering On Site & Vehicle Breakdown

[b789]

You know the situation. The IAS is a corrupt kangaroo court. The adjudicator is neither a solicitor or a barrister (a barrista, maybe). If they were honestly legally trained and certified, they would put their name and qualification to their decision. They don't because they know they would be exposed for the Walter Mitty's they are.

So, no surprises. You now have to decide whether to let this run its course to a county court hearing. As previously mentioned, the signage is fatal to their claim because no contract can be formed based on that sign.

Even if the vehicle is treated as “parked”, the contractual problem remains: the sign does not offer parking on terms. It says “NO PARKING”. That is a prohibition, not an invitation or licence.

For a breach of contract claim, the Claimant needs to show:

1. an offer;
   
2. acceptance;
   
3. consideration;
   
4. a contractual term;
   
5. breach of that term;
   
6. entitlement to the sum claimed.
   

The problem is at the first stage. “No Parking” is not an offer to park for £100. It is the opposite. It tells the motorist that parking is not permitted. A driver cannot accept a non-existent offer to park by doing the very thing the sign forbids.

The operator may try to argue that the contract is: “You may enter or remain on this land, but if you park, you agree to pay £100.” However, that is strained. The largest and most prominent term is not “parking permitted subject to payment of £100”; it is “NO PARKING”. The £100 wording is expressed as a consequence of “breach”, not as the price for an agreed service or licence.

So the better analysis is:

• If parking is permitted subject to terms, breach of those terms may potentially create contractual liability.
  
• If parking is forbidden altogether, there is no contractual permission to park. The issue, if anything, is trespass.
  
• If it is trespass, a parking contractor cannot usually recover a contractual parking charge unless it has sufficient landholder rights and has pleaded the case properly. Damages for trespass would ordinarily belong to the landholder, not a third-party parking agent, and would normally be limited to actual loss (nominally £0 in this case) unless some other proprietary basis is shown.
  

That also distinguishes it from a normal pay-and-display, permit, or maximum-stay car park. In those situations, the sign says, in substance: “You may park here if you comply with these terms.” This sign says: “No parking.” That is a materially different legal structure.

The vehicle technical fault makes the operator’s case even weaker. Even if a judge were prepared to treat the vehicle as “parked”, the driver’s continued presence was not a voluntary decision to accept contractual terms. A vehicle stopped because of a mechanical or technical problem is not the same as a driver choosing to park in defiance of a sign.

So, the sign is prohibitory. It does not confer a contractual licence to park. If the vehicle was genuinely immobilised or stopped by technical necessity, there is also no voluntary contractual acceptance of a £100 charge merely because the vehicle remained stationary.

Is this going to be challenged all the way to a hearing or is the company now likely to just pay up once the inevitable debt recovery letters start to arrive?