Thousands of people have done well out of Margaret Thatcher’s right to buy, including Labour’s Angela Rayner. But not everyone has been so lucky. Amongst the least-lucky are those leaseholders who purchased high-rise flats under right-to-buy and are now facing sky-high service charges. Amongst those, are the leaseholders in Verulam House in Hammersmith Grove who are facing service charges of between £17,500 and £21,500 for window replacements which they say are not needed. One of the problems for right-to-buy leaseholders is that although they are the ones picking up the bills, they have little say in the matter because they will always be in a minority.
Although residential leaseholders now have extensive rights to take over the management of their flats, they can only do this by acting collectively. For example, the statutory ‘right to manage’, introduced by the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, can only apply where a majority of qualifying leaseholders are on board with it. But this is of no help to right-to-buy leaseholders where the majority of flats in a high-rise block are still owned by the local authority and let out as social housing. The most, to which those right-to-buy leaseholders are entitled, is the right to be consulted over proposed service charges under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. But even this right to be consulted, is cut down for right-to-buy leaseholders because they do not have the same right to nominate their own contractor as is enjoyed by other private leaseholders. And even the prices may be higher as councils are constrained in their choice of contractor because of the need to comply with rigid procurement regulations, which means that they cannot shop around for the best deal.
Last Sunday I copped a parking ticket. It was a complete surprise to me. I had parked in the same car park on and off for more than 30 years without problem. And isn’t parking supposed to be free on Sundays and public holidays? But not this Sunday.
It was only after I had arrived home that I noticed the little yellow package tucked behind my windscreen wiper. I opened it up to find that I was being punished for not having paid for my parking. That can’t be right? It’s Sunday? Perhaps the traffic attendant made a mistake? Perhaps he had forgotten what day it was? Perhaps he had woken up in the morning thinking it was Monday?
So, I drove back to the car park and looked around to see if there is any obvious sign about charges being introduced for Sunday parking. But there was nothing obvious except in the small print on the machine itself: which had recently been closed down because it was no longer taking cash. And there were no tickets being issued. It is now all pay by phone. Which brings me to another question. If there are no tickets to display, how does a parking attendant know whether someone has paid or not?
When I returned home again with my parking ticket, I searched online to try to find out when the rules for this particular car park had changed, as regards the introduction of Sunday charging, and what signage had been displayed to alert motorists that the rules have changed. But nothing came up. So, I posted a question to an AI platform and got back some Goan food recipes.
As I was not prepared to give up, I bowled in a statutory freedom of information request to the council which had issued the notice, asking the same questions. Now I don’t know how much it costs to answer a freedom of information request. But by the time it has been bounced around between different council departments and someone has spent half a day digging out this obscure piece of information and sending it back to me, I would not have thought that there would be much change out of £500.
As I had nothing to lose, I made representations to the local authority, explaining that I had made an honest mistake. As I expected, the council were quick to reject my representation. Though again, someone would have had to be paid to consider my representation and respond formally to it. If I wanted to take my appeal further, I would have to go to the parking adjudicator.
Appealing to a parking adjudicator is a double or nothing game because, by the time you make your appeal, you would already have lost your 50% discount for early payment. But my personal view is that if you think that a penalty charge notice is unfair and that you have grounds to appeal, you should appeal.
I went back to my AI platform and asked whether lack of adequate signage alerting me to the changes, provided grounds for appeal to a parking adjudicator. This time, instead of Goan recipes, it directed me to a government website, “Key Cases-London Tribunals”.
The first thing I noticed about this government website was that there are so few key decisions. I had been expecting thousands. When I typed ‘Sunday’ into the search- bar, nothing came up. I then browsed the section headed, “Adequacy of Signs and Lines”. There were only six key decisions, most of them dating back to 1990s. Really? So, it did not take me long to browse through the list. The key decision which most closely resembled my predicament was Mary Fairburn’s appeal against a notice issued by the London borough of Bexley, again where there had been a sudden change to the charging regime, to which she had not been alerted, except for the small print on the machine. In that 1997 case, Parking Adjudicator G.R. Hickinbottom expressed surprise that Bexley Council had not cancelled the notice on the basis of a genuine mistake but felt that he had no power to cancel the notice because an infringement had occurred.
So on the basis of Mary Fairburn’s decision, I will not waste time and further public expense pursuing an appeal to the parking adjudicator and will pay the PCN at the discounted 50% rate whilst I still have a few days to do so. Which brings me to a final thought.
I don’t understand the mentality of town centre parking policy. If you really wanted to help struggling local businesses, wouldn’t you want to make it as easy as possible for motorists to park their cars and get on with their shopping? No wonder town centre retail and entertainment chains like Wilco; Debenhams and Cineworld have gone to the wall.
