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Unauthorised Parking
Whilst not illegal, unauthorised parking occurs when a vehicle doesn’t adhere to the rules specified within a private parking area.
If a vehicle is parked on private land without authorisation then an approved and registered parking management company can issue a Parking Charge Notice (PCN), also payable by the vehicle owner.
There are a number of options you can take to prevent unauthorised parking on your land.
Useful Information
The problems with unauthorised parking on private property
Whether you’re a business or a homeowner, unauthorised vehicles parking on your private property can prove to be a headache. As a business, unauthorised motorists can take parking spaces that are designated to your staff and visitors, which can cause real problems for employees that drive to work and could reflect badly on your business if you have partners and potential clients trying to access your offices.
If you have a retail business then parking abuse by non-customers is basically unauthorised parking whereby the driver does not have your permission to park, and is not your client, therefore affecting your business and impacting your earning/ sales potential.
At home, the last thing you need after a hard day’s work is to find that your driveway is occupied or obstructed by a vehicle that doesn’t belong to you. Working with a leading private car park management company like Creative Car Park can remove these problems for you.
How to stop unauthorised parking on private property
If you are dealing with unauthorised parking issues on your private property, the police or your local authority do not have the power to deal with the problem, as parking on private land is not deemed an offence – it’s a civil matter.
Local authorities can only prevent unauthorised parking on private land where it is marked as an official car park covered by relevant by-laws.
However, this doesn’t mean that you have no recourse. Enforcement of parking privately is manageable and can be outsourced to a specialist operator endorsed by the BPA (British Parking Association) , so if you put up clearly visible signage which indicates no parking, the laws of contract and trespass apply and anyone who parks without authorisation is ordinarily deemed to be in acceptance of the terms of parking, which can include the additional parking charge.
If you are in possession of more parking spaces than you require for your employees, for example, you can designate parking bays for permit holders and ask your visitors to provide their details when coming to visit your offices.
To get the most out of your private car park management, companies like Creative Car Park offer parking solutions, which ask unauthorised vehicle owners to pay for their use of your parking space. If they have failed to pay, you are entitled to issue a parking ticket, called a ‘Parking Charge Notice (also abbreviated to ‘PCN’ in the context of private parking charge notices) which Creative Car Park can enforce for you. Creative Car Park is one of the UK’s leading car parking companies and ranks amongst the highest in BPA and POPLA performance.
It’s important to remember that this is a civil matter and in order to successfully claim for unpaid PCN’s in court, you must ensure that you have the correct and compliant signs visibly displayed in and around your land.
Solutions, such as electronic barriers that can only be accessed by a code or keyfob, can also be viable options, depending on the needs of your business.
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At Creative Car Park, we offer a wide range of solutions to help you prevent unauthorised parking on your private land. These solutions can provide enforcement in combination with providing maximum parking security.