Aussie driver's $396 parking notice not 'lawful': 'Bullying tactics'
Operators accused of 'bullying tactics' over infringement notices.
An Aussie motorist has been hit with "fines" totalling almost $400 just before Christmas after allegedly parking in a private car park and "breaching conditions" on four separate occasions — but according to experts, he won't have to pay.
The man said he received a debt collection referral notice from Traffic Monitoring Services (TMS), which patrols Secure Parking sites, but because he hadn't received any individual tickets, he had "no idea" where the so-called infringements took place.
Dated November 27, the letter included the driver's name, address and current registration number, and stated he had 14 days to pay $396 or the matter would be passed on to lawyers for "further action". However, it didn't include dates or locations of the alleged $77-a-pop breaches, so the perplexed motorist contacted TMS and was sent photos depicting the tickets attached to his old car, which he sold in 2022, prior to the alleged infringements.
The letter, which warned the Adelaide resident to "pay immediately to avoid debt collection referral", reads: "A vehicle registered in your name has parked in a car park monitored by Traffic Monitoring Services (TMS) and has been in breach of the terms and conditions of that car park. We now have four breaches recorded for this registration.
"As a consequence, on each occasion, individual notices were affixed to that vehicle. The notices set out the nature of the breach, which combined, requires payment of the sum of $308." It said a further $88 had been added to cover "additional costs" incurred by TMS in pursuing the debt.
Car parks have no 'force of law'
Even if the strongly worded notice mentioned the driver's current car, it's a grey area as to whether it's actually enforceable, with one legal expert saying it amounted to "bullying tactics" to scare motorists into paying up.
While the TMS website states the breach notices "are enforceable under laws relating to contracts and the consent given to parking on private property," Adelaide barrister Andrew Williams, of Williams Legal, said they "would not appear to have any lawful effect" and would need to be pursued as a "civil matter" in the small claims court.
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"I've not seen any of these things prosecuted," he told Yahoo News Australia. "Private car parks don't have a force of law, so in a sense when you park in a car park, it's an agreement between you and the car park owner. So, it's for them to enforce any parking contract between you.
"Firstly, they have to prove you parked there and accepted the obligations of the parking and they have to enforce it. It's a civil dispute between you and the car park owner.
"It's different to getting an expiration notice from a council or the police, as this way, car park owners seek to enforce an agreement. It's incumbent on the person who wants to enforce the debt," Williams added. "It's like writing to someone parking on your front lawn and saying, 'I'm charging you $300 to park there. If you don't pay, it will go up to $400'."
'Throw it in the bin'
Earlier this year, a Western Australian motorist found a ticket from Parking Enforcement Services (PES), a division of Wilson Parking, stuck to his windscreen and urged drivers to read the fine print. "If you read at the back, it says important information: 'This is not a parking fine'. Useless, throw it in the bin, don't pay that s**t," he said.
James Clements, from Sydney Criminal Lawyers, told Yahoo the tickets were "difficult to enforce" and that private car park operators employed companies who used "bullying tactics" to "effectively try scaring people into paying them".
"What they try and do is recover the debt for the loss incurred, effectively like a breach of contract. But they're not fines — only a statutory body has the power to issue a fine," Clements said.
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