Victory against car parking companies
Sunday, 13 April 2025
Seven minutes. That was how late a woman was getting back to her car.
She’d parked in a free car park shared by a business where she was a “loyal customer” so she could use the gym.
It was one of those business car parks with no ticket machine. But staying seven minutes over the permitted 180-minute maximum resulted in her being served with a demand for $65 by the car parking services company, referred to only as B Limited, that managed the car park.
She paid up, but was so touched by a sense of injustice that she applied to the Disputes Tribunal to have the money repaid to her. And she won.
Tribunal referee S Simmonds decided: “A driver is entitled to some leeway to enter and exit the building, and it would be wholly unreasonable for any parking enforcement body not to allow a small amount of latitude to the customer.”
However, it was a pyrrhic victory, as she failed in her bid to get the $59 tribunal filing fee refunded.
But the November case was the latest in a series of tribunal rulings that revealed car parking services companies sometimes claim the right to charge people sums of money they legally have no right to, according to tribunal referees, potentially breaching the Fair Trading Act.
They even maintain those claims in the evidence they provided to the tribunal.
Simmonds said the tribunal dealt with two broad categories of parking claim.
There were trespass claims, when someone parked on private land without permission, or for longer than they were permitted as in the case of the seven-minute overstayer.
And there were claims under the law of contract, when parking services were provided in return for a fee, such as in multi-story car parks.
The woman’s claim was a trespass claim, and compensation for that should be “reasonable” for the unauthorised use of the land.
Simmonds found a reasonable sum in the woman’s case was zero dollars, and zero cents, which was partially based on the large size of the car park, where there were plenty of spaces.
As in all Disputes Tribunal cases, the names of the parties are kept secret, protecting the reputation of the parking services company, and the retailers that used it to police their parking spaces.
False legal claim
In a second case from November, a woman was billed $95 by a car parking services company referred to only as Q Limited for allegedly parking her car in a private car park.
She told Q Limited she wasn’t the driver, and asked for proof her car was parked there.
It sent her a photo of a car of her make and colour, but it could have been anywhere, and the lights were on. The photo did not show the number plate.
The company told her: “Under New Zealand law the registered owner of the vehicle at the time of the breach of the parking is responsible and liable as per the NZ Transport Authority.”
It also said that by parking in the car park, she had “agreed to abide by the terms and conditions on its website”.
When the woman didn’t pay, the company sent the debt to a debt collection agency, which added its own fees. It tried to charge the woman $460.99.
Tribunal referee PJ Smith found the woman was not the driver of the car, and that Q Limited had misled her about the law.
“Q Ltd’s statement to [the driver] that, as the registered owner, she was liable under ‘New Zealand law … as per the NZ Transport Authority’ is incorrect and potentially amounts to misleading and deceptive conduct under the Fair Trading Act 1993,” Smith said.
The law Q Limited was referring to covered parking offences on public roads, not to parking in private car parks.
The owner of a car would only be liable for another person’s trespass by parking in a private car park without authorisation, if they directed the driver to trespass.
Q Limited should have realised the driver was disputing liability, and it was “improper” for it to send the claimed debt to a debt collector, Smith said. In such a case the appropriate course of action would have been for it to file a claim with the tribunal.
Fees on fees
Incorrectly claiming to have the right to slap fees on top of parking infringement notices is also something a car parking services company was called out for in an October case.
In that case, a man parked for nearly five minutes in a free car park at business premises without permission from the owner.
The company monitoring the car park using surveillance cameras sent him a breach notice demanding $95.
In subsequent notices, it added late payment fees of $225.
It then contracted a debt collection agency, which added its own fees.
The company, referred to as Q Limited, claimed it was entitled to a total of $555.69.
There were some no parking signs, which claimed that parking there amounted to drivers’ accepting the car parking company’s terms and conditions.
But referee E Paton-Simpson dismissed the validity of the company’s claim that the man had accepted the terms on its sign and website when he entered the car park, and that a “unilateral contract” had been formed.
“This makes no sense,” the referee said.
A unilateral contract was a promise in exchange for an act, which would only be formed if the company promised something in return for the man parking there, such as “Park here and we’ll give you a free ice cream”.
“A unilateral contract does not impose any obligation on the person accepting the offer,” Paton-Simpson said.
Neither was there a bilateral contract, which was an exchange of promises, since the business had not offered anything of value to the driver.
In such a circumstance, the only compensation is under the law of trespass.
It was a busy, almost full, car park, the referee said.
Under those circumstances $95 was at the “top end” of what tribunal referees had accepted as reasonable in the past.
Cases that come before the tribunal do uphold the right of owners of private car parks with notices warning that people parking their cars without authorisation could be towed, providing there was no damage done to the vehicles.
The tribunal has also found that charging towing fees to unauthorised parkers as high as $396.55 is reasonable.