Just to add ignoring it may be the wrong advice, but from my personally experience I ignored them and nothing came of it and that was over a year ago.
Exactly what the silly twits will argue. However they have to be able to justify the charge. So lets take into consideration the following. 1) Was the car park full ? 2) If not full is the charge justified when there are lots of other spaces ? If the car park was full then yeah they can argue because you were late other cars could not have parked (well one car) and we have no way of knowing how long the net car in was going to be parked for, for arguments sake we'll call it an hour. Say the charge for an hour is £1, technically if that's their lost profit then that's all they can claim. If the car park wasn't full then it would be very difficult for them to justify this charge in a court of law. At the very most it will be small claims hearing, and a judge will be none too happy with such a tiny claim going through. Ok they may look to add other charges for "Damages" to cover the time they have spent and letter writing to you chasing it up and passing it to a debt collector. My advice would be to write to them, ask for justification of the charge as essentially they are arguing you are in breach of contract, and if thats the case then its down to them to prove there has a been a breach. Only a judge can enforce these fines and to be honest if you have over stayed they can look to make this claim but it is rather petty for 7 minutes, it could be argued a frivolous claim. As this isn't a local authority PCN (Penalty Charge Notice) you may want to contact POPLA (Parking On Private Land Appeals) http://www.popla.org.uk and see if they can help you out. The sad thing is these companies are not regulated and essentially they are making money for nothing when you think about it.
Move to Northern Ireland, you can literally park in the bus stop outside the police station without consequences. Frankly I would fight those goons on principle, private companies handing out fines just takes the UK one step closer to Banana Republic status.
This is more what I mean - potentially not the best advise - but I got 2 last year from different companies and ignored them both, nothing happened because of it.
Ha Ha the buggers are looking for me. They sent the fine to the previous owners address. So do the DVLA not give out up to date info?
Appeal it, they will not want to bother with all the hassle. I appealed one against Britannia Parking last year (disabled badge on show and ticketed as I didn't buy a ticket). Check out there website and do a Google Street View of the car park, if the 'Main Sign' is obscured in anyway or not sighted near the entrance then appeal it on those grounds. It is the law that the sign needs to be at the entrance. The car park I got ticket at, the sign was at the exit (entrance on the left and exit on the right, they are next to each other). I argued that the sign was in he wrong place and that a vehicle must of been obscuring it upon entry and therefore I was not aware of the regulations and that if the sign was on the correct side of the road I would of done! It worked and didn't have to pay a penny! Takes between 1 to 2 months tho! Also get one of these: http://www.getoutofdebtfree.org/Parking-Notice Cut it out and stick in in the tax disc holder, it works, but always buy a ticket.
by reading this http://www.getoutofdebtfree.org/Parking-Notice there seems to be a common thread in his posting the bloke cant park and feels its his right to ignore yellow lines as was only for a minute
GiGo - google street view isn't very good as a defence - I was in a car accident and the other party claimed I hit him as he was allowed to merge , his entire defence was google street view. yet - I knew the road layout had changed since the google car had passed , and a letter from local traffic confirmed it and voila , case dropped - 2 years later (damn Aviva for being slow in replying)
