Private parking firms face scrutiny over disputed charges

Private parking enforcement companies are demanding fees from drivers who pay late or briefly turn on private land, even when no loss has occurred, SRF consumer programme Espresso reports. A legal expert says such charges may lack a legal basis or be disproportionate.

Parkosecure sought 70 francs from a driver in Bern who took five minutes to pay by QR code. The company also repeatedly charged an older woman in Interlaken who, because of a slipped disc, allegedly took too long to reach a parking meter. Both had paid for parking, but Parkosecure initially stood by its demands.

In a letter to the Bern driver, Parkosecure said the parking spaces were chargeable from the first minute. After he posted a negative Google review, the company waived the fee as a gesture of goodwill and said it would welcome a positive review. Parkosecure told SRF it generally grants drivers a 10-minute grace period. In the Bern case, however, the documented period was five minutes. The company said that was why it had waived the fee. It did not respond to the legal criticism.

Yves-Alain Moor, a lawyer with the TCS motoring club’s Lex4you legal advice platform, said that where the parking charge has been paid, the property owner has suffered no financial loss. Without such a loss, he said, there is no legal basis for compensation for the work involved in enforcing the parking rules.

In another case, a driver from the canton of Zurich turned around on private property subject to a court-ordered prohibition. Unisecur demanded 100 francs three days later. Moor said the manoeuvre formally constituted interference with the owner’s possession, but Swiss courts had found that a fee for such a brief, minimal action was disproportionate and that the owner’s possession was not significantly affected. Unisecur did not respond to Espresso’s questions.

Moor said such compensation may cover only the actual costs of checking and processing a case. He cited a Federal Supreme Court assessment that a reasonable amount is 30 to 52 francs. Additional charges, including for checking a vehicle owner’s details with police, are not permitted, he said.