Summary

Legal Problems of Parking Agreements in Private Car Parks

The activities of private car parks in organising parking and particularly in ensuring the management of parking have served as an ample source of debate in Estonian media over the past years. Unlike in the parking zones located on the territory of local governments, where the representatives of public authority are in charge of inspecting and ensuring adherence to parking conditions based on the Traffic Act, parking in private car parks is governed by the Law of Obligations Act. The terms and conditions of a parking agreement are displayed on information boards installed by the entrance of the car park, which provide that by parking in the car park, the driver has agreed to the conditions posted on the board and entered into a parking agreement. A claim for contractual penalty will be submitted to the driver in case of violation of the terms and conditions contained in the parking agreement.

The article discusses the nature of the parking agreements serving as the basis for operating private car parks and the problems related thereto from various legal aspects. The questions tackled include the feasibility of entry into a parking agreement by information boards and the legal significance of a situation in which the parking driver did not notice the board displaying conditions and hence is not aware of the legal consequences of his or her activities. The use of standard conditions in the parking agreement is also addressed in the light of applicable law. The last point examined is the potentially unreasonable amount of the penalty imposed for the violation of the parking conditions and its nullity as a standard condition.