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Parking tickets: A valid claimable expense?

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Recently reading with much amusement and sympathy, sister site LawZONE’s copy of Parking Ticket News, I remembered a situation some years ago.

The occassion was a visit to a financial services training consultancy in London’s west end. I went along in one car whilst my immediate supervisor went in another, the reason being that after the meeting I was heading to the west country whilst my colleague was heading into the wilds of Essex.

Needless to say, parking was difficult, and whilst we both found a place, we both overstayed the allotted time because of the length of the meeting. Consequently we both collected parking tickets, which we duly passed through the company’s expense claims procedure.

The result was that my penalty payment was re-imbursed whilst my supervisor’s penalty payment was not. The argument from the company being that

  1. my supervisor was responsible for my parking as we had attended the meeting jointly, and he should have instructed me to make further payments into the meter
  2. only one car was needed to attend the meeting, and as I had further to travel afterwards my vehicle should be the one to be used

Yes, the whole situation baffled us too, especially as they were both company cars!

Any other interesting parking stories and company vehicle policy stories out there?

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