A hotel uses Real-Link to manage vehicle check-in and check-out at their car park, creating a timestamped photo record of every vehicle at the point of arrival and departure. The record protects the hotel, the guest and the valet team when any dispute arises.
Under the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977 and common law duty of care, a hotel offering valet parking accepts responsibility for a guest's vehicle while it is in their custody. When a guest claims damage, the burden falls on the hotel to demonstrate the vehicle's condition at the point of receipt. Without a photographic record taken at the time of check-in, that is very difficult to do.
Hotels offering valet parking or managed car parks face a persistent problem: disagreements about pre-existing vehicle damage. Without a photographic record taken at the exact moment a guest's vehicle is received, any claim about damage is difficult to resolve fairly for either side.
Paper parking logs with handwritten notes provided no reliable evidence and were time-consuming to manage during busy arrival periods.
Real-Link was configured to create a digital check-in record for each vehicle arrival. The concierge or valet operative scans a tag at the car park entry point, which opens the vehicle check-in form. They photograph the vehicle, record the registration, note any pre-existing damage and submit. The record is timestamped and stored immediately.
At departure, the same process is followed. The completed check-in and check-out records including all photos are stored together and searchable by registration or date.
The check-in process takes the same time as it did on paper but produces a defensible record rather than a handwritten note. Staff follow a consistent process on every shift. Management can retrieve any vehicle record immediately without searching through paper files.
Real-Link creates a timestamped photographic record of every vehicle at arrival and departure before a dispute can start.