Gladstones Letter before Claim

maily · 18 January 2017 at 1:24PM

Good Afternoon,

I hope you are all well and my apologies i wasn't keen on starting my own thread but feel it might be best to i have been trying to read through all the information here and put together a defense of my own but feel a bit lost so figured perhaps it is time at last to post my own thread and seek advice from some of you more knowledgeable and helpful folk.

I have been a lurker here for many years and do appreciate all the advice and people on this wonderful site.

I have been doing a lot of reading on here regarding parking fines and LBCC and Gladstones solicitors. I have read several of your letters/responses as well as some from Coupon mad. I am now more confused and lost than ever i am not a lawyer so am not to sharp on some of the Legal terms.

To cut a long story short my wife borrowed my mothers car in August 2016 and used to visit a shopping centre (Privately owned). She paid for 2 hours Parking, and was 2-3 minutes late getting back to the car due to the little one needing a change of nappy but by the time she got back to the car there was already a ticket on there stating she was 10 minutes late and no parking warden to be seen.

We decided to just ignore the ticket from Euro Parking Services and letters that followed.However eventually we received a "letter before claim" from Gladstones threatening to take us to court. We did respond in the time allocated and basically tried to come to a settlement i believe using one of your templates i saw on the site. I offered them a sum of £15 as the car park costs £0.80 per hour and as she was an alleged 10 minutes over i thought £15 was more than fair to cover their losses however it was rejected straight away.

Gladstones they kept persisting eventually we gave up as i thought if this does go to court my mother won't do to well there and it's better to name the actual driver my Wife who might fair better in court. It went quiet for a few months and now they have sent my wife a dodgy letter before claim and demanding £150!!!

The letter before claim doesn't follow the practice direction as far as i am aware it just demands money as it doesn't give us any further details.

I was hoping you would be kind enough to offer some time/advice if you have the time to do so. We would both appreciate it eternally.

I will take a picture of the letter they have sent us if that will help and upload it later?

Thank you for taking the time to read this and look forward to your advice i think in hindsight perhaps i should have started this thread sooner rather than try to cope with this on my own it's rather stressful!!!

twhitehousescat · 18 January 2017 at 1:30PM

as you bought a ticket , was a time not stamped on it , also a time stated on the ticket placed on the car?

surely , the ticket on car would be for you staying 2 hrs 10 mins , when you say you were only 2 hrs 3 mins , (PS: grace periods apply)

maily · 18 January 2017 at 1:35PM

twhitehousescat wrote: »

as you bought a ticket , was a time not stamped on it , also a time stated on the ticket placed on the car?

surely , the ticket on car would be for you staying 2 hrs 10 mins , when you say you were only 2 hrs 3 mins , (PS: grace periods apply)

The ticket she bought was from 15.25 > 17.25

The PCN she found attached to the car was hand written with a "time seen: 17:30" and a" time issued 17:35".

Also worth while noting that the car park is free after 18:00.

Umkomaas · 18 January 2017 at 2:21PM

So have you formally notified the PPC that your wife was the driver, officially taking this away from your mother?

If so, everything needs to be done in your wife's name and she would need to attend court if it came to that. You could also attend with her (not instead); you could also handle things there if she wishes (Google 'Mckenzie Friend' and 'Lay Rep' to understand the difference and what you can/can't do on her behalf).

Your wife needs to write to Gladstones refuting the charge or that there's any 'debt' owed. You will find suitable letters by doing a search here on this forum or on PePiPoo (ones written by Gan over there are very good). This letter ping-pong will need to be continued as the case progresses, to prove to any future judge that your wife as not been 'unreasonable' in dealing with this. Consider all the letters you write to G's are mainly for the judge.

There are now zillions of threads relating to similar cases where G's are sending out initial letters, hoping to frighten recipients into paying for fear of 'appearing in court', where the naive/unwary associate this with a criminal case - the likes of which it is most definitely NOT!

Coupon-mad · 18 January 2017 at 3:04PM

You could also attend with her (not instead); you could also handle things there if she wishes (Google 'Mckenzie Friend' and 'Lay Rep' to understand the difference and what you can/can't do on her behalf).

Yep - and this is also discussed in Gin and Milk's thread, as she is attending a hearing soon with her OH and will be a Lay Rep so she can speak. A McKenzie friend is not the same, as Umkomaas says - all discussed in Gin and Milk's recent thread, easy to find - no link from me.

It went quiet for a few months and now they have sent my wife a dodgy letter before claim and demanding £150!!!

There is another thread on page one right now drafting a LBCCC response for a Gladstones case.

maily · 18 January 2017 at 3:07PM

Umkomaas wrote: »

So have you formally notified the PPC that your wife was the driver, officially taking this away from your mother?

If so, everything needs to be done in your wife's name and she would need to attend court if it came to that. You could also attend with her (not instead); you could also handle things there if she wishes (Google 'Mckenzie Friend' and 'Lay Rep' to understand the difference and what you can/can't do on her behalf).

Your wife needs to write to Gladstones refuting the charge or that there's any 'debt' owed. You will find suitable letters by doing a search here on this forum or on PePiPoo (ones written by Gan over there are very good). This letter ping-pong will need to be continued as the case progresses, to prove to any future judge that your wife as not been 'unreasonable' in dealing with this. Consider all the letters you write to G's are mainly for the judge.

There are now zillions of threads relating to similar cases where G's are sending out initial letters, hoping to frighten recipients into paying for fear of 'appearing in court', where the naive/unwary associate this with a criminal case - the likes of which it is most definitely NOT!

Yes i have formally notified Gladstones Solicitors of who was the driver at the time to take away any worry stress from my mother.

Aside from the letters refuting the alleged charge and debt is there any other things we need to do such as asking them to furnish us with proof or make a settlement out of court?

Also if they do provide us a date/time stamped picture surely that is not proof as a camera will stamp any time/date you configure in the settings its not calibrated and can be falsified easily?

On my part i am trying to be very fair and reasonable and happy to make a small settlement and i am trying to contact the land owner to see if they can do anything for me also.

The letter of claim does not even break down how the costs are justified i have no idea how they got to the figure of £150 when the parking charge we received was £100.

Redx · 18 January 2017 at 4:04PM

UKPC was found to be falsifying camera timings about 15 months ago , two separate occasions I think (check parking pranksterts blogs) - so yes its possible

as for the total , it tends to be £100 for the pcn and debt collector letters added on , or court costs , or both later on , but typically between £175 and £225 if it goes before a judge , if you lost

how it came to be the figure it is isnt relevant , it could be any figure under 5 grand (court claim limit) but a judge would have to deem it fair and reasonable , which is why its not 5 grand

concentrate on what you need to know to reply , which usually doesnt stop a court case anyway as gladstones do not perform "due diligence)

see parking pranksters boogs for further explanations on this ( you have been GLADSTONED is quite common now )

maily · 18 January 2017 at 4:20PM

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Yep - and this is also discussed in Gin and Milk's thread, as she is attending a hearing soon with her OH and will be a Lay Rep so she can speak. A McKenzie friend is not the same, as Umkomaas says - all discussed in Gin and Milk's recent thread, easy to find - no link from me.

There is another thread on page one right now drafting a LBCCC response for a Gladstones case.

Thank you i have been reading a lot of your forum posts and they are very informative and helpful i guess for me its a case of drafting a decent reply to the letter assuming i can use most of the information from the other thread you mentioned? If there are any additional things i can or should mention i would be grateful if you could help me out a little bit with those, can/should i put together a draft and post it here would that be okay?

Redx wrote: »

UKPC was found to be falsifying camera timings about 15 months ago , two separate occasions I think (check parking pranksterts blogs) - so yes its possible

as for the total , it tends to be £100 for the pcn and debt collector letters added on , or court costs , or both later on , but typically between £175 and £225 if it goes before a judge , if you lost

how it came to be the figure it is isnt relevant , it could be any figure under 5 grand (court claim limit) but a judge would have to deem it fair and reasonable , which is why its not 5 grand

concentrate on what you need to know to reply , which usually doesnt stop a court case anyway as gladstones do not perform "due diligence)

see parking pranksters boogs for further explanations on this ( you have been GLADSTONED is quite common now )

I have been reading so much my brain feels like it will melt down some of the stuff i don't quite understand either. Appreciating all the comments so far and taking all your's and everyone else's points on-board so nice to know im not alone in all of this :-)

The falsifying of timings i think will be incredibly difficult to prove i suspect, what i really really regret is not storing the dashcam footage from the car which is also date and time stamped if i had this id have some evidence to help me there but i didn't think to save it at the time!!! Arghh!!

Will keep reading up and starting working out how to draft a response to this LBCCC if you do have any additional pointers for me would greatly be appreciated .

Coupon-mad · 18 January 2017 at 5:05PM

can/should i put together a draft and post it here would that be okay?

Yes - that's what we like to see and help with.

The_Deep · 18 January 2017 at 7:40PM

The falsifying of timings i think will be incredibly difficult to prove i suspect,

Did they not fess?

mark.taylor · 18 January 2017 at 8:31PM

Can you please put the picture of the sign board in the discussion board. Sometime the signboard can provide some clues. I won a case recently because the sign board was not consistent with the contract the parking operator had with the land owner.

Gladstones Letter before Claim

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