Not parked, on a car park that no longer exists

On the costs issue I posted about in #9, have a look at this link, and if you look at my thread you will see an extract from a Skeleton Argument which is limited to the costs argument. I'm still trying to find the one I saw which said you can seek more if you can show direct, actual losses which are greater than the amounts mentioned in CPR Part 27 and Practice Direction 27, I'll trawl back through my posts to see if I can find it:


http://insurance.dwf.law/news-updates/2014/12/what-amounts-to-unreasonable-behaviour-in-the-small-claims-track/#unreasonable-behaviour-exception

Practice direction 46:
3.2 Where a self represented litigant wishes to prove that the litigant has suffered financial loss, the litigant should produce to the court any written evidence relied on to support that claim, and serve a copy of that evidence on any party against whom the litigant seeks costs at least 24 hours before the hearing at which the question may be decided
3.4 The amount, which may be allowed to a self represented litigant under rule 45.39(5)(b) and rule 46.5(4)(b), is £19 per hour.


Rule 46.5(4) says this:
(4) The amount of costs to be allowed to the litigant in person for any item of work claimed will be –
(a) where the litigant can prove financial loss, the amount that the litigant can prove to have been lost for time reasonably spent on doing the work; or
(b) where the litigant cannot prove financial loss, an amount for the time reasonably spent on doing the work at the rate set out in Practice Direction 46.


So I think that £19 is the default, but if you can prove something greater then you would get the greater hourly rate. Eg. if you are paid £50 per hour, then as long as you can produce evidence of that then there's no reason why you couldn't argue for £50 per hour rather than £19.

Loadsofchildren123 wrote: »

I think where you have a good defence anyway then there is no point hiding behind "you can't prove I was the driver". Many judges will ask you directly if you were driving and (if you were) bang goes that whole aspect of your defence, and you start off on the back foot. Or a judge can assume, on the balance of probabilities, that you were driving and again, bang goes that whole aspect of things.


So if you have three good defences of rubbish signage so no contract, didn't park anyway so cannot have accepted any contractual terms which may have been offered, grace periods apply, then focus on those rather than getting sidetracked by the driver thing. It might be different if you could genuinely say that several people used your car, produce insurance to back that up, and say that you genuinely can't remember or evidence that it can't have been you.

Could not agree more. The template is great for appeals where the motorist has no real stand-out reasons, but if there is something like POFA out of time or Grace periods or double-dipping, then that should be the main challenge.