Parking - Letter Before Action? Letter Before County Court Claim? Fight back!

bazster

That's great Daisy, I'm sure you are right. So what we have now is:

Stage 1 - Acknowledgement:

Point out all the ways in which their Letter Before Claim fails to comply with the Practice Direction, point out all the things they need to do before you are able to give your Response, and point out the sanctions for failure to comply with the Practice Direction.

Stage 2 - Response

(In the highly unlikely event that they have now complied with all aspects of the Practice Direction)

State that the claim is denied in full, state why, and request all of the documents I listed above.


Is that it? The great thing about all this is that they are spewing out these things in bulk, they simply cannot afford to spend this much time and effort over each one, so the more effort you put them to the more likely they will slink away into the slimy hole whence they emerged.

zzzLazyDaisy

bazster wrote: »

Is that it? The great thing about all this is that they are spewing out these things in bulk, they simply cannot afford to spend this much time and effort over each one, so the more effort you put them to the more likely they will slink away into the slimy hole whence they emerged.

EXACTLY :A

That's also another really good reason for encouraging posters to do their own Acknowledgment - every one will be different and the PPCs will be playing a very risky game if they start sending out template replies as this course of correspondence forms part of the court document bundle if they were to be foolish enough to push the case to court.

Edit: I have added your very clear summary to Post 1 - thanks!

nigelbb

Responding in this way also goes to the very heart of the whole Big Lie on which the PPC business model is based i.e. whether they even entered into a contract with the motorist in the first place when they claim damages for the breach of that contract.

If there was a contract for parking it was between the motorist & the landowner. This fact can get ignored even by a judge at small claims court when the PPC steamrollers through their view of the world. Putting them on the back foot it forces the PPC to demonstrate what wrong it was that they suffered by the motorist parking & proving that the wrong should be remedied by payment of damages rather than everyone accepting the lie that "You saw the signs - pay up"

bazster

I hope you are enjoying reading this Rachel.

zzzLazyDaisy

bazster wrote: »

- The full text of the contract they allege the driver entered into

Bazter as I've pointed readers to your post, can I ask you to change this to

'full details of the contract the RT/Driver is alleged to have entered into, including the full text of any contractual terms and conditions that the RT/Driver has allegedly agreed to'

Reason - it hangs better legally.

bazster

OK, done. Any other suggestions, just ask.

The_Slithy_Tove

Possible responses from the PPC following a Daisy-acknowledgement:

Choose on of:
A - they respond with all the required paperwork (unlikely)
B - they drop the whole thing (possible)
C - they continue anyway (even if they've made an incomplete response - see A), and issue a claim through MCOL. They do this anyway simply as an extra notch on the intimidation ratchet, in the hope that even those who have sent a detailed acknowledgement will fold. We know they can't possibly take all these to court, so they don't care that they have seriously fouled up on the process.

bazster

Yes they might do 'C', but that will cost them money and they may well decide it's not worth it once they realise they've got a "live" one to deal with! A response along the lines being formulated here will make it crystal clear that this one will not fold so it's not worth paying the MCOL fee.

zzzLazyDaisy

The_Slithy_Tove wrote: »

Possible responses from the PPC following a Daisy-acknowledgement:

Choose one of:
A - they respond with all the required paperwork (unlikely)
B - they drop the whole thing (Likely)
C- they issue a POPLA code - (possible)
D - they continue anyway (even if they've made an incomplete response - see A),

In which case the RK/Driver sends the Formal Response (as they are required to do under the Practice Direction), reminds the PPC of its obligation to complete the Pre-action Conduct before it starts proceedings, and refers it to Para 4 of the PD on non-compliance and sanctions

E PPC ignores all stages of the Practice Direction and issue a claim through MCOL

and faces a defendant who is now really clued up whose FIRST action will be to send their Acknowledgment and Response to the court seek the assistance of the court in making an order that the Claimant must comply with the Practice Direction as a condition of continuing...

Amended that for you :D

nigelbb

How should this be played if there is no LBA/LBC? PE are progressing some claims without following any stages of the Practice Direction. There must be a good response to be entered into a defence pointing out that they have precipitately gone to court without doing a courtly dance by exchanging letters in an attempt to resolve the matter without recourse to court.