County Court Claim - help

Fourteen

I wondered if anyone could help me understand if I have a reasonable chance to defend a County Court case (breach of contract is the claim).

The CC Claim I have received and that I intend to defend involves my car (I am the keeper) when it was not being driven by me and I was not a passenger.

The private land parking claim against me relates to parking at a hospital in early August 2012, before Section 56 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 commenced effect on 1 October 2012.

There was a letter from Apcoa claiming £90 on 29/9/12 then two letters from both a solicitor and debt collector with very similar addresses in November 2012, then suddenly today a County Court Claim

I foolishly had ignored all the correspondence until today, not being aware of the change in the law and am temped to pay them to go away. Do the judges in the CCs still accept that there is no contract with the RK which can be breached unless the RK is the driver?

Thank you

Simon

Tilt

Firstly you should of posted this in the parking section. Hopefully though, someone from there will pick up on this.

As far as I'm aware if a parking charge notice was issued prior to October 2012, any proceedings have to be aimed at the person who 'entered' the contract.

As you were not present when the 'contact' was made, then the claim fails at the first hurdle.

You should enter a defence to the claim stating that you had no contract with the applicant as you were not the person driving or was even present at the applicable time being (Enter date of the parking charge).

This was not subject to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 as the 'contract' was alleged to have been made prior to 1 October 2012.

Consequently the claim is disputed.

Should be pretty straight forward.

Joe_Horner

Pretty sure that the Protection of Freedoms Act provisions can't be applied retrospectively to things that happened before it came into force.

Was there a parking charge notice (ticket) attached to the car while it was in the carpark and did the original letter to you state that one had been attached?

arcon5

Do also be sure to update this thread throughout the whole process. The advice constantly drilled in to people in such situation is to ignore (or now to appeal to POPLA then ignore), but when this doesn't work and a county court claim is received frankly the advice and guidance is shockingly poor... so maybe your defense and information could help others in similar situations.

peter_the_piper

I suggest you post this onto the parking forum and pepipoo.com. Popla does not apply and you will get help beating this claim, assuming its real and not one of their frightener tactics.
Unusual to see two hospital tickets together, Apcoa growing a pair ?