Is it still correct to ignore every letter?

N9eav

I know we looked at old advice and did not fight back early enough. The problem is we never received all the letters from PE that other people did. I can't fight in on those grounds as we have no idea what their issue was now. Which is why I was waiting for the L B C to challenge the issue. The court letter says not buying a ticket for parking on private land on June 6th 2013. (In reality waiting to pick up a friend for 6 minutes as it's a beach car park)

Why court in Northampton when the issue happened in Cornwall? Most criminal cases have to be heard in the area where the offence is committed.
If it came to defending a hearing, it would cost more to travel to Northampton and back than paying the £165... So why bother

martmonk

Why bother?...... Your own signature includes this....
'Don't be apathetic to your cause!'

Follow C-Ms excellent advice above.

I'm sure someone with better knowledge than me will be along shortly but I think I read on here over the last few weeks that you decide the location and PE come to you.

kirkbyinfurnesslad_2

Northampton is just the bulk clearing centre.
It would be heard in your local court

Umkomaas

kirkbyinfurnesslad wrote: »

Northampton is just the bulk clearing centre.
It would be heard in your local court

And it's not a criminal case OP, it's a civil case, and it's not an 'offence'.

Coupon-mad

N9eav wrote: »

I know we looked at old advice and did not fight back early enough. The problem is we never received all the letters from PE that other people did. I can't fight in on those grounds as we have no idea what their issue was now. Which is why I was waiting for the L B C to challenge the issue. The court letter says not buying a ticket for parking on private land on June 6th 2013. (In reality waiting to pick up a friend for 6 minutes as it's a beach car park)

Why court in Northampton when the issue happened in Cornwall? Most criminal cases have to be heard in the area where the offence is committed.
If it came to defending a hearing, it would cost more to travel to Northampton and back than paying the £165... So why bother

This is why you should read other small claim cases (loads on here to learn from, even more on pepipoo forum; people robustly defending even though they are just a man-in-the-street, people seeing off the PPCs with that defence - or making them fold due to assertive complaints with their landowner clients). And read the links already given about defending small claims. You are accidentally creating mountains out of molehills for yourself where there's nowt more than a bump in the road...

This is a firm alleging someone owes them money and that person saying 'no I don't' in front of a judge locally (and that's IF it ever ends up at hearing stage). I don't know why you say 'I can't fight in on those grounds'..what do you mean? Most grounds of defence are common to all.

N9eav

Don't get me wrong. I am going to fight this. Its just that if it was all boiled down to a court case and I don't know how many there have been...

Would a judge feel that £165 was a ridiculous demand for waiting a short time on private land, or would they have to side with the parking company because it is legal to make such demands and expect to be paid?

Coupon-mad

N9eav wrote: »

Don't get me wrong. I am going to fight this. Its just that if it was all boiled down to a court case and I don't know how many there have been...

Would a judge feel that £165 was a ridiculous demand for waiting a short time on private land, or would they have to side with the parking company because it is legal to make such demands and expect to be paid?

Being honest with you, of course, as the advice here is firm but fair: most likely if it gets to a hearing and you are not confident of your defence the judge would indeed side with PE at that time. Going by their cases on their website they get £200 when they win, and that's because when they turn up they turn up with a barrister.

What they don't show there is those where they drop out when a strong complaint is made to their client (landowner etc.). And the many, many cases where they settle for less (could be as low as £25 - £50 if you get twitchy and want to make an offer having exhausted the possibility of a complaint having any clout).

And the cases that they do not even pursue to a hearing - they do not follow up all of them; they issue a lot of claims but the court hearings are minimal.

Bear in mind you can bail out at any time before a hearing so if you were my relative I would say give this your best shot at a defence and a complaint. You said it was Cornwall - was this Fistral or Tower Road Newquay? If so there are loads of threads about complaining to those landowners, both car parks are well known here - and Fistral in particular seems to be badly signed because so many people don't realise it's P&D.*





EDIT - * just read back and found you said it was Watergate beach - so who is the landowner (Google it and look for newspaper articles about fines there, or advertising bumf - and if you cannot find out, try sending a complaint to the Council and ask them to forward it to the landowner and could their Tourism Manager comment on this harassment please). And how could PE possibly justify saying they have made a loss by someone stopping to collect a passenger in a badly-signed car park, staying only for five or six minutes from arrival to driving away? There has to be a grace period before enforcement starts - it's in the BPA CoP. By comparision, at Fistral the grace period is 20 minutes so why would one not assume that five or six minutes at a comparable beach car park is perfectly acceptable for a driver to drive in having seen NO clear entrance signs (is this true, it is at Fistral, it seems they are unclear or too high). Then she stops the car briefly, thinking it's a normal beach car park and unrestricted, gets out to look for her friend - and only then, when on foot, does she see an 8 foot high sign in the car park, maybe a P&D meter(?). She then goes to read it, realises for the first time that this is a P&D car park (is it?) so she decides not to stay and pay for parking, so in fact she never accepted any contract with PE. But all that happened was her friend simply hopped in and having turned the car around, off they went.

That would be the basis of a complaint to the landowner (and you could also write to PE snail mail and point this out, telling them that the case will be defended robustly but that you felt they need to understand, in case they had overlooked it, that this is only about SIX minutes, the driver certainly didn't enter into a contract in those minutes, there was no grace period allowed but in the spirit of resolving the matter, 'without prejudice' you would like to offer them, say, £25 or so to !!!!!! off...).

It's up to you, just want you to know that you can write to PE's Legal Dept as well as submit a defence. You can make an offer if you want - this is not just about either paying them off in full now, or losing in the end at a hearing, it's not as black and white as that at all. And you should complain to the landowner and local Council.

N9eav

Thanks. I have since been informed that it was Fistral and not Watergate.
Which makes me wonder why she got a notice for 6 minutes if there is a reasonable 20 minute grace period...? I know she made several trips to the car park in the summer, but only got this one 'ticket', so could be confused.

I will check the threads and see what others have done in this case... BUT if I intend to challenge this matter at this late stage, I need the full facts, Time, Length of stay etc, which I don't have as it got ignored as you know.

So I need to find out from PE what times they recorded for waiting and challenge their random claim for losses.

The court letter states "Claim for monies outstanding from the registered keeper in relation to a parking charge issued on 06/06/13 for parking without authority on private land. ...................... entering and leaving, parking without a pay and display ticket.

None of this can be denied I guess, but the £100 could be seen as punitive and not the cost of recovering the up to 1 hour parking fee (£1.70 is it)

Can I at this stage request that the evidence be presented? Or should I be testing the lack of letter before court action and the fact that the debt collectors letter was demanding £200 (another random amount) as spoof scare tactics?

zzzLazyDaisy

Write to Nick Briant of Britannic Industries on behalf of your daughter and COMPLAIN about their parking agents taking their customers to court for minor infringements. Explain that she is a regular customer of Fistral Beach who always pays for parking but on this day she called into the car park for 6 minutes to pick up a friend who was waiting there for her and left immediately and has now received court papers for this. If your daughter and her friends are regular visitors to Fistral SAY SO, and tell them that they regularly meet up at the cafe, and spend money in the surf shop and other retail outlets. Say that they are all now too scared to come to Fistral beach in case they end up in court and say that you feel £100 charge (or whatever it is) and a court case for a mere 6 minutes is totally unreasonable and an unnecessary harassment of genuine customers, and while you are confident that this case will be thrown out by the court, it is grossly unfair to persecute her in this way. Also point out that court procedure requires that their agent must serve a letter before claim warning of impending court proceedings and take certain steps before issuing court papers, and they did not do this, so she had no warning that they were going to start court action against her. Remind him that their parking agents are acting on the instructions of Britannic Industries and ask Nick Briant to intervene and get the charge cancelled before this goes any further.

Nick Briant has cancelled other charges to my personal knowledge, so get that letter off NOW.

Also check out other threads for what to do with the court papers (she MUST sign on to MCOL and file an Acknowledgment of Service and tick to say she wants time to file a defence. She then has 28 days from service of proceedings to file the defence. If she does not deal with the court procedure within the timescales set by the court, PE will enter judgment in default and she will get a CCJ against her.

Daisy

EDIT - I am confused by the fact that this seems to be your daughter's case, yet you are planning to deal with it. Given the lack of action so far, and your lack of information about the case, that seems like a recipe for disaster. In any event, if the case goes to hearing it will be your daughter who will have to attend court, even if you go with her, so she is going to have to get involved at some point.

4consumerrights

OP - Follow Daisy's advice - spot on a usual!

I also wonder if it may be worth reporting to BPA for breach of Cop re grace periods. I have read different OP threads for Fistral beach where the grace period has not been obvserved. (One in particular the OP told the parking attendant she needed change for machine - he told her OK and when she came back with ticket - a nice yellow parking charge was slapped on her windscreen)

It may also be relevant to enquire at the council if Parking Eye are paying business rates for this lucrative beach as car parks are liable for payment yet many avoid doing so.. This could exert external pressure on PE and useful to provide as supporting evidence should court proceeedings unfortunately start.