Another PCN (NW)Ltd County Court Claim

Jimmy_Shand

I'd be grateful if any of you good folks could assist me, as my case is now at the County Court Claim stage.
I was the RK of the vehicle (a company car) at the date of the incident.
The issue involves the car parking at St Helens College. After the college closes the car park is available for free parking for the cinema. The college and the cinema are at opposite ends of the car park. There are disabled marked spaces, but I assume these would be for college users in the daytime and not used by disabled users of the cinema in the evening. On 2 Nov 2012 the driver parked in a disabled space choosing one nearest to the college (which was now closed). Other disabled spaces closer to the cinema were still free. A Parking Enforcement Notice for parking in a disabled space (£100, £50 if paid within 14 days) was left on the windscreen.
On 4 March 2013 (well after the date of the incident) I received a Parking Charge Notice from PCN claiming £100.
On 8 April 2013 came the first letter from Roxburghe claiming £160.
On 19 April came the letter from Graham White Solicitors (still asking for £160, but saying that charges may rise to £207.25.
On 2 May 2013 came the 2nd letter frtom Roxburghe offering to accept a lesser (unspecified) sum and to phone them to find out what this sum might be.
On 29 July 2013 came a Letter of Claim from GPB Solicitors. This arrived while I was away on holiday, and I only found it when I returned on 12 August.
I responded to GPB by recorded post on 30 August 2013. This was the first time I had responded to any letter. (Interestingly the letter to GPB was signed for by Roxburghe according to Royal Mail.) In this letter I denied the claim in full, stated that the LBC did not refer to the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct and requested information including any evidence of the offence, a copy of the contract between the claimant and the landowner, a breakdown of how the amount claimed had been calculated and how the claimant had incurred any loss.
I gave them 14 days to respond, but have still not had a reply to this letter.
Instead I received the County Court Claim (for £236.23) dated 25 September, and I filed the Acknowledgement of Service online on 30 September.
I would like some assistance in preparing a case. The car park is free so I don't see how PCN can claim £160 and certainly no contract was entered into on this basis. Also is the timing of the letter of 4 March from PCN (122 days after the offence) an issue and the failure of GPB to reply to my recorded letter of 30 August?
Sorry for the lengthy post and thanks for reading.

Coupon-mad

Ex-clamper director = James Rylance Booth, Date of Birth: 30/11/1964:

https://www.duedil.com/director/908798847/james-rylance-booth

''James Rylance Booth was born in 1964 and the first directorship we have on file was in 2003 at The Wheel Clamping Company Limited. Him most recent directorship is with Pcn (Nw) Limited where he holds the position of "Director". This company has been around since 09 Nov 2005 . In total, James has held 4 directorships, 3 of which are current, and 1 are previous. ''

Same situation as here, lots of advice already given:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/63307043#Comment_63307043

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4778047

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4760868

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4777641

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4777885

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4777717

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4779558

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4733635

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4780389

Glad to see you filed the Acknowledgement - and yes you can cite all the flaws with the LBC and the fact they ignored your response to it, in your skeleton defence I think and in a letter of complaint to the PPC and Solicitors as well. Nowt wrong with writing to all parties so they can see you know your stuff. As well as getting that defence in of course.

And complain immediately to the BPA and DVLA that this firm have ignored the deadlines in the POFA 2012 and have now got a debt collector to pretend to be a solicitor, and issue non-compliant misleading Letters before Claim, then court cases against registered keepers like yourself. Details on those other threads.

I see that the Notice to Keeper (first postal letter to keeper) was late as well so you can cite the breaches of the BPA Code of Practice which would mean they cannot rely on keeper liability...

...but have you 'outed' who the driver was in your response already? I hope not?

Jimmy_Shand

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply. All the correspondence has been coming to me as RK so I am aware of the issues, but on this particular occasion I can't be sure who the driver was.

Coupon-mad

Jimmy_Shand wrote: »

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply. All the correspondence has been coming to me as RK so I am aware of the issues, but on this particular occasion I can't be sure who the driver was.

That's good, so you can check their letters if you still have them, and spot the flaws in wording and late timeline in serving them to you as keeper. Compare your Notices to the 'keeper liability' section in the Parking Cowboys website (Google it as I can't link it from work)! As you can learn from the advice given on all those other similar threads (advice well worth you reading in detail, for your case) this lot haven't been compliant but it would be up to you to make the complaints need to the BPA and DVLA and to make a solid defence - and to write to PCN(NW) and GPB and point out the errors of their ways.

Lots of proactive letters and a defence submitted in time (of course) might be enough for them to decide not to proceed to a hearing in your case.

And the 'top banana' at St Helens College REALLY deserves a barrage of complaints over this harassment by their rogue, non-compliant parking agent. So many reported from this college in the last week, all being taken to small claims when the PPC hasn't even jumped through their own industry CoP hoops to get rk liability at all. Remind the college assertively in writing (maybe just copy them into your other letters & put a covering note) that a principal is liable for the actions of its agents and this agent is out of line and ignoring their Code of Practice to the detriment of car-owners such as yourself, who may never have even been there (remember all letters to be written by you as registered keeper - not 'driver').

Umkomaas

^^^^

Here's the link that coupon refers to:

http://www.parkingcowboys.co.uk/keeper-liability/

Iceweasel

Long shot here - I see that this alleged 'incident' occurred in England - but do you or the vehicle have any connection with Scotland?

i.e. Live in Scotland, but were just visiting St Helens.

Jimmy_Shand

No connection with Scotland, sadly!

Iceweasel

Jimmy_Shand wrote: »

No connection with Scotland, sadly!

Pity about that Jimmy - as being located in Scotland seems to be the one magic 'get out ' needed these days.


These parasites can't touch us 'foreigners'. LOL

Scouse_Magic

Hi there,

You state that you responded to GPB (Funny how old Graham White claims pop up again lol) and you gave them 14 days to respond, and they did not....

Therefore they have not followed the pre action practice directions as all parties must try to settle disputes without the need of court...

You must use this in your defence to strike out the claim

Jimmy_Shand

Scouse Magic, GPB have still not required to my request for information (a month later). I have written to both PCN (NW) and GPB insisting that the claim should be stopped immediately. I am now preparing my defence to send to the court and this will obviously include the non-compliance with the Practice Directions. But if the NtK was invalidly served due to being well out of time, isn't that enough to have the claim struck out? Comments welcome.

zzzLazyDaisy

Jimmy_Shand wrote: »

if the NtK was invalidly served due to being well out of time, isn't that enough to have the claim struck out? Comments welcome.

Yes it should be. But you can't bank on the judge on the day being up to speed on POFA so be very prepared to explain your argument step by step, refering to the relevant law.

EDIT - for clarification, I agree with KIF's post below - some judges are just willing to overlook what they see as 'minor errors' in the PPCs paperwork.....

But don't rely only on that point - file a fully pleaded defence requiring them to substantiate their claim that the sum is a 'genuine pre-estimate of loss' (and be prepared to present the law on this); Put them to strict proof that they have 'locus' legal standing to bring proceedings as agent on behalf of the landowner and require them to adduce evidence of this in the form of the contract or contracts showing authority from the landlord to do so (and all the other points that go into a defence)

Edit - apologies if you have already done this, but you need to make a formal complaint to steve clark at BPA about the PPC serving a NtK out of time - see this thread for examples of letters - tell him you need him to investigate this as a matter of urgency as the PPC has already issued court proceedings, and enclose the NtK

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4778047