Parking Eye Letter Before County Court Claim letetr

clapham1972

Hi,

Total newbie so apologies in advance for posting something that you've probably all seen a hundred times before but I've been over other threads and am getting so many different versions that I felt I had to post for myself.

Back on 22nd of August my wife parked in a local shopping precicnt car park. I, as the registered owner of the vehicle, received the usual PE letter informing me that the car was parked 2 hours and 7 minutes over the permitted 3 hour limit and a £70 charge was due, £40 if we paid straight away.

I've only ever had one of these before and just paid it online immediately, only to be told by friends and family that I should've ignored it - later confirmed when I Googled PE and found the threads on here.

We've had the next standard letter quoting the Protection of Freedoms act etc etc and about recovering the charge from me the registered keeper. We ignored both of these (after checking online and finding that people are still saying to ignore them and not to make contact at all).

Today I received the 'Letter Before County Court Claim' which I again searched online for and found this forum.

The difference now seems that it appears I should be responding?

Is this the case? What has changed?

I'd really appreciate any pointers as to my next steps.

Thanks

Coupon-mad

(after checking online and finding that people are still saying to ignore them and not to make contact at all).

Link please? Not on this forum since April/May at least!

What HAVE you been reading, old threads?

Your friends' advice is out of date. PLEASE TELL THEM.

There's a sticky thread at the top of the forum about LBCCCs and how to respond if you want to avoid a court claim. You don't need a link to that sticky thread as you would already have read the sticky info threads when you read the first page of the forum to see current advice...? If not then click back now and learn from today's threads and the stickies permanently there for newbies to learn from, at the top.

...Oh Gawd and you have even paid this bunch before, funding their continued protection racket without question. How depressing to read that, but you live and learn!

zzzLazyDaisy

Send this letter to PE identifying your wife as the driver (it does not matter that you live at the same address). This means that they must then serve a PCN on your wife, and she can the appeal and get this knocked on the head once and for all at POPLA. Do NOT delay sending the letter as once 14 days have elapsed they can start court action against you as the RK without further notice. It will then be too late to identify the driver and restart the POPLA clock.

Send the letter via their webmail address and via snail mail by 1st class post from a post office and get a (free) certificate of posting.

---

ParkingEye Ltd
Legal Department
[Insert Address]

[Insert Date]

[Insert the reference quoted on their LBCCC]

Dear Sir

PCN Number xxxx
Vehicle Registration Number xxxxx


I am the registered keeper of the above mentioned vehicle.

I am writing to acknowledge the letter before county court claim dated [insert date] and to inform you that I was not the driver of the vehicle on the date of the alleged 'parking event'. Therefore you must pursue the driver, whose details are:

[INSERT NAME]

[INSERT ADDRESS]

This discharges my obligation as Registered Keeper under PoFA 2012 and any court proceedings will be defended on that basis.

I look forward to receiving confirmation from you that you will cease all further action against me with immediate effect.

Yours faithfully

PRINT NAME

---

Watch out - PE has form for misquoting POFA and claiming that you are too late to identify the driver. This is a big fat lie. If you do receive a letter like that come back.

Daisy

clapham1972

Thanks for the advice Daisy, you lot are fab!

Coupon-mad: yes, I realise now how silly I was to just read random threads not twigging that things can change so quickly on something like this.

I was beginning to think I'd paid when I didn't have to and ignored them when I shouldn't have!

We were just about to crack and pay up too!

I'll send that response today and update you on what happens next.

Thanks again folks, it's really appreciated.

Coupon-mad

This should be easy to handle once you get the Notice addressed to the Driver and can appeal.

clapham1972

OK I'm at the POPLA appeal stage but I'm not confident.

My reasons for overstaying in the car park were that I lost my keys and had to wait several hours before my husband returned from work to allow me to drive home again.

As I was with my 6 year old daughter at the time it was pretty stressful and the last thing on my mind was the parking restrictions.

I'd literally stopped off to buy a drink and some plasters for my daughter who had cut her leg in the park, I don't have a receipt for the purchase so no evidence to back me up either.

What are my chances here?

tykesi

clapham1972 wrote: »

OK I'm at the POPLA appeal stage but I'm not confident.

My reasons for overstaying in the car park were that I lost my keys and had to wait several hours before my husband returned from work to allow me to drive home again.

As I was with my 6 year old daughter at the time it was pretty stressful and the last thing on my mind was the parking restrictions.

I'd literally stopped off to buy a drink and some plasters for my daughter who had cut her leg in the park, I don't have a receipt for the purchase so no evidence to back me up either.

What are my chances here?

100% of not paying.

You need to read some of the threads at the top of the parking board to find out how to win at POPLA. The regulars here will help but you have to be prepared to help yourself as well and put the work in to get this seen off.

clapham1972

I'm certainly prepared to put the work/time in! I've already appealed to POPLA online, stating exactly the same reasons as in my thread above, I'll check out the POPLA threads now...

bod1467

clapham1972 wrote: »

I'm certainly prepared to put the work/time in! I've already appealed to POPLA online, stating exactly the same reasons as in my thread above, I'll check out the POPLA threads now...

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! That's just mitigation which ALWAYS FAILS! Why didn't you come back for advice BEFORE putting in your appeal?

Do you still have time to add to your appeal?

waamo

If its not too late add this:

NO BREACH OF CONTRACT AND NO GENUINE PRE-ESTIMATE OF LOSS
Were a contract to exist (which is denied) there has been no loss to Parking Eye or the owners/managers of the retail park arising from the alleged overstay; accordingly the charge sought is an unenforceable contractual penalty.
Should Parking Eye choose instead to claim that the charge is an agreed contractual charge (contrary to the wording in their notice) this fails on the grounds that (i) it is clearly punitive and intended as a deterrent, in that it only (allegedly) became payable upon the breach of other terms in the alleged contract (ii) no means of payment was available at the time the charge allegedly fell due and (iii) no VAT invoice was issued. Accordingly it is clearly a penalty and therefore unenforceable. Furthermore no terms of the alleged contract are individually negotiated, and the terms create a serious imbalance to the benefit of the company and the detriment of the consumer. Clearly, then, the terms of the alleged contract fall foul of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999
Parking Eye are on record from a letter to a third party which is in the public domain, as having stated in 2013 that all their charges are based on 'breach of contract' and this is also borne out by their letters to me. In addition, I understand that Parking Eye have told the DVLA that they have had 'reasonable cause' to continuously obtain data by a permanent EDI link due to issuing tickets for 'breach of contract'.

So they are clearly attempting to enforce this charge under paragraph B 19.5 of the BPA Code of Practice and must be required to validate this argument by providing POPLA with a detailed financial appraisal which evidences the genuine pre-estimated amount of loss in this particular car park for this particular 'contravention'. Operators cannot lawfully include their operational day-to-day running costs in any 'loss' claimed.

As it stands you will probably lose as POPLA don't do mitigation.

kirkbyinfurnesslad_2

clapham1972 wrote: »

I'm certainly prepared to put the work/time in! I've already appealed to POPLA online, stating exactly the same reasons as in my thread above, I'll check out the POPLA threads now...

Oh dear you will loose with that clap trap (aka mitigation)

You must add more, other wise you will loose. As someone else said why didnt you ask about the POPLA appeal on here rather then forging ahead which could end up in you having a court case against you