Parking Eye without prejudice offer

4consumerrights

Guys_Dad wrote: »

No they are not.

In the event that the OP paid the £27, then PE would show a cost of £27 included in their operational costs and an income of £27 in their "sales", as their successful charges are shown. No fraud.

(Started off my working life as an auditor.)

Yes that is how they would try and conceal it. But if the OP decides to decline their offer - he could then send a copy of Parking eye's leter to HMRC asking them to investigate it- He has the written proof that states it is for the POPLA charge and the without prejudice offer can be overruled if it attempts to conceal a fraud.

jkdd77

I note that there have been a couple of cases on the sticky thread and elsewhere (such as couchiedemon's update on: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4766249)
where a defendant has held firm, refused to pay the £27/£50 demanded by PE, told PE to "bring it on", only to find PE drop the case altogether, even after court papers were filed.

I suspect that a strongly worded letter from the OP here will result in a very similar outcome, (or more accurately, ensure that PE do not dare launch court action in the first place).

To reiterate, assuming PE do not own or lease the land, then they can only bring any claims as agent of the principal, as per the PE v Somerfield Court of Appeal ruling. If the principal has cancelled the invoice, then PE as agents have no claim at all.

PE know this, and know they will lose a fully defended case, which is why they are 'trying it on' in an attempt to extract £27 from the OP in the hope that he/she will fold and pay an amount which is not due. If PE thought they would win their substantive claim if pursued, why would they be willing to settle for just £27?

Guys_Dad

jkdd77 wrote: »

If PE thought they would win their substantive claim if pursued, why would they be willing to settle for just £27?

To accommodate the wishes of the principal, subject to an admin recoup. Not because they wanted to, rest assured !!!!!

zzzLazyDaisy

4consumerrights wrote: »

Yes that is how they would try and conceal it. But if the OP decides to decline their offer - he could then send a copy of Parking eye's leter to HMRC asking them to investigate it- He has the written proof that states it is for the POPLA charge and the without prejudice offer can be overruled if it attempts to conceal a fraud.

Actually I would argue that this is NOT a 'without prejudice' letter at all (in the legal sense - which is all that matters here).

People use 'without prejudice' on letters willy-nilly, and then go ahead and spout all sorts of garbage, wrongly presuming that stating WoP gives their letters some sort of magic invisibility cloak.

In fact WoP can only be applied to correspondence which concerns genuine efforts to settle a case. If the court considers that it was not a genuine attempt to settle the case, then it will not be privileged, even if it carries the words ‘without prejudice’. In the event of a dispute as to whether a letter is genuinely WoP, this can be decided by the court prior to the hearing (so that the judge hearing the case doesn't see the letter is it is genuinely WoP) - though in a SCC case it is very likely that this issue would be dealt with there and then by allowing argument about whether the letter should be shown before it is actually shown.

In this case, though - since the principal has already instructed the agent to cancel the charge, there is nothing upon which to hang WoP settlement negotiations as there is no longer any case to settle.

The dispute now concerns the PPC's right to raise an additional charge concerning the reimbursement of the POPLA fee, as a condition of cancelling the original charge. I would strongly argue that this is NOT a genuine attempt to settle the case (since the case has already been settled by the principal cancelling the charge) but IS a cynical attempt to abuse the WoP procedure.

Anyway, quite apart from the inconvenient legalities of WoP....

The e-mail from the principal referring to the £27 'admin charge' was an OPEN letter and there is absolutely nothing stopping that letter from being produced to the court!

spikyone

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

The e-mail from the principal referring to the £27 'admin charge' was an OPEN letter and there is absolutely nothing stopping that letter from being produced to the court!

Which brings me to a question - slightly off-topic, I know - that I've been thinking about for a while. If you receive a WoP letter, and reply to it politely declining the offer - but pointing out that you feel that it is a rather under-hand tactic to send a WoP extortion attempt when the principal has already cancelled - would you be able to show your letter to the court?

Just a thought

zzzLazyDaisy

spikyone wrote: »

Which brings me to a question - slightly off-topic, I know - that I've been thinking about for a while. If you receive a WoP letter, and reply to it politely declining the offer - but pointing out that you feel that it is a rather under-hand tactic to send a WoP extortion attempt when the principal has already cancelled - would you be able to show your letter to the court?

Just a thought

If the WoP letter genuinely falls within the legal definition of WoP, then your reply is also Wop (it really doesn't matter whether the term is actually used in the letter - it is just a convenient convention that gets abused sometimes - what matters is the content of the letter)

If it doesn't fall within the legal definition of WoP ie the charge has already been cancelled by the principal so there is nothing to conduct settlement negotiations about anyway, then you can show their letter and yours to the court in subsequent proceedings (or more accurately seek permission of the court on the grounds that the correspondence is not genuinely WoP).

There is a slight difference with "WoP save as to the Question of Costs" letters that arise after court proceedings have started, as they are not relevant to the issues in the case at all and cannot be shown to the court unless/until the case has been decided and the court is considering the issue of costs.

I bet that is now as clear as mud?:(

Daisy

bod1467

No - it actually makes sense and is clear (to me anyway).

4consumerrights

Guys_Dad wrote: »

There is a subtle difference here, c-m. You are correct in saying that they may not add the POPLA cost to the charge that they are claiming and contained in the NtK. So they can't inflate the amount claimed, say £100, by £27 just because one has appealed to POPLA.

However, this is them saying they will cancel that charge provided that the OP is prepared to pay an admin charge that they have incurred to this point.

Very different.

Sorry Guys Dad - IMO you are wrong. The POPLA fee cannot be passed on at any stage as it is FREE to motorists and in this instance PE are attempting to add this POPLA charge to the cancelled original charge.

As previously stated this is a tax deductible expense which can be claimed by the parking companies which enables the parking industry to fund the appeals. Also if the POPLA fee could be claimed back from motorists after winning or losing at POPLA then the PPC's would be claiming this cost all the time.

Parking Eye know this and are trying to extort money from the OP by pursuing a non existent claim after the principal cancelled the original charge. As Daisy states the without prejudice offer does not really apply in this case. Parking Eye are attempting this fraudulent claim from this OP by disguising it as a without prejudice offer but as I previously pointed out, this letter from parking eye can be produced in court as evidence due to its nature for the above stated reasons. (which wasn't explained very clearly in my other post):)

Guys_Dad

4consumerrights wrote: »

Sorry Guys Dad - IMO you are wrong. The POPLA fee cannot be passed on at any stage as it is FREE to motorists and in this instance PE are attempting to add this POPLA charge to the cancelled original charge.

Perfectly happy for you to hold a contrary opinion. I have reasoned my argument - that it is an admin fee that just happens to be the equivalent of the POPLA fee.

Hopefully OP will not have to pay it - whatever it is.

4consumerrights

Guys_Dad wrote: »

Hopefully OP will not have to pay it - whatever it is.

At least we are 100% in agreement that the OP will not have to pay !

The reason why the POPLA £27 fee has been bandied about is because this is what the OP mentioned in post #1 as the reason for this alleged "settlement offer" was due to the popla fee.

Another thought has just occurred - the OP states that the car registration number has to be entered inside the surgery - who installed this system the Doctors or PE? Also should there not also be a sign inside the surgery reminding patients of this new system? Or why doesn't the receptionist remind patients? IMO the doctors have a joint responsibility in this instance to ensure that any changes in parking terms are adhered to and it should have been easy to implement warning notices to patients of the changes in parking.