UKCPS letter before court proceedings

HO87

seaweed5254 wrote: »

Thanks for your reply, HO87. I've sent you and coupon mad a copy of the letter on pm. I think it's too long to post in here and ukcps might see it , anyway.

Thanks and replies on their way

seaweed5254

I just went past the car park, and now there are signs put up in there, and i guess because of that, there were fewer cars parked (unlike last time).

Although I got the photos, how can i check when they have put up the signs in there. Do they have to ask permission from the council. It says permit holder only.

Coupon-mad

You said you already have photos of the fact there were no signs at the time. So you can include copies of those photos in your robust response to this letter, which you MUST send this week. Write only as the registered keeper of course, just like you will read in the linked thread telling you how to respond.

seaweed5254

Hi all,

I just got the reply today which was dated 16/02, Sunday.

This is what it says:

Thank you for your appeal regarding the above parking notice charge.
Unfortunately as the parking charge was issued over 28 days ago we are unable to accept your appeal. As stated on the parking charge notice all appeals must be received within 28 days of issue. As your appeal was presented significantly late the appeals procedure has now closed and the parking charge will stand.

Regards
UKCPS appeals Department JS

Does this mean they will now take me to court? What do I need to do now?

Thanks for your advice.

Sea

4consumerrights

a) there is no set 28 day limit for appeals - in fact court judges have ordered it in cases to go POPLA before now.

b) without seeing your letters and the competent responses you no doubt received from CM and HO87 - it is difficult to comment in detail however:

I am sure that your challenge to the non-compliant PD LBCC did not solely rely upon the matter being resolved at POPLA. So how did they respond to the rest of the letter - you need to bounce back and challenge every point or raise issue that questions were not answered.

Orig. Amt. £100 - ask for a breakdown for their alleged costs in this parking charge as it is punitive, not a genuine pre-estimate of loss either for the landowner or UKCPS.

Preparation of court papers. £50 -breakdown here required.
Court and hearing costs. £50 - seems slightly high.
Expenses. £125 - they'll be lucky - take a running jump here - respond with your own expenses if you like.

It is for parking without a valid permit or authority. And it was issued at 8 pm. Obviously, since it was local to me i wouldn't have parked if i was aware that it was a no parking area. But there were no proper signs and the shops have been closed for a long time. And it was right behind he restaurant where we went.i got the photos to prove this

valid permit - out of hours - shopping centre - does not seem right. Do they mean a parking ticket?

restaurant - if this is part of the car park - then you were a genuine customer - write and complain. Find out who the landowner/managing agent is for this retail park and file a formal complaint to get this cancelled.
This is never too late to do.

seaweed5254

Thanks for the reply. This was the only reply I got from ukcps. I sent them a letter and raised point by point where they were compliant and non compliant based on the PD.

I told them that I had photos of the car park without the proper signage at that time and as I said few weeks ago, when I went past the car park again, they now had signs. I also took photos of them.

Apparently, there were flats above the shops which were located beside the restaurant. I wasn't aware of that. I don't know who to contact or who the land owner is. Where can I get that info?

Is this just a template that they use ?

seaweed5254

Any reply please? Will they take me to court now?

Stroma

It's likely to go to court, but wait until you get the claim, there is no point worrying about this, you've sent them a letter rebutting what they allege already, so the only thing to do now is wait for it. Providing you stick to the time limits and send your defence in you will never get a ccj if you lose. But you have a very good chance of winning this

Coupon-mad

seaweed5254 wrote: »

Any reply please? Will they take me to court now?

I would respond and say they have misunderstood the situation and you were not 'appealing'. You were sending a formal response to a letter which failed to follow the Practice Direction but which was suggesting a court claim might follow.

So, if they are considering a court claim then they need to send you a compliant Letter before Claim and the evidence they intend to rely upon. And you are perfectly entitled to request POPLA as an alternative dispute resolution before court, and you are aware that POLA do NOT impose any deadline except that which starts when the parking company issue a POPLA code. For the avoidance of doubt you are again asking for a POPLA code and persistent refusal will be pointed out to the court as a refusal of ADR and a failure to mitigate loss. Remind them you have pictures of the lack of signage and tell them you are about to report the matter about 'no signs' to the BPA and DVLA.

Write it in strong terms, a bit like Daisy's version of a robust letter here (although stuff about 'your client' and 'SRA' is not relevant when you are writing to a non-solicitor firm). But there are useful phrases you can borrow and the overall 'formal tone' is what you should try to emulate:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/64750464#Comment_64750464

And now ALSO send your evidence by email to the BPA and DVLA, heading it up 'complaint about UKCPS' and stating that they are trying to proceed with a ticket imposed in the dark, at a site where there was no clear or reflective or lit signage.

And complain that they are intimidating you with a suggestion that they can claim £325 when you have researched and in fact a registered keeper can only be pursued under POFA2012 for the amount of the PCN (plus court fees) so it is misleading and not POFA complaint, and nor was their Notice to Keeper.

And have you got your yellow & white NTK letter handy? The first letter. Under 'appeals' on page one does it talk about the keeper only appealing if the car was stolen/hired? This was a flaw of UKCPS NTK letters up until about September/October.

seaweed5254

Thanks. I will check the first NTK letter. It happened in Nov.
I'm still waiting on what's going to happen next, but I might now send a letter to BPA & DVLa. How long do they normally take before they send one to court?