Parking Eye Court Claim

liseylou

Good afternoon,

I am really pleased it all worked out for you and I have noticed your posts and wondered if someone could help me with this?

I have today received a Claim Form from PE after previously ignoring the letters that were sent to me (as per other forums). I am not sure if this was the right thing to do but after watching that Watchdog episode when a lawyer said they didnt have a leg to stand on I thought it would be OK? I have not acknowledged receipt of anything, nor who was driving.

I have lost the original parking ticket but had paid for 3 hours parking, however this overran by 22 minutes because we were not aware that the clock started on entering the car park. It took 5 minutes or so to find a space, and there was a queue at the ticket machine about 20 deep, but we arrived back in good time after a lovely day on Newquay beach - albeit having to change out of our wet clothes and queue again to leave the car park before we could head off on our way back to the camp site.

Our friends were also in the car park with us and have received the same correspondence so far.

Any help would be appreciated.

Hot_Bring

Please start your own thread and delete your post in this one. It allows for tailored advice.

Redx

I have asked a board guide to split this thread for clarity and to ensure that liseylou gets their own topic thread so answers are tailored for them

Coupon-mad

Same advice for you and your friends, as you already read on the other thread you landed on:

Coupon-mad wrote: »

You only need to read the little section on 'Small Claims' in the 'NEWBIES read this first' sticky thread and follow the few links there which I chose for simplicity and relevance. Tells you what to do when, explains the court process and shows you all the recent cases won v ParkingEye by the ordinary man/woman in the street!

So tell us when you have:

- read the links in the NEWBIES thread which are about small claims

- acknowledged the claim to say you will defend in full (online at MCOL, simple to do)

- got the Parking Prankster's Guide and have read the information it it.

Most cases never in fact go to a hearing but you have to complain and defend from a position of knowledge and we have shown you where to learn what you need.

When a poster gets to that stage and is up for defending it with knowledge (which you will need, not us!) then if you need it I can send you a defence wording which includes a request to strike the case out or for the Court to Order a referral (late) to POPLA instead. I send this to lots of people as lots of PE cases are defended on here and on pepipoo forum too.

Let me know when you've done enough reading & preparation and have acknowledged the claim so you and your friends would be ready for looking at a suggested defence wording I can send you. But I never send it 'up front' before you've all sit down over the weekend and researched the situation first, like bartos1976 is in the process of doing. This has to be approached with knowledge on your part and is a real learning curve!

Tell your friends it is fairly pointless to panic and pay in full IMHO seeing as you can defend, we win quite a lot now, and even if lost you'd each pay average £195 so the difference is small and paying zero and claiming your costs would be really getting your own back! And if you are desperate to later on, you can negotiate (separately, after making sure a defence is submitted to cover you, though!). DO NOT IGNORE IT OF COURSE!


P.S. You should BOTH separately send in your own words a massive complaint to Newquay Council about them letting this pariah ruin their tourism. But that's for AFTER you have addressed the immediate matter of defending the claim.

Crabman

Hello and welcome to MSE :cool:

I've moved your posts out into a new thread so future responses and updates can be kept in one place.

liseylou

This is really great stuff and I have been reading many threads in regards to PE at Tower Road Newquay, but I feel that my scenario is rather too late to appeal as I have received a claim form from Northampton CCBC.

I have completed the Acknowledgement of Service with the intention of defending the case in full, as like 'OrdinaryJoe' and many other motorists, we overstayed at Tower Rd by 22 minutes although I was not driving the vehicle, albeit too late to appeal now. Unfortunately, I followed old advice which has since changed, as I received all the paperwork before October 2013 when it would appear the advice on these forums had changed.

However, I did write to PE once I received the Claim Form, to appeal with the blurb 'pre-estimate of loss', 'no contract', 'duty to reduce loss under common law', but they have replied with what looks to be centrally generated letters to decline POPLA (as outside of 28 days after initial correspondence), and rejection of invalid invoice, stating that as 'no legally binding contract exists between myself and PE, under which any right to invoice for payment for goods or services may arise, threfore my invalid invoice has been rejected and they have forwarded my correspondence on to the landowner'.

I have therefore sent an email to Newquay Golf Club, who are apparently the landowners, to request a breakdown of their losses incurred. And also to Mr Clark in the hope that he may be able to influence a request to drop the case due to poor signage.

Your suggestions would be most appreciated, as I only have 3 days in which to complete my defence. I have been searching on many forums for suggested text on what I can use, so if anyone with some legal knowledge is able to review what I plan to use in my defence before I submit the paperwork, it would be most appreciated:
Also, do I specify the amount of the original charge, or the amount requested now??

1. It is admitted that Defendant is theowner of motor vehicle XXX XXX.
2. It is admitted that the Defendants vehicle parked in Tower Road, Newquay,TR7 1LX car park at the times mentioned in the Particulars.
3. It is denied that the Claimant entered into a contract with the Defendant,as confirmed by the Claimant in their letter to the Defendant dated 17 March2014 (copy attached). As held by theUpper Tax Tribunal in Vehicle Control Services Limited v HMRC [2012]UKUT 129 (TCC), any contract requires offer and acceptance. The Claimant wassimply contracted by the landowner to provide car-park management services andis not capable of entering into a contract with the Defendant on its ownaccount, as the car park is owned by and the terms of entry set by thelandowner. Accordingly, it is denied that the Claimant has authority to bringthis claim. The proper Claimant is the landowner.
4. Alternatively, even if there was a contract, the provision requiring paymentof £100 is an unenforceable penalty clause. Following Dunlop Pneumatic TyreCo Ltd v Selfridge & Co Ltd [1915] AC 847, clauses designed to punish aparty for breach of contract may only be upheld if they represent a genuinepre-estimate of loss. The provision is a penalty and not a genuine pre-estimateof loss for the following reasons: (a) as the Claimant is not the landowner andsuffers no loss whatsoever as a result of a parking overstay; (b) the amountclaimed is evidently disproportionate to any loss suffered by the Claimant; (c)the penalty bears no relation to the circumstances because it remains the sameno matter whether a motorist overstays by ten seconds or ten years; and (d) theclause is specifically expressed to be a penalty on the Claimant's signs.
5. Further and alternatively, the provision requiring payment of £100 isunenforceable as an unfair term contrary to Regulation 5 of The Unfair Terms inConsumer Contracts Regulations 1999. This is a term which falls within Schedule1, paragraph (e) of the Regulations being a term "requiring any consumerwho fails to fulfil his obligation to pay a disproportionately high sum incompensation". The term was not individually negotiated and causes asignificant imbalance in the parties' respective rights and obligations,because the charge is heavily disproportionate in respect of a short overstayand is imposed even where consumers are legitimately using the car park for itsdesignated purpose.
6. Save as expressly mentioned above, the Particulars of Claim is denied in itsentirety. It is denied that the Claimant is entitled to the relief claimed orany relief at all.

liseylou

I apologise in advance for the typos as the letter hasn't pasted very well from my word document...

da_rule

You need to check the spacing. Do you points address all of the points raised in the claim? I would be a bit concerned with point 6 as this appears to be a bare denial, and may not adequately defend the other points.

salmosalaris

You need to watch this car park . PE have claimed to be the leaseholder so Id be asking for a copy of that lease . I think the land is owned by the golf club and is not registered though I could be wrong

Stroma

Go here and quickly , read the free ebook and buy the other ebook that you can use to formulate your defence, it's costs only a few quid. Get that defence in quickly, why wait over 3 weeks to get advice?

http://parking-prankster.com/court-claim.html

4consumerrights

salmosalaris wrote: »

You need to watch this car park . PE have claimed to be the leaseholder so Id be asking for a copy of that lease . I think the land is owned by the golf club and is not registered though I could be wrong

The land is owned by Newquay golf club but I believe that this may be the case that Parking Eye have indeed leased the car park - the manager of Tower Road stated this in an email to me some time ago (though have not seen a lease) .

To the OP - IMO - you need to expand here on your defence in this instance - read around:

Signage not compliant to form contract with driver
terms and conditions
wording
position
Not compliant with the BPA COP
was- lighting an issue?

You don't state when the event happened - but at busy peak times driving around looking for a parking space can be included - case recently won in court for Fistral beach

ANPR accuracy

There is plenty of info on Prankster's blogs and website with the books (see you may have just downloaded these)

http://www.parking-prankster.com/home.html
http://www.parking-prankster.com/court-cases-2014.html

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/



Whatever you do though - don't miss the deadline for filing -