Excel Court Claim

horace_zontal

I ignored the first one and I am now responding to the second one - which is the court claim

Coupon-mad

OK so now you have read all the links in the NEWBIES thread post #5, you should have some sort of draft defence sorted. If not then that's what you need to show us so we have something to help you with - the sticky thread has the tools you need in the links.

horace_zontal

Thanks Coupon-mad. I'll draft something for tomorrow evening.

horace_zontal

I've been looking at the sticky threads. What strikes me is that all court cases to date seem to refer to Parking Eye. Am I one of the first to be taken to court by Excel? Should this make a major difference in terms of what should be written in the draft?

I will attempt to draft something using the sticky thread links / material. For me the crux of the matter is that they have not specified the precise dates of the PCNs, just a date range. I believe the first 2 were pre POPLA and it was definitely not me driving so the defence can be based on that. I suspect the 3rd one was post POPLA which might be why they are bringing all 3 to court. I have not pursued the POPLA route for this 3rd one and the sticky states it is not too late to do so, even when a court claim has commenced. It looks like this should be the basis of my defence for the 3rd PCN?

Redx

excel have taken people to court in the last few years , including martin cutts on the infamous watchdog one at the peel centre , stockport, so yes excel do court

PE make more court claims than the rest , but several have taken vehicle owners to court

horace_zontal

Thanks. Who won the Martin Cutts case?

da_rule

Cutts won it on the basis that the signage was too small to draw adequate attention. This was back in 2010/2011. The signage has (probably) been replaced since then. It was also pre-POFA.

Coupon-mad

horace_zontal wrote: »

Thanks. Who won the Martin Cutts case?

Martin Cutts - but you'd know that if you'd read the links in post #5 of the sticky! All the cases won are shown that we know about! You also missed seeing Excel v Greenwood (Excel cases recently have been fairly rare although I have helped another poster with a defence the other month). The cases are all there for you to learn from and to cite as part of your defence. The Cutts case has a full court transcript linked there for you to read and laugh about.

The basis of all the defence should be 'no loss' and no standing (they're only an agent so are the wrong claimant), and dodgy signs, and that no POFA 2012 compliant Notice to Keeper was served and as you weren't the driver on any occasion to the best of your knowledge (albeit it was a long time ago) there is no keeper liability established. Any before Oct 2012 were pre-POFA as you say, and any in late 2012 were unlikely to have a POFA2012 compliant NTK as all the AOS members took MONTHS to get up to speed on wording to meet Schedule 4. But you should pick up all that when you look at the links in more depth than your skim-reading so far.

Blondie9 only posted once even though I wrote her a defence:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4897451

No idea if she was legit or just some victim who caved and paid for some daft reason - which really would have been daft for that amount of money!

horace_zontal

Thanks Coupon-mad, that's excellent. Really helpful.

horace_zontal

This is my first draft


TheClaimant has not specified the dates on which the PCNs were issued, nor anyevidence of the vehicle registered to myself having been present at thespecified car park on these dates. Without such details, and with the dateswell in the past, I am unable to comment on the specifics of each incident.

Nevertheless I would like to assertthat I am not liable to the Claimant for the sum claimed, or any amount at all,for the following reasons:

1. The Claimant’s notices do not create any contractual relationship betweenthe Claimant and motorists using the car park. No keeper liability can beestablished. As the vehicle’s registered keeper I certainly have not used thiscar park during the period specified.

2. The Claimant’s signage hasbeen deemed deficient (Excel v Cutts, 2011)

3. Any consideration flows fromthe landowner and/or retailers on site. The Claimant therefore has no standingto bring claims in their own name.

4. The Claimant has suffered no actual, or genuine pre-estimate of, loss as aresult of the alleged overstay, and their charge of £100 is therefore notrecoverable.

5. No POFA2012 compliant Notice to Keeper has been served at any time during the periodspecified.

I would therefore also request that the Court makes an order directing theparties to resolve the dispute through the Parking on Private Land Appealsservice (POPLA), the independent Alternative Dispute Resolution facility forthe private parking industry.