UKPC/Small Claims Solicitor - Letter Before Claim - £1000 at stake

bazster

The planning permission for lockable posts makes absolutely no difference to whether you have an easement. As to whether you do have an easement, you might need to consult a solicitor on that.

But can you answer Hot Bring's question please? How many separate tickets/cases are there?

ColliesCarer

Have you also posted this on pepipoo?

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=91682

nobbysn*ts

The easement is still interesting, as matt285 points out. As the freeholders have not strictly given up the right entirely by the fact every new lease still instructs the leaseholder not to park there. Over the 50 years, has any other action, letters, clamping, any sort of claim been made by the freeholders, other than the re-iteration in the leases?

Coupon-mad

request wrote: »

I am reading all the suggested links. I have not seen anything addressing one of my main points: I have not caused any damage to them by parking there, as there are plenty of spaces, they can't get members of the public to park there, and none of the residents pays them for parking. So even if they ended up taking me to court, there would be no point for them.

I think I should just write to the solicitor saying that I have not caused the freeholders any damage. Much more time-efficient than repeated letters criticising their LBC in the style of LazyDaisy.

Thing is:

- they are not a 'solicitor', that's just their call centre name (to mislead you) and they are acting as a debt collector only.

- Lazy Daisy, on the other hand, is a retired solicitor and there's a formal way to acknowledge and respond to a Letter before Claim and in any case this one is not compliant, we've seen it before (Google the firm!).

- Writing an appeal (which is the style of reply you are planning) is not correct. You need a formal response to show them you know the score and may not be an easy touch after all.

There's nothing to stop you adding a paragraph to your draft formal response about the LBC, saying that any damages amount to the daily rate for parking only.

And nothing to stop you including in the same envelope, a separate sheet as an offer of settlement (an amount as you see fit). NOT in the same response letter but on a separate piece of paper headed up 'without prejudice save as to costs'.

Each person with the LBC should reply separately in a similar style but could put their own views into the letter and could offer different amounts to test the water!

An offer letter looks like this (BUT you HAVE to also send a response to the LBC):


DATE



WITHOUT PREJUDICE SAVE AS TO THE QUESTION OF COSTS

Dear Sirs,

[Name of PPC] -v- [Name of Defendant]
Re parking charges

I refer to your letter purporting to be, perhaps, a letter before claim and your company name purporting to be, perhaps, Solicitors rather than merely a company involved in debt collection which is how your website appears to present your 'services'. I have responded to that on a separate letter enclosed.

Having made use of the benefit of legal advice available to me, I believe that I have a very good prospect of successfully defending any action. For any breach, the remedy must be damages or loss arising - of which there was none, save arguably the question of a daily parking rate, which was not reflected on any signage and not accepted by, nor even communicated to, the driver(s) at the time of parking. This inflated charge does not constitute a genuine offer to park at that price in the spirit of good faith and indeed it bears no relation to the daily rate which was informally offered to me as keeper, by the freeholder, but never formally discussed nor accepted.

Nevertheless, it does seem to me to be a waste of everyone's time - not to mention the burden on the court's time and resources - to litigate this matter.

Therefore, in the spirit of compromise, I am willing to make offer of settlement in the sum of £40 (or whatever you think) . This offer is made without any admission of liability and reflects the daily rate for parking, plus an amount for administration, p&p etc. By offering to pay more than the amount that I recall, to the best of my knowledge, was the somewhat vaguely 'offered' daily rate for parking, I will be returning your client to the position they were in prior to the alleged parking incident(s).

This offer will remain open for a period of 21 days after which time the offer will be withdrawn and any subsequent court action will be defended in the normal way. In the event of your client failing to achieve a judgment in excess of the sum offered in this letter, an application will be made for an order that your client pay my wasted costs of defending the action, in full, pursuant to the provisions of CPR 27.14. I trust this will not be necessary and I look forward to receiving your written acceptance or response within 21 days of receipt of this offer.

Yours faithfully

nobbysn*ts

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Thing is:

- they are not a 'solicitor', that's just their call centre name (to mislead you) and they are acting as a debt collector only.

- Lazy Daisy, on the other hand, is a retired solicitor and there's a formal way to acknowledge and respond to a Letter before Claim and in any case this one is not compliant, we've seen it before (Google the firm!).

- Writing an appeal (which is the style of reply you are planning) is not correct. You need a formal response to show them you know the score and may not be an easy touch after all.

There's nothing to stop you adding a paragraph to your draft formal response about the LBC, saying that any damages amount to the daily rate for parking only.

And nothing to stop you including in the same envelope, a separate sheet as an offer of settlement (an amount as you see fit). NOT in the same response letter but on a separate piece of paper headed up 'without prejudice save as to costs'.

Each person with the LBC should reply separately in a similar style but could put their own views into the letter and could offer different amounts to test the water!

An offer letter looks like this (BUT you HAVE to also send a response to the LBC):


DATE



WITHOUT PREJUDICE SAVE AS TO THE QUESTION OF COSTS

Dear Sirs,

[Name of PPC] -v- [Name of Defendant]
Re parking charges

I refer to your letter purporting to be, perhaps, a letter before claim and your company name purporting to be, perhaps, Solicitors rather than merely a company involved in debt collection which is how your website appears to present your 'services'. I have responded to that on a separate letter enclosed.

Having made use of the benefit of legal advice available to me, I believe that I have a very good prospect of successfully defending any action. For any breach, the remedy must be damages or loss arising - of which there was none, save arguably the question of a daily parking rate, which was not reflected on any signage and not accepted by, nor even communicated to, the driver(s) at the time of parking. This inflated charge does not constitute a genuine offer to park at that price in the spirit of good faith and indeed it bears no relation to the daily rate which was informally offered to me as keeper, by the freeholder, but never formally discussed nor accepted.

Nevertheless, it does seem to me to be a waste of everyone's time - not to mention the burden on the court's time and resources - to litigate this matter.

Therefore, in the spirit of compromise, I am willing to make offer of settlement in the sum of £40 (or whatever you think) . This offer is made without any admission of liability and reflects the daily rate for parking, plus an amount for administration, p&p etc. By offering to pay more than the amount that I recall, to the best of my knowledge, was the somewhat vaguely 'offered' daily rate for parking, I will be returning your client to the position they were in prior to the alleged parking incident(s).

This offer will remain open for a period of 21 days after which time the offer will be withdrawn and any subsequent court action will be defended in the normal way. In the event of your client failing to achieve a judgment in excess of the sum offered in this letter, an application will be made for an order that your client pay my wasted costs of defending the action, in full, pursuant to the provisions of CPR 27.14. I trust this will not be necessary and I look forward to receiving your written acceptance or response within 21 days of receipt of this offer.

Yours faithfully

Oh er. At the risk of disagreeing with Coupon, (I'm either brave or mad ), I don't think you should offer any amount at all. Your argument is you have an inherited easement to park there, so the freeholders have no right to charge anything for your parking, or indeed even try to stop you. Offering them an amount for the parking effectively means you are accepting that they do have a right. Possibly you need to bite the bullet, and you and the other residents now need to legally enforce your easement, and get a judgement to stop the freeholders harassing you. There is probably too much history we don't know that affects this now though to give clear cut advice. However, we do know you're not quite in the usual position, as you have a direct relationship with the freeholder, who could, at the end of the day simply decide it could be them that try to jointly possibly enforce the 'debt', and push that the easement doesn't apply, and that you are trespassing.

bazster

The OP could of course get together with the other leaseholders and exercise their right to buy the freehold.

bod1467

I disagree, nobby ... there is a reason why the letter is headed "WITHOUT PREJUDICE SAVE AS TO THE QUESTION OF COSTS".

nobbysn*ts

bod1467 wrote: »

I disagree, nobby ... there is a reason why the letter is headed "WITHOUT PREJUDICE SAVE AS TO THE QUESTION OF COSTS".

That's the crux of the matter. The op believes there cannot be any costs, as they have a legal right to use the land for free. So they cannot admit to any costs, without also admitting that costs have been incurred by use of the land, hence the easement is denied.

nobbysn*ts

bazster wrote: »

The OP could of course get together with the other leaseholders and exercise their right to buy the freehold.

I would assume they have a lease to their flat, not a lease to surrounding land, that they expressively have no access to in said lease.

bazster

nobbysn*ts wrote: »

I would assume they have a lease to their flat, not a lease to surrounding land, that they expressively have no access to in said lease.

When leaseholders buy the freehold to their flats they are buying the land, not specifically their flats.

Exactly what land would be included would obviously vary from site to site.

Even so, the surrounding land would probably be of little value to the freeholder if he no longer owned the buildings, so he'd probably sell it anyway.