New parking regulations at home...

Coupon-mad

What about going for your LBC first?

Daniel_san

Ok, I'll jump first. Will sort it from the office tomorrow. Thanks CM :j

Daniel_san

Nightmare of a week.....so I'm on it today!

Brief summary of situation:
I am a leaseholder. Parking space is outlined in Red on plans. Lease does not require permit. Lease does state no parking in communal areas (which I have done so - more to prove a point than just being an !!!). Managing agent in Warwick Estates. There is an RTM co, now with 3 directors (who tell me I cannot be a director as I "owe" the PPC money!). I have received 2 letters from Gladstones, and am due a LBA any day now, so am sending my own.

Letter to PPC (PCM - IPC members). Copy also will go to Gladstones, MA, RTM Directors and landlord. I'm especially interested in opinions regarding the amount(s) to claim, reasonably. I am aware £150 has been associated with trespass and £750 has been awarded for DPA breach, but I think I need to stay sensible and below the £5000 small claims limit.

Letter before action

I refer to PCN’s
PMXXXXXX, XXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX issued for VRN XXXXXXX parked in communal area of the private, residents only car park
PMXXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXX for VRN’s XXXXXXX and XXXXXXX parked in my parking space in the residents only car park

Notice to Keeper has been served on me as the registered keeper of VRN’s XXXXXXX and XXXXXXX. Your PCN’s draw to my attention that you are using my allocated car parking areas for your own business purposes. My lease allows unfettered occupational rights to the parking space, which means you are operating a predatory business on land which you have no overriding rights in. As this parking space is one directly allocated to me on the lease and outlined on my plans, you have not sought approval for the use of it from the actual landholder, ie myself. You have trespassed on my leased land.

Your involvement on this land will have supposedly been to prevent parking by uninvited persons, for the benefit of the actual leaseholders and their invited guests. Instead you carry out a predatory operation on those very people whose interests you are purportedly there to uphold.

In any case, my lease in respect of the common areas of the grounds and my designated parking area sets out the terms with regards to parking facilities such as those you have tried to imply, let alone a penalty regime for an alleged contractual offer to use my own allocated parking area I already have such rights or to place restrictions on visiting guests. You cannot offer me something I already have, and I am not obliged to accept an offer in such circumstances.

My lease remains the same as when it was originally agreed as part of my residential rights. Any restrictions on parking within it are a matter for the land owner and I believe you are acting unlawfully by attempting to take legal action when I have an absolute right of peaceful enjoyment on the land including allowing my guests free use of it.

If you feel that you have been misled by the Managing Agents insofar as they have contracted with you to operate here, then that is something you must take up with them directly. It is of little interest to me as I have unequivocal unfettered right of peaceful enjoyment on the land.

I draw your attention to the case of Jopson v Homeguard , case 2906J in Oxford County Court where the appeal heard by his honour Judge Harris QC. This was an appeal against a previous hearing which was awarded in favour of Homeguard, in similar circumstances as those addressed in my dispute with you. The Judge allowed the appeal in favour of Mrs Jopson.

I also draw your attention to PACE v Mr (N Redacted), case C6GF14F0 in Croydon county court where the case was heard by District Judge Coonan. In summing up he stated "I have before me a tenancy agreement which gives Mr [N. redacted] the right to park on the estate and it does not say “on condition that you display a permit”. It does not say that, so he has that right. What Pace Recovery is seeking to do is, unilaterally outside the contract, restrict that right to only when a permit is displayed. Pace Recovery cannot do that."

As you have seen fit to attempt to charge me the sum of £150 per PCN for parking in my own allocated parking space on three occasions, I hereby claim an amount of £450 for damages for the tort of trespass and tortious interference of my leaseholder rights, occasioned by the attempt to restrict my rightful use of the designated area.

Additional matters.

You have obtained my details from the DVLA when you have no right to do so.

I am of the opinion that you don't care if you have rights and perhaps rely on your victims believing that some contract with the Managing Agent of the premises or even the landowner, allows you to apply parking terms on the car parking spaces at the premises. This is a mistaken assumption, as you will know anyway.

I am a resident at the premises to which the parking is attached as a lease and which allows unfettered rights to the use of the allocated parking space.

You have a duty of care to comply with the necessary Code of Practice of your Accredited Trade Association, the International Parking Community. The requirements laid out in the Code of practice make it clear that you must only operate on land where you have the landholder’s permission. You have failed in that duty, as the landowner is Theowal Limited of 302 Regents Park Road, London N3 2JX, and not in any way Warwick Estates whom you have contracted with; or [SITE NAME] RTM Co Limited.

Your involvement in your supposed parking management arrangements place on you an obligation to ensure that proper consideration is given to all the facts. Lax contractual assessment is not an excuse for a derogation of your duty. A breach of the Data Protect Act is a matter of fact. You have either breached it or you haven't. Whatever excuse you present for the breach does not excuse it in any way as you are under the requirement to show due diligence and a duty of care to ensure that personal details are obtained lawfully and then used lawfully from then on.

You will know that as this is a residential location the residents will have some sort of property rights, either by way of a lease or as a freehold resident with attached easements. It is incumbent upon you to consider the resident's rights in respect of the use of parking spaces. If you contracted with the managing agents to “control” the parking facilities they have misdirected you, although it is common knowledge that they often get a kick-back in commission for allowing predatory parking companies to take control of land. They have no other real interest otherwise.

If it was the landowner who contracted with you then the same applies. A landowner cannot restrict a privilege within an agreed covenant and it is your responsibility to ask the right questions and ensure that the operation of parking control is lawful.

I draw your attention to the case of Saeed v Plustrade Ltd [2001] EWCA Civ 2011 (20th December, 2001) heard at the Royal Courts of Justice by LORD JUSTICE AULD, LORD JUSTICE ROBERT WALKER and SIR CHRISTOPHER SLADE where they found that a landlord cannot take away something given within a lease, specifically a derogation of parking rights already afforded within a lease.

However you look at this, as I have an absolute right to use of the parking facilities without any intervention from you, a breach of the Data Protection Act HAS occurred as you had no reasonable cause to apply for and use my personal details from the DVLA.
I am therefore submitting a complaint to both the DVLA and the Information Commissioner’s Office about your misuse of personal data.

I draw your attention to the case of Lireza Ittihadieh v 5-11 Ceyne Gardens RTM Company Ltd & others at http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2017/121.html which makes it clear that once data has been accessed for personal use then you become the Data Controller, something which the DVLA KADOE Contract also makes clear.

I now make a claim against you for punitive damages to the extent of £4200 for the wrongful application for, and subsequent misuse of my information from the DVLA. This is a serious matter and one which is both stressful and degrading. It impinges on my rights as a resident, has caused some considerable anxiety and distress and to top it all off, you are now warning me of a claim being likely in a country court for the sum of money you deem you are entitled to. This is an atrocious situation without any merit at all, and I believe may also be a fraudulent action under the auspices of the Fraud Act 2006 for Fraud by false representation which is a criminal offence that carries a sentence of up to 12 months imprisonment on summary conviction.

BE AWARE that this matter is now in your knowledge. An excuse of not knowing a criminal act had occurred due to the ill-constructed contract you have to “manage” the parking, now has no merit. I will ensure that anyone else within the residential complex who is being targeted by you from now on will be made fully aware of your illegal activity and I will also be considering legal action against you for fraud myself anyway. I will first see how you handle this claim before I make a complaint to the police.

I now claim the amount of £450 for your trespass against my covenanted rights.

An additional amount of £4200 for the damages is also claimed for wrongful application of, and misuse of the data from the DVLA. This is already adjudicated on as being reasonable as evidenced by the case of Halliday v Creation Consumer Finance Ltd [2013] All ER (D) 199

The total amount claimed is therefore £4650
To prevent this matter being taken to court I require payment within 14 working days from 2 days of the date of this letter. Failure of this will result in a court claim being instigated and consequential separate costs being added for the added expense.

I have made it known already that I will also considering a police complaint for the fraud dependant on the response to this claim.

Yours sincerely


I'm now working on letters to the MA, RTM directors and a covering letter to the landlord. Incidentally, I spoke to someone at the landlords office this week and was informed that they have zero rights now, it's up to the RTM Co and MA apparently....I pointed out this is not correct, and that as the land owner, it is only them who can contract with a PPC to allow them to operate on their land, as set out in the BPA/IPC CoP. Without such authority from the LAND OWNER, they cannot lawfully operate on the land (leaving aside primacy of contract for the moment). The landlord has now requested me to write to them about the situation, so their property team can review it, along with my complaint of how the MA have handled it and treated me over the last 2 and a half years.

Umkomaas

Good stuff Daniel - keep at it. It's getting better by the day. :T

Coupon-mad

You need to make it clear which recipients are the potential creditors/defendants, which to my mind in most cases, would be the PPC and the Managing Agents, jointly. Whose contract is with the PPC though, in your case is it the RTM Directors?

Also the heading doesn't seem quite right - it's not a letter about the PCNs as such. It's a Letter about your complaint, your dispute and their trespass and breach of the DPA.

I would make the sum sought smaller than that, as there is no way they will even consider paying a high four figures to you. But that's your choice and I love your fightback!

I would wait and see if you get input from bargepole, or Johnersh, or LoadsofChildren123, because the above draft seems too long and unstructured in some places.

It impinges on my rights as a resident, has caused some considerable anxiety and distress and to top it all off, you are now warning me of a claim being likely in a country court for the sum of money you deem you are entitled to.

Typo above, should be: County.

I would remove all mention of complaints to the Police for fraud; this doesn't fit within the standard fraud 'matrix' the Police apply and would go nowhere. It is only a civil matter.

The landlord has now requested me to write to them about the situation, so their property team can review it, along with my complaint of how the MA have handled it and treated me over the last 2 and a half years.

Good! Don't hold your breath, though.

Daniel_san

Umkomaas wrote: »

Good stuff Daniel - keep at it. It's getting better by the day. :T

and there have certainly been enough days of this so far.... *sigh* Glad you are entertained though :rotfl::beer:

Daniel_san

Coupon-mad wrote: »

You need to make it clear which recipients are the potential creditors/defendants, which to my mind in most cases, would be the PPC and the Managing Agents, jointly. Whose contract is with the PPC though, in your case is it the RTM Directors?

Also the heading doesn't seem quite right - it's not a letter about the PCNs as such. It's a Letter about your complaint, your dispute and their trespass and breach of the DPA.

I would make the sum sought smaller than that, as there is no way they will even consider paying a high four figures to you. But that's your choice and I love your fightback!

I would wait and see if you get input from bargepole, or Johnersh, or LoadsofChildren123, because the above draft seems too long and unstructured in some places.


Typo above, should be: County.

I would remove all mention of complaints to the Police for fraud; this doesn't fit within the standard fraud 'matrix' the Police apply and would go nowhere. It is only a civil matter.

Good! Don't hold your breath, though.

Thanks CM, always appreciate your considerable experience, along with others of course.

Defendants PPC and MA I would say. The PPC have contracted with the MA, I have a copy of it. I'm wanting to copy the RTM directors in as the newly appointed 2nd and 3rd should be made aware of how serious a situation the original director has now got them into. At this point they see me as simply a trouble maker or more likely, a P.I.T.A

Heading, there kind of isn't one right now tbh. Something like "DPA Breach and Trespass" sound suitable? With "Letter before Action" underneath, left aligned. Then body of text to follow under?

On the sum, sounds reasonable to me. I simply did the maths and added the figures for feedback, thank you. If anyone feels like putting a price on my distress, I am open to suggestions. This is not about money at all, but a fair amount in consideration of the time spent (for starters) would be good.

It's largely copy/pasted from the bridesmother url, so any further feedback would be extremely appreciated and welcome. I'll wait and hope one of those named sets eyes on this thread and can assist. At that time I'll also apply the edits to remove police/fraud/typo etc as suggested.

Not holding breath regards land owner AT ALL.....quite clear so far they aren't really bothered at all and the buck has been passed to the MA.

Thank you as always.

Guys_Dad

Is your claim of £4650 too high? It seems to me that you have a claim, but your amount is extortionate and stands little chance of success in court. How is it made up? I take it that you do want a payment from them.

I would trim it down to something that you may actually win.

I add my good wishes as well.

I just noticed one thing. I applaud your use of the term "landholder". With that in mind, is the following from your letter correct?
"My lease remains the same as when it was originally agreed as part of my residential rights. Any restrictions on parking within it are a matter for the land owner and"

Daniel_san

Guys_Dad wrote: »

Is your claim of £4650 too high? It seems to me that you have a claim, but your amount is extortionate and stands little chance of success in court. How is it made up? I take it that you do want a payment from them.

I would trim it down to something that you may actually win.

I add my good wishes as well.

I just noticed one thing. I applaud your use of the term "landholder". With that in mind, is the following from your letter correct?
"My lease remains the same as when it was originally agreed as part of my residential rights. Any restrictions on parking within it are a matter for the land owner and"

Without doubt
Maths on the sum simply by quoted cases such as davey v ukpc - trespass £150 x 3 counts = £450 and DPA breaches ranging up to £750 x 7 counts = £5250, but knowing it needs to stay under small claims limit of £5000. I should have made it clearer the amount stated was more a place holder looking for feedback than an intended amount at this stage, although it would be nice, right

Thank you, all good wishes gratefully accepted!

It's copy/pasted tbh, but I believe landholder (me, owns the lease) and land owner as a combination, is correct. I await correction though if need be. Thank you.

Coupon-mad

I'd hope for some feedback from bargepole, Johnersh or LOC123, so wait until tomorrow at least.