Charging for my time

TDA

spikyone wrote: »

This is utter nonsense, and completely unnecessary.


The PPC (albeit wrongly) believes they owe them money, and have started a process to try and recover it. Your 'contract' says "if you don't stop trying to recover the money you believe I owe you, you are agreeing to be bound by a contract". This is patently an unfair term - it's not negotiated, and it's one-sided in favour of the person who wrote it. On top of that, you can't infer acceptance of a contract on the basis that someone continued doing something they had already started; there would need to be a specific action that shows acceptance. In the car park analogy you make, this is the act of parking your car. If you put in place a 'contract', then as in this case, the PPC will reject it.

Secondly, it's unnecessary because all you need to do is to take them to court for your costs. It is not necessary for them to contractually agree to anything - all you need to show is that you suffered a loss because of their actions. I believe this is most likely to be successful with the bigger companies, where you include an initial appeal statement pointing along the lines of:
"My appeal is based on the assertion that your charges do not represent a genuine pre-estimate of loss. Your company has lost at POPLA on hundreds of occasions for precisely this reason, and you are therefore aware that continuing with this course of action is futile. Should you continue to pursue this action, I will seek to recover my personal costs incurred".
Personally, I'd then make this a single-point appeal to POPLA - GPEOL and nothing else. You'll win, and the PPC would be hard-pressed to wriggle out of any claim.

Regarding the first point, this was my feeling. There appear to be too many fundamental characteristics of a contract missing for one to exist (where is the agreement, intention to create legal relations and consideration?). As long as the PPC was represented by any half decent advocate I can't see such a claim succeeding.

Regarding the second point, what would the cause of action be if not contractual breach? Negligence of the PPC in pursuing the charge leading to costs? Pure economic loss is largely unrecoverable in negligence actions.

The_Deep

I agree with the last two post. the OP is trying to be too clever by half.

Coupon-mad

Maybe but it's hardly a risk, why not try, why give in to the bully boys? If people don't bother then the pariah of PPCs rumbles on to the next victim, with no comeback from cases they end up cancelling.

This OP could bung them an invoice (call it a 'PCN' = Personal Costs Notification!) and then send the Landowner and PPC, jointly, a Letter before Claim if they don't pay by the time stipulated.

Then follow the LBC with a MCOL claim (against both parties) for a set amount like Derek Donovan did v NGP, see POST #15 here showing his cheque:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=89127&hl=donovan

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/parking-company-pay-motorists-pcn.html

and another guy did against Vinci Park:

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/parking-company-ordered-to-pay-motorist.html

and BikerPaul on pepipoo still has a case v ParkingEye for his costs, AFAIK:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=85641

and GertySingh had success too which he might post more about but has already mentioned last month on other threads.

Nowt to lose except a small claim fee if you don't win. See this:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/courts/mcol-quickstart-guide.pdf

In all of the above cases the posters did not include the landowner in the claim, by the way, and still got paid or have a case in hand at the moment. I do know of one more poster (not me) who complained and send a LBC to Savills who forced a PPC to send compensation! A couple of years ago now.

spikyone

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Maybe but it's hardly a risk, why not try, why give in to the bully boys? If people don't bother then the pariah of PPCs rumbles on to the next victim, with no comeback from cases they end up cancelling.

I have no problem with the concept of sending the PPC a charge for the time involved - my issue is with the notion of setting it up as a contractual charge, which is badly flawed.
I do however suspect a handful of invoices from the likes of us will make little difference to the PPC bandwagon. Our friends Beavis and Green, taking their actions to the big boy courts, are far more likely to put the brakes on.

TDA wrote: »

Regarding the second point, what would the cause of action be if not contractual breach? Negligence of the PPC in pursuing the charge leading to costs? Pure economic loss is largely unrecoverable in negligence actions.

A good question. There is a clear loss caused by the PPC's actions in mindlessly pursuing cases where it's been made clear they're going to lose, which is even more indefensible when the likes of PE don't bother sending evidence to POPLA. In my eyes, it looks like some form of tort, but my knowledge of tort law is nowhere near good enough to work out the right cause of action.
My impression of the SC track is that it's intended for the average man on the street - are you expected to know exactly which tort has been committed, or is it sufficient to state that the defendant's actions caused a loss? If it's the latter, I would see no issue with giving it a try. After all, the PPC may settle or not bother turning up.

TDA

spikyone wrote: »

In my eyes, it looks like some form of tort, but my knowledge of tort law is nowhere near good enough to work out the right cause of action.
My impression of the SC track is that it's intended for the average man on the street - are you expected to know exactly which tort has been committed, or is it sufficient to state that the defendant's actions caused a loss? If it's the latter, I would see no issue with giving it a try. After all, the PPC may settle or not bother turning up.

The only category of tort I can see that it may fall into would be negligence. Here, economic loss is only recoverable if it is consequent on physical damage. As this is not the case here I'm not convinced this would go over in a court. No idea whether you have to identify which tort you are claiming for in the county court, but a moot point if pure economic loss is unrecoverable.

As Coupon-Mad points out however, there are a number of success stories using this approach. Seems to me that filing a claim may be worth a punt against some of the smaller companies with less resources and knowledge to argue it.

I can't personally see it working against the big boys to be honest though. They will tell you to swivel, then turn up to court with a half-decent advocate and, unless I am mistaken about the above, they will win. For them you'd be better off cutting your losses with the filing fee and just winning at POPLA for free I'd suggest.