Have been dealing with UKCPS, now got a letter from a solicitor. Advice?

bill2b

I did a similar response to the above and today I received this from the "Debt collectors miah"


Dear Mr Brown, (that's me)


Our Client: UKCPS Limited
Re: Unpaid Parking Charge
Sum Due: £100.00


Thank you for your email, the contents which are noted.


Please be advised that our Client follows strict guidelines set out in legislation and by their Trade AOS codes of conduct as to when appeals may be considered. As such, unfortunately, we are unable to consider your appeal at this time. Any appeal of fact or circumstance you wish to raise should have been made when the ticket was issued or upon receipt of the Notice to Keeper sent to the registered owner of the vehicle.


We will not enter into any further correspondence regarding any appeal of fact or circumstance.


We should clarify that The Miah Solicitors are not debt collectors or an appeals service for our client; we are instructed to take legal action where tickets have remained unpaid despite communication previously being sent by our client in the form of the Parking Charge Notice itself and the subsequent Notice to Keeper.


If your appeal relates to a point of law which you believe supports your assertion that you should not be responsible for this charge then this will be considered, however, if we disagree with your view legal proceedings will be issued. You will then be able to submit a formal defence and a Judge will give a ruling as to whether the Parking Charge is due and enforceable.


Our Client is, however, still mindful of the requirement to ensure that all attempts are made to settle the claim before issuing legal proceedings. Therefore, we have been authorised by our Client to accept £100.00 in full and final settlement.


To prevent legal proceedings being commenced we require payment in full within 14 days of the date of this email. If payment is not received legal proceedings may be issued to recover the sums due to our Client.


If you would struggle financially to pay the full sum due in one payment please contact our office as we are able to accept payment by way of instalments, however, the full amount of £275.00 will be due and owing.


Payment can be made by cheque, made payable to The Miah Solicitors, by credit or debit card by contacting our office (includes a £1.00 surcharge per transaction) or by bank transfer using the bank details below:


Account number: 83774414
Sort code: 20-48-42
Account Name: TM Solicitors Client Account
Branch: Barclays Bank, Albion Street, Leeds


Yours sincerely,


Debt Recovery Team


I thought they said they were not debt collectors? Oh yes they included 2 pictures of my moped parked beside some bollards on a pedestrian precinct.
Its getting a bit boring now.

The_Deep

They do not appear to be too concerned about their own charges if they are prepared to waive them. As they will no longer engage with you, perhaps you should ask the SRA to ask/tell them to address your concerns.


Keep the pressure up, the more you cost them, the more likely they are to get back to honest conveyancing.

fairleee

bill2b wrote: »

I did a similar response to the above

So with yours, did you appeal the claim in any way, or did you just call them out on the legal fees issue? Because if you didn't appeal, then they have completely ignored the meat and bones of your letter to them (unsurprisingly). It's also interesting that they've now dropped the demand to a straightforward £100. I wonder what happened to that £150 in legal fees that had apparently been incurred? You don't think that maybe they were lying, do you?! :rotfl:

bill2b

Thanks both of you, no I didn't appeal anything it was a straight forward legal fees questioning. I wonder if they perhaps had a twinge on conscience and decided to bear the brunt of the £150 themselves?
I will do the SRA thing and let you know the result

Herzlos

There's no twinge, they probably just think you're only complaining about the fictional £150 legal fees, so hoping that if they drop them (and work for free?) you'll just pay up.

It's also interesting that they claim not to be acting as debt collectors here, but have been "instructed to take legal action", which they legally cannot do.

I'd definitely be forwarding that on to the SRA.

Has anyone contacted MIAH directly to see if this crap is coming from them and that the PPC aren't just using their paper?

fairleee

Herzlos wrote: »

There's no twinge, they probably just think you're only complaining about the fictional £150 legal fees, so hoping that if they drop them (and work for free?) you'll just pay up.

I imagine that they have a fee-sharing system in place with UKCPS; perhaps some kind of 50/50 split for any monies recovered at this stage. If that is the case, then the purpose of this letter is to simply make it look like this is a reasonable offer - "we've dropped the fee from £275 to £100, so you're best off paying so we don't take you to court". Anything they can get at this stage they'll probably take; instant payout without the hassle of trying to go through court!

I imagine I will probably receive this exact same offer through the post in the next week or so. It's just a begging letter designed to catch out anyone who isn't willing to fight on; I think odds of any court action at this point are extremely low.

hoohoo

Miah have been reported as trying court. Might be worth writing back pointing out that it is against the sra code of conduct to lie, and as they have previously been informed their statement regarding ADR is false the attemp to deceive is obviously intentional. The code of practice does not limit adr

The_Deep

OP, please do as Hoohoo suggests above, we really need to turn the heat up to get the SRA to deal with this cuckoo in their nest.

fairleee

Apologies, I created a new post for Miah's response, when I should have continued it here.

So, I've had a response to my letter to Miah Solicitors, and incredibly enough (and for I believe the first time), it would appear that I haven't received a template - they actually appear to have read my letter!

This is a scan of the letter they sent to me, with identifying details obscured. Just from having a quick look, it seems like there are plenty of issues with it - they haven't provided any confirmation of whether the fees have tried to claim have been paid by UKCPS, they still insist that I am responsible for the fees (which isn't true), and their claim that I failed to respond to the PCN is a massive, bare-faced lie, considering I have responded to all of UKCPS' letters to date. Also, please do enjoy the irony of Miah accusing my of using a template letter to respond to them, when all I have received from Miah and UKCPS to date have been template letters!

I'd appreciate some advice on how to respond, though. This isn't a letter before claim although they were kind enough to include some photos of my car at the car park where the alleged contravention occurred. Furthermore, just on Thursday I received yet another template letter from UKCPS stating that they were not considering my appeal, so given that I am receiving correspondence from both of them, how best to deal with this?

Herzlos

Forward that letter onto the SRA as well, listing all of the lies/misleading content in it.

I'm not sure if you even need to bother responding to it unless you want to continue the ping pong.

It says in their that [paraphrasing] "our client attempted to mitigate costs by placing a notice to driver on the car", so did this go directly from UKPCS to Miah and not via another debt collector like ZZPS or DRP?

I'm also not sure how writing a dodgy invoice for an invalid infraction can be regarded as mitigating loss. Free car park?

I also don't understand how "Our client instructed us to take legal action to recover" fits in with the correspondance email address of "debtrecovery@themiahsolicitors.co.uk" and the letter is signed off "Debt Recovery Team". That makes it sound like it's a debt recovery action and not a solicitors action? Have you asked them to clarify the role in which they are acting?

They also say that if they don't receive payment in 14 days they "may issue proceedings". i.e. it's not a letter before action.

I'd be inclined to ask them to clarify:
1. Who is their client
2. In what role are they acting
3. If this is a Letter Before Action
4. If UKCPS are claiming the charge is a breach or a contractual term.
5. Who actually wrote the letter (you want a named solicitor).