Parking Charge Notice

Umkomaas

LaurenHeath123 wrote: »

Hi all,


Should I contest jurisdiction? - It asks this as one of the questions during acknowledging the claim.

'Contesting Jurisdiction' is when the claim is made from a different country (where different laws might apply) to where the defendant is living.

We have dealt with cases where a PCN is issued in England/Wales, to a resident of Scotland (or vice versa) or where residence is overseas. In these cases, jurisdiction would be contested.

It is not about having the case heard in your local court, you get that by right.

DoaM

Sorry - I must have misinterpreted what was being asked.

But you don't automatically get your local court unless you tick a box in the acknowledgement? (Maybe I should read the court guide myself)

LaurenHeath123

I think I've made a mistake! - Do you submit your defence 14 days after you acknowledge receipt or is 14 days from the date it states on the claim form?


I thought it was the former so haven't finished my defence! Claim form date 26th April 2017.

LaurenHeath123

I have read defences and the facts that makes my case slightly different to the ones I have read are:
I was not parked in an 'obvious' car park. My partners parents own a restaurant, and they pay an annual charge to park their cars there. I parked behind the restaurant with a valid permit but apparently it was not visible. Its been visible every time prior and post this fine for 3 and a half years.

I have google maps 'Orchard Street' which is where they allege that I parked but the car park is in Trinity place. Orchard Street is a one way system where you cannot park (if you did park in the disabled bays, it would be a council fine not a private one). Do I need to mention this alleged wrong address?

They have sent me 'evidence' as I requested but it is of a different car in a different car park. I have written to the DVLA but they take forever to respond so they can't verify this in writing as of yet but they have checked the system and I am not and have never been the registered proprietor of the vehicle they sent me. For ease of understanding, they write to me with details of my car but provided evidence of an alternative car so not sure this is a breach of data protection as number plates are plain to see. Although, if I sent an email, letter or whatever it might be to someone else, I know I'd be sacked.


Any thoughts or suggestions??

LaurenHeath123

My defence: I'm unsure whether I need to amend to show that it is a permitted area to which I have a valid permit and my in-laws pay for!!

1) It is admitted that the defendant, Miss *Full Name*, residing at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx is the registered keeper of the vehicle.

2) It is denied that any indemnity costs are owed, and any debt is denied in its entirety.

3) The identity of the driver of the vehicle on the date in question has not been
ascertained, and no evidence has yet been supplied by the claimant as to who parked the vehicle. Under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 there is no presumption in law as to who parked a vehicle on private land nor does there exist any obligation for a keeper to name a driver. It is reiterated that:
a. The Claimant did not identify the driver
b. The Defendant has no liability, as they are the Keeper of the vehicle and the Claimant must rely upon the strict provisions of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 in order to hold the defendant responsible for the driver’s alleged breach. I choose to defend this claim as the registered keeper, as is my right.

3) The claimant presents a completely unsubstantiated and inflated sum on account for costs, vaguely and incoherently adduced by the claimant's solicitors in their claim. The Particulars are not clear and concise, and the claimant has not provided enough information to file a full defence. In particular, the full details of the contract, which it is alleged was broken, have not been provided.
1. The Claimant has disclosed no cause of action to give rise to any debt.
2. The Claimant has stated that a parking charge was incurred.
3. The Claimant has given no indication of the nature of the alleged charge in the
Particulars of Claim. The Claimant has therefore disclosed no cause of action.
4. The Particulars of Claim contains no details and fails to establish a cause of action
, which would enable the Defendant to prepare a specific defence.
It just states “parking charges” which does not give any indication of on what basis
the claim is brought. There is no information regarding why the charge arose, neither what the original charge was, what the alleged contract was nor anything, which could be considered a fair exchange of information. The Particulars of Claim are incompetent in disclosing no cause of action. The continuous threatening letters received by xxxx and Gladstone’s Solicitors refer to the address as ‘Orchard Street, Swansea’ however, on looking at the Land Registry map search and Google maps, the area in question provides for little or no parking to which would be under the ownership of Swansea City Council in any event. A clearer indication of the alleged ‘car park’ would have allowed the defendant to produce a more accurate and fair defence.
5. On the 20th September 2016 another relevant poorly pleaded private parking
charge claim by Gladstone’s was struck out by District Judge Cross of St
Albans County Court without a hearing due to their ‘roboclaim’ particulars being
incoherent, failing to comply with CPR. 16.4 and ‘providing no facts that could
give rise to any apparent claim in law.’
f) On the 27thJuly 2016 DJ Anson sitting at Preston County Court ruled that the very
similar parking charge particulars of claim were efficient and failing to meet CPR 16.4
and PD 16 paragraphs 7.3 – 7.6. He ordered the Claimant in that case to file new
particulars which they failed to do and so the court confirmed that the claim be
struck out.

6) This claim merely states: “parking charges and indemnity costs if applicable” which does not give any indication of on what basis the claim is brought. For example whether this charge is founded upon an allegation of trespass or 'breach of contract' or contractual 'unpaid fees'. Nor are any clear times/dates or coherent grounds for any lawful claim particularised, nor were any details provided to evidence any contract created nor any copy of this neither contract, nor explanation for the vague description 'parking charges' and 'indemnity costs'.

7) The Claimant’s solicitors are known to be a serial issuer of generic claims similar to this one, with no due diligence, no scrutiny of details nor even checking for a true cause of action. HMCS has identified over 1000 similar poorly produced claims and the solicitor's conduct in many of these cases is believed to be currently the subject of an active investigation by the SRA.

8) I believe the term for such conduct is ‘robo-claims’ which is against the public interest, demonstrates a disregard for the dignity of the court and is unfair on unrepresented consumers. I have reason to believe that this is a claim that will proceed without any facts or evidence supplied until the last possible minute, to my significant detriment as an unrepresented Defendant.

9) I suggest that parking companies using the small claims track as a form of aggressive, automated debt collection is not something the courts should be seen to support.

10) It is denied that the Claimant has authority to bring this claim. The proper Claimant (if any debt exists, which is denied) would be the landowner.

11) The alleged debt as described in the claim are unenforceable penalties, being just the sort of unconscionable charges exposed as offending against the penalty rule, in ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis.

12. The claimant may try to rely upon ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67, ('the Beavis case') yet ParkingEye would not have been able to recover any sum at all without 'agreement on the charge'. In the Beavis case, the £85 charge was held to be allowable to act as a disincentive in that case only, based upon very specific and unique facts in a 'complex' case involving the existence of a specific legitimate interest from the landowners regarding turnover of parking spaces and very clear, brief and prominent signs. In fact, the Supreme Court Judges observed that it would be unfair if drivers were to be penalised for parking slightly out of bay lines when causing no obstruction (this was specifically mentioned at the hearing and was clearly not something they would have allowed). Further, it was held at the Court of Appeal that a parking charge sum of £135 would fail the penalty rule. The authority for this is 'Parkingeye Ltd v Somerfield Stores Ltd [2012] EWCA Civ 1338 (17 October 2012)'.

13) Notwithstanding that the Claimant claims no right to pursue the Defendant as the registered keeper under The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, the Claimant has failed to meet the conditions of the Act and has never acquired any right to pursue the Defendant in this capacity if it cannot identify the driver. This distinguishes the case from Elliott vs Loake(1982) in which there was irrefutable evidence of the drivers identity. The Protection of Freedom Act 2012 Schedule 4 has not being complied with and the claimant may not quote reasonable assumption. PATAS and POPLA Lead Adjudicator and barrister, Henry Michael Greenslade, clarified that with regards to keeper liability, "There is no ‘reasonable presumption’ in law that the registered keeper of a vehicle is the driver and operators should never suggest anything of the sort"(2015).

14) It is submitted that (apart from properly incurred court fees) any added legal fees/costs are simply numbers made up out of thin air, and are an attempt at double recovery by the Claimant, which would not be recoverable in the small claims court. The lack of diligence in this claim demonstrates admirably that at best a ‘copy and paste' is the closest a human, legally trained or not, came to the information transmitted from claimant to the Money Claims Online system. There are no real costs and POFA prevents claims exceeding the sum on the original parking notice.

15) It is denied that there was any 'relevant obligation' or 'relevant contract' relating to any single parking event.

16. In the pre court stage the Claimant’s solicitor withheld necessary information when requested. The defendant requested a number of documents and also, requested photographic evidence. Some seven months following the defendant’s requests, the claimant’s solicitors provided a vague letter containing ‘evidence’ of another vehicle, which was not and has never been in the defendant’s ownership. Moreover, the evidence of the car park was clearly not in the area as suggested on correspondence from Gladstone’s Solicitors and I would therefore conclude that Gladstone’s Solicitors have breached the Data Protection Act 1998 and would question their professionalism.

17. The defendant denies the claim in its entirety voiding any liability to the claimant for all amounts claimed due to the aforementioned reasons. It is submitted that the conduct of the Claimant is wholly unreasonable; proof of this can be seen from the significant time lapse between receipt of my letters and their thinly produced responses, and their urgency to submit an application to the court without providing relevant information in the first instance. As such, I am keeping a note of my wasted time/costs in dealing with this matter.

18. The Claimant has not complied with the pre-court protocol.
1. No Letter of Claim was sent to the Defendant and no initial information was sent to the Defendant, the defendant requested this information however, it was not disclosed by the claimant.
2. I'd refer the court to Para 4 on non-compliance and sanction, and I'd also point out
that there could be no reasonable excuse for the Claimant's failure to follow the
Pre-action Conduct process, especially bearing in mind that the Claim was issued by
their own Solicitors so they clearly had legal advice before issuing proceedings.

19. I request the court strike out this claim for the reasons stated above, and for similar reasons cited by District Judge Cross of St Albans County Court on 20/09/16 where a similar claim was struck out without a hearing, due to Gladstone’s' template particulars for a private parking firm being 'incoherent', failing to comply with CPR16.4, and ''providing no facts that could give rise to any apparent claim in law''.

Statement of Truth: I confirm that the contents of this statement are true to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Coupon-mad

They have sent me 'evidence' as I requested but it is of a different car in a different car park.

Fantastic, why not bung in a counter-claim underneath your defence, and pay the £25 fee for various DPA breaches (against you, and their lax attitude to data is proven by their supplying someone else's data to you).

You should start the claim with this (below) IMHO. You need to tell the court some facts about the case, not just the generic defence stuff (which is OK, by the way, but you need an introductory point explaining what it's about/what is wrong with the claim.
And change your post like I did, no 'me, myself , I' when talking about the parking event:

I have google maps 'Orchard Street' which is where they allege that THE CAR WAS parked but the car park is in Trinity place. Orchard Street is a one way system where you cannot park (if you did park in the disabled bays, it would be a council fine not a private one). Do I need to mention this alleged wrong address?

I think I've made a mistake! - Do you submit your defence 14 days after you acknowledge receipt or is 14 days from the date it states on the claim form?

It's 28 days from service (receipt) of the claim, which is at the very most, 33 days from the date on the claim form. You are close to that and there is a Bank Holiday, so YOU MUST email this to the CCBC by Bank Holiday Monday, no posting it. And no putting the defence in on MCOL because the formatting gets wrecked.

LaurenHeath123

Thank you Coupon Mad.

Do you know what the relevant email address is? - What sort of facts would you suggest I add in?

The trouble is that it was in December 2015 and I didn't get any notification of the 'charge' until February time but 3 moves later and I have lost some of the initial paperwork so don't think that I can add anything about the late Notice to Keeper etc.

I'm not even 100% where the parking charge is for but my best guess is around the back of my in laws restaurant and again, I had and have a valid permit which Gladstones admitted but said it was 'obscured'.

My worry about writing some more facts is that 1) I'm not sure where the parking charge is for so any 'facts' I add will be based on assumptions 2) I had a valid permit and they haven't provided evidence to the contrary and 3) I can't remember because it was a while ago.

Redx

the address is on the MCOL website and has been reproduced on here many times

you can allege that paperwork was issued late , they then have to prove it was issued on time , so if you fail to mention something you cannot rely on it later, or hold them to account for it

remember , it is their job to prove their case , so all you have to do is introduce reasonable doubt on each and every aspect of their claim

if gladstones have not elaborated on the POC then you can and should complain about this, as currently judges are making them issue these within a few weeks or the claim is struck out , you would then get leeway to amend your defence based on any POC

please read other court claim threads to get up to speed, as I dont even have a court claim yet have read these topics many times on here and in pranksters blogs

Coupon-mad

The email addy for the CCBC is easy to Google, as well as repeated endlessly on defence threads here.

LaurenHeath123

I will definitely add a paragraph to reference the late paperwork.

In terms of the PoC they have stated that:
"the driver of the vehicle registration xxxxx incurred the parking charge on 18/12/2015 for breaching the terms of parking on the land at Orchard House Swansea SA1. **the car park is around the back of orchard house and as far as I can see, its called trinity place but its not a car park, its just parking behind the shops for the shop owners***

Defendant was driving the vehicle and/or is the keeper of the vehicle. ** no evidence of this has been provided?**

And the claimant claims £150 for parking charges/damages and indemnity costs if applicable, together with interest of £15.33 pursuant to S69 of the CCA 1984 at 8% pa, continuing to judgement at £0.03 per day." ***


Also, should I mention the fact that 'debt recovery plus' they stated the reason for issue was 'no permit displayed' yet in a recent letter from Gladstones they stated 'It is not disputed that you displayed a permit; however, as is required by the sign, the permit on display wasn't 'valid' as it was obscured and not fully displaying meaning our Client's warden was unable to ascertain the validity of the permit.' They then attached pictures of a completely different car, in a different car park with the signs from that car park. Since 2015, I'm pretty sure they have changed the signs which is a bummer because I didn't think to take pictures. I didn't get the notification of the parking fine for a few months.