UK Parking Patrol Office Ltd PCN

Dangermice

Hi everyone!

I have been conscientiously ignoring threats etc from my PPC since an alleged offence on 12/05/2013.

I now have an LBA from Gladstones Solicitors. More specifically "our client may now instruct us to take legal action against you..." blah blah blah.

14 days blah blah etc etc.

I have had a read around on here and had a read through zzzLazyDaisy's post for a crash course in Practice Direction.

Is the Practice Direction the best route to go down?

If so should the letter be a reply to Gladstones or my friends at UK Parking Patrol?

Any help will be gratefully received!

Castle

Have a read of this thread which actually relates to UK Parking Patrol Office, not UKPC. (Similar situation).
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5439756

Redx

bear in mind that the practice directions apparently changed a year ago so that thread is out of date for certain aspects of any reply

and now that UKPPO are in the IPC it seems that Gladstones are acting as debt collector for the moment, but may try court and have 6 years to do so

I suspect we will be seeing a lot more of these this year and its no different to the other airports like RHA , JLA , BHX and Luton etc

airport land is not relevant land for POFA2012 and so bylaws apply and in any case we dispute the fact that they cannot use parking charges on roads , so plenty of fodder to read on here is you put the search words in the forum search box, like

NEWCASTLE AIRPORT
UKPPO
PARK AND FLY etc
Gladstones

hope that helps

The_Slithy_Tove

Dangermice wrote: »

I now have an LBA from Gladstones Solicitors. More specifically "our client may now instruct us to take legal action against you..." blah blah blah.

Does it say it's an LBA? The wording "our client may now instruct us" simply is NOT LBA-type wording. You'd have thought a Legal company would know how to do these things. But then we are talking about Gladstones, which is just proof that lawyers are not necessarily the fine, upstanding, moral, ethical members of society they'd like you to think they are.

Maybe if they do claim it's an LBA you should simply reply to them, suggesting that they read the Practice Directions to understand what an LBA should have and that such utterly unprofessional behaviour from them will be reported to the SRA.

Dangermice

Gladstones letter, after all the usual detail on the alleged offence, states...
Due to the abscence of payment or a valid appeal against the charge, our client has instructed us to recover the total amount due to them as shown above.

"As all other attempts have failed, our client may now instruct us to take legal action in the county court. To prevent such action, we invite you to make payment immediately or confirm to us in writing your proposals in respect of this debt.

In order to avoid any further action you should pay the full amount outstanding of £159.99 within 14 days of this letter."

Then gives total additional costs of £202.25 applying in the event of a Judgment being obtained.


The windscreen ticket was left on Elmira Way in Manchester. I'd had a Man United season ticket for 5 years and always parked in the same place on Elmira way every home game. Then I came back from one match and they'd ticketed the street. They'd picked Alex Fergusons last game at United for maximum effect. Apparently there were some crumby yellow signs on a couple of lampposts but that was it.

System

Google Street View shows a lot of these signs around but you'd be hard pressed to understand them as the information on them is not that coherent. Amusingly UKPPO have paid Gladstones a fee to have them checked as legit!

So when these cases go to court (and UKPPO don't) there is a bit of embarrassment for Gladstones when a judge rules the signs to be nonsense.

Whether Gladstone's clients have ever queried this or asked for a refund, can't say but I'd be interested in any Parking troll to come on and answer it.

Going back to your ticket, they are not interested in the whether their claim is valid, just how much hassle they need to give you to make you pay. So it's either continue to ignore or pay.

Dangermice

There are loads more signs up now on Elmira Way, the current gibberish may even make more sense than it did in 2013. The wasteland that was there is also now being developed.

I was always tempted to write to UKPPO and ask them for all there documented evidence as I'm almost positive it would be full of holes. As far as I was ever aware it was a public road with no parking restriction markings.

The_Deep

Write to Gladstones, copying to the SRA, asking for a complete breakdown, including v.a.t. of the £202.25. Add a covering letter to SRA complaining of unprofessional conduct, conduct likely to bring the profession into disrepute, misrepresentation, demanding money by making false statements. put them on the back foot.


https://www.sra.org.uk/home/home.page

Castle

Back in 2013 UK Parking Patrol Office Ltd wasn't trading and all of the signs/contracts, (if any), would have been in the name of UKPPO; a different legal entity. So any legal action by "Ltd" is very unlikely!

System

Good spot Castle. It was Steve Cheat'em until 01/04/2015 when he incorporated.

You could combine a request for the identity of their client and TD's letter saying there is no legal certainty as to the claimant so you wish them to clarify who is claiming and in what legal form e.g person or limited company. If the former - full name. If the latter, Companies House number.

Coupon-mad

Be careful in ALL complaints or responses only to call yourself the registered keeper of the car and NOT to say who parked, no knee jerk 'I didn't see a sign'. NOT 'I did this'!

You are the keeper stating that you are not liable and indeed you believe that in 2013 'UK Parking Patrol Office Ltd' wasn't trading so cannot have had any contractual signs up anywhere at all. You consider the continued contact unwarranted harassment from the wrong 'claimant' to the wrong 'defendant' because as registered keeper you cannot be held liable due to the omissions in the Notice to Keeper wording back in 2013, which was not issued by an entity called 'UK Parking Patrol Office Ltd'.