Parking Eye - Court Papers Received

jamesb1239

Hi all,
I wonder if any of you can give me a little help and advice.

This morning the papers for a court claim landed on my doorstep from Parking Eye for overstaying on one of the car parks they look after. This is the first time I had heard of this and have received no previous correspondence from them regarding this. When I received this I called them to ask what it was all about due to receiving no charge notice or letter before court however they insist that these were sent and gave me the dates that the letters were sent.

I asked whether on account of me not receiving anything they could cease the court action and provide me with the parking charge so that I could appeal via the normal channels however they explained that this is not possible. I have previously received a charge from them which I appealed and requested the POPLA code which they ignored, when they did this I challenged the fact that they had ignored my request and appeal. After challenging them over this I heard nothing further regarding that parking charge. So it surely would have stood to reason that if I had in fact received their letters then I would have followed the process! But anyway that's a different matter.

I now find myself in the position of having to defend a court claim which hopefully you guys can assist with. Please let me know of any information that you require to point me in the right direction.

The charge is for staying a little over 4 hours on a 3 hour free car park on a small retail park. I don't know if my next point will be of any assistance to getting them to drop this but I thought I would mention it. Previously when reading about appealing parking charges I have seen mentioned plenty of times all the rules and regulations regarding signage that has to be displayed. This on the retail park in question is quite prominent, at the entrance there are signs telling you the duration of free parking available and saying that you are to see the signs in the main car park area for the terms and conditions of parking, you then pass through the ANPR cameras and can go either left or right into the car parks in front of the different stores (although divided it is one car park) once in the car park there are several signs stating the duration of free parking, the charges and the terms.
Is that normal for the signage at the entrance to tell you that you need to enter the car park before you can read the terms of parking? I was always under the impression that you were supposed to be provided with this information beforehand so that you could decide whether you wished to park or not?

One thing I noticed when taking a look around the car park today is that at some point the signage all over the car park and several of the signs (stating duration of parking) on the way in have been modified to say that 3 hours parking is allowed rather than 2 hours. However one of the signs on the entrance has no such modification made to it and still says 2 hours free parking. This is the point that I didn't know whether it would be helpful or not as I was hoping that maybe one of you may know of some hidden rule or regulation that states all of the signs need to say the same thing or something along those lines.. Then again I could be clutching at straws a bit here.

Either way I took photos of this signage just in case it turns out to be relevant as knowing my luck it would be changed before I could prove it biggrin.gif

Please let me know if you need any further information. I understand that I need to submit acknowledgement of the claim which I will do tomorrow.

Thank you in advance



James

Redx

same advice as given in this thread here https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5449676

you need to read

The Newbies sticky thread, post #1 , court section, plus links

Parking Pranksters court guide

Use the forum search box for examples of 2016 court claims and follow the same advice but ensure you adapt what they are doing for your own court case

so acknowledge = YES, but do not put anything at all in the defence box, yet , you will have an extra 14 days (so around 33 days in total from the date of the claim) to draft your holding defence

Fruitcake

In addition to the above, you should complain to the BPA and DVLA that you never got a PoPLA code.

jamesb1239

Can I still do this even though I didn't technically ask for one due to not receiving the charge/letters?

Redx

jamesb1239 wrote: »

Can I still do this even though I didn't technically ask for one due to not receiving the charge/letters?

no , but the lack of any previous letters including no NTK will be a small part of your defence

concentrate on the live court claim as at the moment its too late for any appeals, its now a defence you are needing to sort out

any additional pcn,s or historical lack of popla codes for alternative disputes have nothing to do with this court claim because for this claim you have received no previous paperwork until this letter of claim arrived from Northampton

jamesb1239

I wasn't concerned about the previous charge. I only mentioned it to show I have received communication regarding previous matters. Sorry if I created any confusion

Redx

jamesb1239 wrote: »

I wasn't concerned about the previous charge. I only mentioned it to show I have received communication regarding previous matters. Sorry if I created any confusion

that is exactly what it caused, I too had trouble discerning the facts of this claim from your asides about another claim that isnt the subject of this claim

if that other pcn led to a court case then in that case only it would be relevant, but its not in this claim which is why I ignored it but unfortunately another member misread it and thought it was relevant to this claim - its not because in this case the court claim was the first time you were made aware of the problem

however, for this claim only you should have received an NTK, reminders of the outstanding alleged debt, debt collector letters and an LBC

you appear to have none of those and yet they have issued a court claim, so the question is why did you receive nothing prior to the court claim ?

jamesb1239

I have absolutely no idea why I received nothing prior to the claim, I have spoken to PE and they are apparently sending me a copy of the initial letter (NTK?) but can't do anything to stop or pause the claim according to the person I spoke to and my only option is to submit a defense to the claim which is why I came here and also posted over on pepipoo as I had received assistance from them years ago with regards to a different matter.

When I get chance later I will try to draft a defense in the hopes of them dropping the case as if it does go to court I would struggle to be able to attend due to care commitments.

Thank you for all of your help already

catfunt

Please don't phone them again.

Everything in writing (or email)

Myriddin

Add to your defense that as you have never had the chance to appeal the charge through an independant appeals process you would be willing to follow that route should the Judge so direct.

Redx

in the processing of your case you will be asking for a local court so you wont have to travel far if it comes to going in person