Advice Sought: Small Claim for Private Parking Ticket in Residential Parking Bay

ucrajoc

Hi all,

I've been issued with court papers for a private parking charge accrued at my residence. I feel I have a pretty strong defence but I would appreciate any advice on how to fight a small claim, when this is a first for me.

An overview of the case:
1. The charge was issued for failing to display a permit in the private car park at my residence. I possess a residential parking permit, registered to the car in question, which for reasons unknown was not visible at the time.
2. My tenancy agreement clearly indicates that my tenancy includes an unallocated parking space, with no reference to any other organisation. I believe that my tenancy agreement outweighs any implied contract with a private parking company through signage in the car park.
3. The parking company in question is affiliated with the IPC so I sent them a letter based on the template in the newbies section highlighting the above. The company refused to reply to the questions within the letter and ignored my request for independent adjudication.
4. The original charge for £100 can not be said to be a genuine pre-estimate of loss. The car park is for private residents, so there can be no loss of business. The cost of a permit in the residential car park is £0. The cost of parking in surrounding streets is £0.

Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

Coupon-mad

4. The original charge for £100 can not be said to be a genuine pre-estimate of loss. The car park is for private residents, so there can be no loss of business. The cost of a permit in the residential car park is £0. The cost of parking in surrounding streets is £0.

You can't use that any more. Explained here in a similar thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/70941053#Comment_70941053

If your case is a claim from Gladstones Solicitors for the PPC, read that thread and others like it, easily found as we have dozens of them - search the forum for 'Gladstones Court' or 'Gladstones defence'.

If it's not Gladstones you still need to read other court threads. Which PPC?

Umkomaas

Have you acknowledged service of the papers? You must do so to avoid a default CCJ and to gain a further 14 days to develop your initial defence.

Do so via the MCOL web portal. Do not put anything in the defence box when acknowledging, not even N/A or TBC (or similar) - leave totally blank.

Have you read bargepole's advisory post linked in post #1 of the newbies FAQ sticky? Bargepole is a very experienced lay representative with particular skills in dealing with private parking issues. His post will guide you through the stages you will need to follow.

Which parking company please? Did you receive a Letter Before Claim before receiving the court papers? Are Gladstones Solicitors involved?

Have you read this? -:

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/bargepole-spanks-ukpc-in-court-no.html

ucrajoc

The parking company is Pace Security & Recovery and the claim is from Gladstones Solicitors. I received the Letter Before Claim, but did not reply, which I now realise was a mistake. I have acknowledged the claim, leaving the defence blank.

Thank you for the reading suggestions. I think I may need some help with a defence statement!

Coupon-mad

You will definitely get help - when you show us a draft defence, based on all the zillions of other Gladstones defences you find from recent threads. Get searching, you will see there are lots and some defence points are pretty formulaic.

ucrajoc

Thank you.

Quick question: the charge amount that Gladstones is claiming for in the Letter Before Claim and the Court Claim is £50 more than the original £100 charge issued by the parking company in their letters and indicated in their signage: I'm not sure where that £50 has come from (they've added solicitors costs and interest on top of that). Would this be useful defence point?

Coupon-mad

Yes - you will indeed find that features in Gladstones defences, don't worry, we cover all the possible points noticed over the months since Gladstones started these stupid claims*. Do a search, you'll find a few to copy from within half an hour. Then start putting your version together (can be almost a copy of another one, they are pretty generic).

Oh, and be ready for Gladstones to push ahead with pushy letters with a copy of their D/Questionnaire, saying they want the case 'head on the papers' without a hearing, or at the claimant's local court. That's not right, you want and you can have the opposite - a hearing at YOUR local court!

You will find that covered on threads as well, how to respond to bat away their rubbish and steer it back your way.

Oh, and read 'Small Claim?' - a heading in the NEWBIES thread, especially the second link in that section of the sticky thread, to Bargepole's advice on how to fill in each part of the court paperwork and when and how.



*Google 'Gladstones Parking Prankster' to read about how many times they lose, or cost the PPCs money!

Umkomaas

There's a capped max of £50 legal charges, but recent cases have also added a £50 admin fee. Much depends on what the signage on site says. You will probably need photos as part of your defence, so go take them now (tomorrow when it's light!) and let us see a copy.

You don't have uploading privileges just now as a newbie, so you need to initially host on a photo hosting site - Photobucket and TinyPic are two - and copy the URL, paste it into the Reply box here, but change the http part of it to hxxp, and we'll do the conversion. You can get a view on this from us then.

HTH.

ucrajoc

Thank you all for the advice so far.

Please see the link for a photo of the car park signage, I'd really appreciate your thoughts on this.

hxxp://i65.tinypic.com/sdfl1i.jpg

Coupon-mad

The £100 charge itself is large and clear but is that sign around all over the place, or sparsely placed and hidden on the odd fence or next to the bins?

Also it says that the £100 is for 'breach' which may help you to be able to show why this is a penalty, unlike the 'complex case' in ParkingEye v Beavis. So that may help your defence, if argued well.

Your defence needs a point questioning the standing of the claimant and suggest a lack of authority flowing from the overall landowner to the parking firm, enabling them to sue and make contracts in their own name (rather than 'on behalf of' the landowner, merely acting as an agent with no standing to sue).

Also I would have a point putting the parking firm to strict proof that there was any contravention at all (close up photos of the dashboard).

And a point putting them to strict proof that the car was parked close to a prominent sign.

And putting them to strict proof that there was a contract mentioning £100 when the permits were supplied (dig out your paperwork or any email which informed you of the permit scheme). For a resident, if they were given permits with no clear obligations or warning of £100 'charge' risk then this seems a reasonable extra defence argument. Especially if the paperwork which gave you the permit did NOT create a clear obligation to display or create a clear contract to pay a stated £100 amount (nor drew your attention to any further terms on signs) in the paperwork or email itself, like here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5477541

That poster just showed us the letter his permit came with. Very useful evidence. Take a look.

Umkomaas

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=sdfl1i&s=9#.V4u8bpB4WrU