PPS taking me to court

Loralu

Hi all. I have been ignoring all letters from Premier Parking Solutions. I have now received a letter from county court business centre sayin I now owe £260 and have to reply in 14 days otherwise I'll have a county court Judgement made against me. I don't know what to do. I thought they couldn't take you to court? I have Been ignoring all letters as forums have suggested.
What can I do?

Quentin

This forum hasn't advised you to ignore!


You won't get a ccj in 14 days!


Read up on court action in the newbies faq thread where you will also find links to more resources to help deal with this


First thing to do is to acknowledge the claim which gives you an extra 14 days to get your defence in


You can post your draft defence here for comment


(If you end up winning then there's no CCJ - If you lose then as long as you pay it off in full within a month then the ccj won't go on the register and there will be no impact on your credit status)

arabesque_101

Loralu wrote: »

have to reply in 14 days otherwise I'll have a county court Judgement made against me.

That is correct, if you don't either pay the amount owing, or put in a defence, then you will end up with what is called a default judgement that you will be stuck with for 6 years. If you put in a defence, then the court case will be determined on its merits (and even if you lose, you can have it wiped off by paying it within 30 days as Quentin said).

Loralu wrote: »

I have Been ignoring all letters as forums have suggested.
What can I do?

The forums were only suggesting ignoring until October 2012. After that, they recommended appealing/fighting.

Half_way

first of all dont panic, the PPCs want you to panic and either do something rash, or pay up.

get a pen and paper and take a read of the sticky, then draw up an action plan
What exactly have you received from the court?
Next if you answer these questions you may be able to get some help that is better directed at your particular issue:
What type of car park was this? pay and display?
retail park with so called free parking?
Car park attached to a single shop/premises?
residential car park, belonging to/attached to a residential property you own/lease/rent?
other?

Why did you get parking tickets in the first place?

Also although your main efforts should be on a defence ( if you haven't already got a default judgement - hence the question of what exactly have you received form the court) you should also be trying to keep this out of court.
In virtually all cases the parking company are there acting for and on behalf of the landowner as agents of the landowner, with the landowner being principal.
the Principal can call off the court proceedings at any time right up to the commencement of the proceedings and even during the proceedings.
If the principal can/will cancel then you will have saved yourself a lot of work and effort and saved the courts valuable time.
At the very least you should try and get a letter from the principal stating they do not wish this matter to proceed to court, and after that if the parking company will not cancel then you can use this in defence stating that the parking company are being unreasonable in pursuing this matter to court against the will of their principal, the landowner.

If the principal are playing hard ball, or ignoring you then you can also claim expenses against them should you win.

But for now, you need to provide a little more information, and should this come to court you need to make sure that there is no doubt that you have behaved reasonably by trying to keep this out of court ( by liaising or attempting to liaise with the landowner/principal)

As for the ignore advice, while this did change some years ago, its still out there in the wild, including a few so called advice videos on you tube etc, I've even heard members of the Police trotting out the ignore advice in a few pubs (while off duty )

Coupon-mad

Loralu wrote: »

Hi all. I have been ignoring all letters from Premier Parking Solutions. I have now received a letter from county court business centre sayin I now owe £260 and have to reply in 14 days otherwise I'll have a county court Judgement made against me. I don't know what to do. I thought they couldn't take you to court? I have Been ignoring all letters as forums have suggested.
What can I do?

OK, loads of people get claims and these are defendable and the added costs are objectionable too. They've chosen you because you WRONGLY ignored it and they are hoping you either ignore the claim too (and get a CCJ by default) or that you will panic and pay. Do neither.

PPS hardly try any claims, look:

http://www.bmpa.eu/companydata/Premier_Parking_Solutions.html

...so they are not legal experts by any stretch. And their signage is often unreadable, so use that as evidence. Even if you lost at a hearing, one PCN would be likely to be ordered to be LESS than £200 so you would be daft to pay up at this stage where they have deliberately escalated the sum in the hope of scaring you and making you pay through the nose.

Tell us you have acknowledged this claim online now using the password on the claim form? That extends the 14 days to 28, to then get a decent defence in to follow. Read other defences by searching this forum board for the word 'defence'. You will probably not find a PPS version as they are rare but find other defences and use the legal terms there, to show us your version suitably re-written.

Also tell us where this was please, what location?

And was it about not paying any P&D fee, or an overstay after paying, or a typo in the VRN on a keypad?

Stay non this thread and keep replying and asking and showing us info and your defence. Do not reply to any private message from a non-regular poster (less than 1000 posts to their name) offering to 'help' It could even be the parking firm trying to trick you and either way, a newbie poster trying to take the matter off the open forum will have an agenda we do not have. We are here to help, so make a cup of tea/pour a glass of wine and start searching the forum for examples of defences. There are loads.

Come back and tell us when you have acknowledged the claim and give us some info about the matter WITHOUT SAYING WHO WAS DRIVING!!

The_Deep

FWIIW, they have shot themselves in the foot by asking for that much. Even if this did go to court, (which is unlikely, given their greed), and they won, the most you would be likely to be ordered to pay is £225.

You therefore now occupy the moral high ground, fight them all the way, cause them as much grief as possible, make them spend money.

Loralu

I can't work out how to upload pics here otherwise I would upload the letter I've received. I have been sent a claim form by County Court. I received the fine at Healy Place, Plymouth. It is a permit holders only car park. My brother lives there, my husband was dropping him home from work, helped him up the stairs (block of flats) with his toolbox. Was prob there no more than 15 -20 mins max and came down to the ticket. The sign has changed since receiving the ticket. However it's not that clear as the sign isn't really at the entrance of the small car park. They are asking him for £252.37.

I'm not sure who owns the land. I have googled it but can't find anything.
A few weeks later my husband caught the guy trying to give him another ticket after being there for 2 mins, again dropping his brother home from work. However this time he argued with him about it and the parking guy threatened to get his brother evicted!!!! Luckily he didn't give another ticket.
By what grounds should I defend this?? Any legal terms I need to add to defence??

Thank you to everyone for your advice so far. I will sit and have a look through everything this evening and will prepare my defence on Thursday as its my day off.

Xx

Fruitcake

Upload pics to a web hosting site such as tinypic or photobucket, then post the URL here. Change http to hxxp and then someone here will change it back to a live link.

Redact all personal information before you upload, and make sure you web host site isn't in your real name.

Get your own pictures of the signs to use as evidence.

Redx

as usual , read the NEWBIES sticky thread , post #1 , court sub-section

then read parking pranksters court guide

then search for and read about twenty 2016 HOLDING DEFENCES on here and pepipoo forums, to see what comes up time and again as defence points, then draft your own skeleton holding defence

nobody can upload pics here , so no point trying as its not a hosting site , its a forum

host pics on tinypic or photobucket and add a dead link to them , changing http to hxxp in your reply

the LAND REGISTRY will tell you who owns the land , for a small fee

if he rents the flat he should check the lease and contact the M.A. and see what it or they say about parking etc

if he owns the land , he should check his deeds and take it further

make sure you have acknowledged the claim online , leaving the DEFENCE BOX blank , dont type anything into it

the work must be done by the person named on the court claim , even if somebody else does the donkey work preparing it, only the defendant can deal with it legally , even if they have a helper or advisor

Loralu

Hi
Sorry think I'm being stupid!! I can't seem to find this 'newbies thread' anywhere!! Can you point me in right direction? I'm just about spying start my defense. As I've been throwing all the paperwork away and ignoring them I'm going to write to PPS and under the data protection act ask them to send me a copy of all info they have on me. Do you think this is a good idea? I'm just not sure on what to base my defense on!!

Loralu

Found it!!