County Court Business Centre Claim Form

TacoCat

I'm needing some advice on this one.

On 15th June I parked in a SIP Parking Ltd car park for short time and didn't pay the fee (not saying this was the right thing to do but wanting to give all the facts)

I came back to find a parking charge notice on my windscreen and followed the age old advise of "ignore it, there's nothing they can do."

I have received a number of letters since asking for various sums of money and have ignored all of these letters. Unfortunately I have thrown all but the last one away so can't say exactly what they said.

On 29th September I received a letter from Gladstones Solicitors on behalf of their client, SIP Parking LTD asking for £150 or they would begin legal proceedings. Again I ignored this letter.

On 14th October a County Court Business Centre claim form was issued for the following amount:
-Amount claimed £152.96
-Court fee £25
-Legal representatives costs £50
-Total £227.96

I have filled out an acknowledgment of service form indicating I would defend the claim in full and wanted 28 days to file my defence. This was done today.

The advice I now need is how best to form my defence. Some of the details I think may help are:
- I have obtained the title deed for the land where the car park is and it is owned by SIP Parking LTD.
- The car park itself is a shoddy piece of land with no marked bays and no clear boundary as to where the car park begins and ends (photo available but unable to post link as new user)
- There is only one sign viewable upon entering the car park and the terms and conditions are in very small writing at the bottom (again photo available)

Any help would be appreciated

Thank you

Coupon-mad

I have obtained the title deed for the land where the car park is and it is owned by SIP Parking LTD.

Is it? Wow. Unusual.

I have filled out an acknowledgement of service form indicating I would defend the claim in full and wanted 28 days to file my defence. This was done today.

Good.

Luckily, Gladstones normally seem to muck up cases where a decent defence is filed.

Search the forum for 'Gladstones incoherent' and read what happens next and examples of how to defend this robustly. Plagiarise other recent ones and show us your draft defence.

I do also suggest you read the Parking Prankster's blogs about Gladstones many bungled cases over the past year or more! They are (it seems) pretty awful at producing clear evidence and bad too at the paperwork/admin of a claim. Take confidence from the cases they've lost because they are PCNs cancelled, at long last, with the Defendants then able to claim some costs.

TacoCat

Thank you.
I read quite a lot on this forum before posting and thought the parking company almost never own the land so it's just my luck that they do in this case!

I'll sit down tomorrow and draft a defence and see what you guys think.

Thanks again

System

You'll need a pic of the signs/sign locations. If SIP are occupiers then Beavis may not apply. It would be a core contract rather than a secondary one.

Signs will be key in this one.