Proceedings issued, NTK invalid, Gladstones/Millennium refusing to respond

Loadsofchildren123

I am sending them this letter:


I write further to the following correspondence [xxx].

Inter alia, have asked your client, both in correspondence and in a formal Part 18 Request, to answer the following questions and provide the following information:

• Identify precisely where your client claims the car was parked on 31 October 2015 (the site being a very large residential development with a mixture of flats and houses);
• Produce the plan appended to the contract dated 28.1.14 to identify the land over which rights were granted to Millennium Parking Services;
• Identify the owner of the land on which it is claimed the car was parked, with evidence (for instance in the form of Land Registry Official Copy Register Entries);
• If the owner of the land is not the signatory to the contract dated 28.1.14 (BDW South Wales Ltd), provide a chain of contracts authorising them to enter into the contract with Millennium Parking Services.

On behalf of your client, you have expressly refused to answer these questions, even though this is your client’s claim, which it must prove (ie. the onus is not on the Defendant to disprove it).

I have therefore carried out my own research. I have visited the site and have identified from the photographs you have provided that the car was parked next to a fence at [] Apartments, Phoebe Road, Copper Quarter, Swansea. I have also carried out my own Land Registry search, which shows that the land is owned not by BDW South Wales Limited, but by [x] (which has owned it since [x]).

My visit to the site also ascertained that all signage has been removed from the land owned by [x], which would indicate that your client and/or Millennium Parking Services has no authority to manage the parking on that part of the site, including issuing PCNs and chasing motorists for payment of such charges, and has not had such authority since at least [].

I enclose the following:

• Official Copy of the register entries for title number CYM[];
• A Land Registry map showing where this land is situated;
• Photographs showing that signs have been removed. The photograph numbered [] is of the fence shown in in the photographs at pages [xxx] of the exhibit to your client’s Witness Statement and you can clearly see a patch where the sign has been removed. The photograph numbered [] is of the building shown in the photographs on pages [xx] of the exhibit to your client’s Witness Statement. I can confirm that not a single sign is displayed anywhere on the land comprised in [] Apartments.

It would appear that on the date in question ([]) your client and/or Millennium Parking Services had no authority whatsoever to issue a PCN to the Defendant’s vehicle.

I reiterate my previous warnings putting you on notice that I intend to pursue a wasted costs order against your firm personally, or in the alternative a costs order against your client for having behaved unreasonably in this litigation, pursuant to CPR Part 27.14(2)(g). Your client is a professional parking company, conducting a business whereby it issues PCNs to motorists and then pursues them for payment through various debt collectors and then through court proceedings. It is the Claimant in many cases such as this one. It is an experienced litigant who does (or should) know the relevant law, and who does (or should) know the court rules and processes by which it is bound. Conversely, the motorists your client pursues are, like the Defendant in this case, ordinary citizens, the vast majority of whom will have little or no experience at all of court proceedings. I will therefore argue the case that the onus on your client to behave “reasonably” under CPR Part 27.13(2)(g) should be greater than the onus on non-professional litigants. I am confident that I will succeed in this argument.

I invite your client once again to withdraw its claim.

If your client asserts that the car was not parked on the land I have identified, then please identify where it is claimed the car was parked, and produce evidence of ownership and all of the other information/evidence I have previously requested.

If your client asserts that its rights (and/or the rights of Millennium Parking Services) under the contract of 28.1.14 include rights over the land I have identified then, again, please provide evidence of that and all of the other information/evidence I have previously requested.

Loadsofchildren123

twhite, yes I know. Mad thinking. There's another case I've read on Prankster's blog where the judge said that couldn't be the case and gave a similar example (I let x drive my car, x drives recklessly and kills someone, he is my agent so I am liable for murder/manslaughter), and of course why the need for POFA at all if there is an agency there.


This is a great example of what is referred to by lawyers as "litigation risk".


Had he decided in favour of VCS on this basis, of course it would have been appealable, but is a litigant in person really going to want to go through all that (and pay the fee to issue an appeal)?

Loadsofchildren123

POFA sched 4 para 4 (5) ''The maximum sum which may be recovered from the keeper by virtue of the right conferred by this paragraph is the amount specified in the notice to keeper...(less any payments towards the unpaid parking charges which are received after the time so specified).''


But what about the amount specified in the Notice to DRIVER - I thought POFA said you can't charge the keeper any more than you were wanting to charge the driver.


Or am I looking at the wrong part of Schedule 4?

Loadsofchildren123

bumping this last question in the above post, in the hope someone has the answer in their head.....

Coupon-mad

Sch4 says the NTK must repeat the info in the NTD, and that the sum recoverable is the sum stated in the NTK.

Loadsofchildren123

But then if they increase the amount in the NtK (as they always do), how does that fit in, because that part of Sched 4 I've quoted says that's what they can recover (which is when I then go back to the NtD and say the NtK doesn't repeat the info in the NtD because they've changed the amount).
Is that right?

Coupon-mad

They don't increase it. There might be a discount offered (e.g. to £60 for early payment) but the sum is £100.

Loadsofchildren123

The NtD in this case was £100 (discounted to £60).
The sum in the NtK has been increased to £150.

Loadsofchildren123

Is this just another thing that makes the NtK non-POFA compliant? I had thought there was a specific provision that PPC cannot recover any more from RK than the original charge to the driver. But that's not what para 4(5) says.

Coupon-mad

The sum in the NtK has been increased to £150.

Norty - in excess of the BPA CoP ceiling then, and also not POFA compliant because the NTK fails to repeat the info in the NTD.

Loadsofchildren123 wrote: »

Is this just another thing that makes the NtK non-POFA compliant? I had thought there was a specific provision that PPC cannot recover any more from RK than the original charge to the driver. But that's not what para 4(5) says.

No it doesn't, but it is over the amount allowed under the CoP and you could read the Schedule 4 Guidance notes, maybe it's in there (from the OFT). Ignore the guff about GPEOL.