Take action or pay up?

tea_queen

Fantastic, thank you Coupon-mad, I have done that now. I'll be interested if they respond as I was surprised to receive the letter if I'm honest, but considering this last letter said there would be no further correspondence if they do respond they'd be dragging out the process further before putting in the claim.
I have already started putting together pictorial evidence for myself in preparation (as much as possible given that the signage has been removed at the site), so I will start putting together my written evidence in the next few weeks.

Thanks again

tea_queen

Update:

I received an email in response to the one I sent last week, with just the answers to the questions I had asked in the posted letter to Gladstones, which were:

In order to understand my legal position, I also require the following information:

1 Is your client's intended action funded on a contractual charge, a breach of a contract or trespass?
2 What is the basis of the additional £60 charge?
3 If it is for legal services, has your client already paid it?

Answers:

1. Contractual Charge
2. After 28 days of the charge being issued £60 is incurred and acts as a nominal contribution to our Client's losses i.e the time and resources spent on the case
3. Addressed above

You have a further 7 days from the date of this email to make payment in full in the absence of which a claim will be issued against you without further notice.


From this response received I do not believe this changes anything as it's pretty much the expected response from them I would have thought? In which case I'm inclined to respond essentially saying go ahead, as I presume anything more detailed will be a waste of my time - would you agree? On the plus side the fact that they're arguing contractual reasons is in line with my arguments against the charge.

Thanks

Coupon-mad

Yes. And you can add that they can't recover any sums added to the amount on any Notice to Keeper; the POFA Schedule 4 makes this clear.

Further, ParkingEye v Beavis helpfully confirmed that the penalty rule is certainly engaged in less complex private parking charge cases and in Beavis £85 was the only sum sought. This was held in the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court as an amount set high enough to more than cover the costs of a fully-automated and generic 'car park enforcement' business model and allow for profit. Therefore is is completely disingenuous to suggest that random sums can be bolted on top of a 'parking charge' taking it over the £100 ceiling and suggesting that this is ''a nominal contribution to losses i.e the time and resources spent on the case''.

Utter fabrication which CPR 27.14 certainly disallows - a thinly-veiled attempt at double recovery.

tea_queen

That's good news thanks Coupon-mad! I've added this into my notes for when I write up the full defense and will look up that case for more details

Coupon-mad

Yes you need to be familiar with the only parking case to have gone to the Supreme Court, because all PPCs try to jump on that bandwagon despite the fact most cases hugely differ and turn on different facts, less clear signs, etc.

tea_queen

Hi, just a quick update, I have now received the County Court Claim Form and am about to fill in the online form to acknowledge/ defend the case (as per these instructions https://www.dropbox.com/s/xvqu3bask5m0zir/money-claim-online-How-to-Acknowledge.pdf?dl=0) so I guess I will shortly be writing up my full defence!

tea_queen

I've just realised that the court address for my case is Northampton - does anyone know why they've put this to a court an hour and half away from where I am/ where the PCN was issued? There are at least 7 courts closer than Northampton for money claims? I'm just shocked as I had presumed it would be the court in the next city, not a 3 hour round journey to attend - is there a chance the location will be moved?

Coupon-mad

You haven't been reading enough yet, if you haven't seen that the hearing goes to your local court. Northampton CCBC is merely the MCOL 'admin central' court that dishes them out, if you like.

Read post #2 of the NEWBIES thread again and sit down and read bargepole's linked thread about what happens when and how to complete each paperwork stage. I'm sure our advice there tells you that the local court for any hearing, is yours.

Xanthanan

The Northampton address is normal for Money claim online cases, you will get a chance to select a more local court for the hearing at the "DQ" stage. That's if Gladstones don't bail when they see your defence

Xanthanan

Ooops just too slow... Listen to CM ... She's pretty good at this stuff