UKPC at University

iflossdaley

I've checked that thread and it was helpful. However i'm not at the county court invitation stage yet. I've just been sent an LBC from SCS law, asking for the money and i gave the following argument at the top of my thread

Coupon-mad

OK so they want you to pay a fortune, so as you want to fight rather than pay (and we agree with you) respond and say your position is unchanged and you will defend any claim robustly as registered keeper and believe the signs are forbidding and offer no contract to a driver. Moreover, a parking firm cannot be allowed to seek 'double recovery' by adding on figures to a £100 PCN out of thin air and so you will see them in court.

Timothea

What does the signage actually say? If you're not sure, take a picture of the signage ASAP. Do you still have the original parking charge notices from UKPC? What reasons do these give for the charges? Do or did you have a permit to park?

You can upload pictures to a photo sharing site such as photobucket.com or tinypic.com and post the links on this thread but change http to hxxp. But make sure any personal information is redacted, including your name and address, the PCN number, the date and time of the alleged contravention, the vehicle registration number, etc.

The most you would be liable to pay if you lose in court is £600 (i.e. £100 per ticket) plus a bit of interest, as long as you attend the hearing and point out to the judge that the claim has been artificially inflated. So, there's no point in paying more than that. You also have a decent chance of winning against UKPC if you submit a proper legal defence.

iflossdaley

Thanks guys and i've read the forums and consulted people such as the parking prankster the general consensus is the sign is forbidding. And other people from university have won cases due to the signs being forbidding. I'll wait to see them in court with my defence

iflossdaley

I'm on the newbies thread under 'small claims', but I can't access the 'the guide MCOL and how to acknowledge service' on dropbox, even though I have a dropbox account. Can anyone send me the link or tell me how to do it? thanks guys

iflossdaley

In the meantime, until someone directs me into how to do the MCOL process.
Here's my draft defence:

Here is what I have tried to draft up for a First Defence
Defence

I am not ignoring your charge for a purported parking infraction. As this is purely a charge (not a statutory penalty) issued under a purported contract and the driver has not been identified, I require the following information so that I can make an informed decision:

1. It is admitted that Defendant is the registered keeper of the vehicle in question.
2. The identity of the driver of the vehicle on the date in question has not been ascertained.
a) The Claimant did not identify the driver
b) The Defendant has no liability, as they are the Keeper of the vehicle and the Claimant must rely upon the strict provisions of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 in order to hold the defendant responsible for!the driver’s alleged breach.
3. The claimant has yet to respond to part 18 Request written and sent by the defendant and delivered to SCS Solicitors.
a) A request to identify the party who contracted the claimant as they are not the landowner or occupier
b) A request to provide the full legal identity of the landowner or occupier
c) A request to provide a full unredacted copy of the contract with the landowner which demonstrates the claimants authority from the landowner to issue parking charges and litigate in their own name
d) A request to provide a breakdown and explanation of how the charge for each purported contravention has risen to £160. The Protection of Freedom Act 2012 Schedule 4 states the maximum sum that can be claimed is the charge stated on the Notice to Keeper.
e) A request to provide a detailed and itemised breakdown of the losses and or damages suffered by the claimant

4. Accordingly, it is denied that the Claimant has authority to bring this claim as the signage is ‘fordbidding’, which means there can be no contract. The proper Claimant is the landowner, Brunel University. UKPC cannot overrule the elements of the lease or introduce them subsequently. Strict proof is required that there is a chain of contracts leading from Brunel University to UKPC.

5. (i) UKPC is not the lawful occupier of the land
(ii) absent a contract with the lawful occupier of the land being produced by the claimant, or a chain of contracts showing authorisation stemming from the lawful occupier of the land, I have the reasonable belief that they do not have the authority to issue charges on this land in their own name and that they have no stand to bring this case.

6. The provision is a penalty and not a genuine pre-estimate of loss for the following reasons: (a) as the Claimant is not the landowner and suffers no loss whatsoever as a result of a vehicle parking on the site in question; (b) the amount claimed is a charge and evidently disproportionate to any loss suffered by the Claimant and is therefore unconscionable; the penalty bears no relation to the circumstances because it remains the same no matter whether a motorist overstays by ten seconds or ten years; and (d) the clause is specifically expressed to be a parking charge on the Claimant's signs.

7. - The signage on the site in question is unclear as it states in large bold it is ‘student parking’, which can be interpreted as parking to all Brunel students and at the time in question I was a student. However, in extremely small writing, it claims a £100 parking charge will be issued if a student parking permit is not visible.

8. The Protection of Freedom Act 2012 Schedule 4 has not being complied with, as such the keeper can only be held liable if the Claimant has fully complied with the strict requirements including 'adequate notice' of £100 charge and prescribed Notice to Keeper letters in time/with mandatory wording.!


10. It is believed that this Claimant has not adhered to the BPA Code of Practice and is put to strict proof of full compliance. This Claimant has been exposed in the national press - and was recently investigated by the BPA - for falsifying photo evidence, which was admitted by the Claimant. It is submitted that this is not a parking company which complies with the strict rules of their Trade Body, which were held as a vital regulatory feature in ParkingEye v Beavis.

11. This case can be easily distinguished from ParkingEye v Beavis which the Judges held was 'entirely different' from most ordinary economic contract disputes and UKPC have not shown any valid 'legitimate interest' allowing them the unusual right to pursue anything more than a genuine pre-estimate of loss.!

12. If the driver/s on each occasion were considered to be trespassers if not allowed to park there, then only the landowner can pursue a case under the tort of trespass, not this Claimant, and as the Supreme Court in the Beavis case confirmed, such a matter would be limited to the landowner themselves claiming for a nominal sum.

13. Save as expressly mentioned above, the Particulars of Claim is denied in its entirety. It is denied that the Claimant is entitled to the relief claimed or any relief at all.!

In my opinion, there is a better alternative than legal proceedings, namely that we utilise the services of a completely independent ADR service suited to parking charges. This does not include the IAS appeal service - which lacks any transparency and possibly any independence from the IPC - unlike the alternative offered by the British Parking Association, POPLA, which is transparent and has been shown to be independent.

Therefore I ask the court to strike out this claim with immediate effect.

Half_way

iflossdaley wrote: »

i've tried but they said to contact UKPC

Thats the standard response, they are jointly and severally liable for the actions of their agents, in this case UKPC, and if they want them to cancel then all they have to do is tell them.
Without landowner authority, ie the university the parking company can not pursue this through the courts.

You have another advantage with this being a university, in that you can ask them for the full unredacted contract with UKPC, as well as a few other tricky questions they wont like that relate to the university and the parking company.

For now go back and tell the university/the department that deals with this to cancel

Coupon-mad

iflossdaley wrote: »

I'm on the newbies thread under 'small claims', but I can't access the 'the guide MCOL and how to acknowledge service' on dropbox, even though I have a dropbox account. Can anyone send me the link or tell me how to do it? thanks guys

I've mended that link (I hope). But seriously:

until someone directs me into how to do the MCOL process.

Surely it's not that desperate, we've never had anyone get stuck at AOS before.

There is a password and instructions on the claim form...it is only 'acknowledging a claim' and we never had that guide until the other week when another ticket fighter showed me it, having got it from someone else who put it together. I thought it was helpful and the person who did it was to be commended - because in my experience, the Govt Gateway website is rubbish - but surely 'how to acknowledge service of a county court claim' is Googleable and so an idiots guide to that tiny step is not really *needed*...?

Is it?

iflossdaley

Thank you, the website is currently down so I'm to proceed to print off the acknowledgement of service form and send it to the northampton county court address on the county claim form. After reading forums, I have prepared a defence which is above. However I'm struggling to understand what a 'Part 18' is and what I should do with it

Coupon-mad

I would not bother with a Part 18 request; concentrate on the defence and take on board any comments.

Re the AOS, I would try the website again tomorrow morning rather than send the form to CCBC (if you MUST post it, make sure you write not a single word in the defence box, not even 'tba' NOTHING!). And take it to a PO and get a free certificate of posting and keep it as proof of posting. Personally, I'd still do it online as a preference though once the website is working (the AOS, not the subsequent defence).

Re the defence, if not doing a Part 18 request for into (which is after all self-explanatory due to your point #3) you would have to remove all of your point #3.

Also remove this from the start (this is taken from an appeal, not right for defence):

I am not ignoring your charge for a purported parking infraction. As this is purely a charge (not a statutory penalty) issued under a purported contract and the driver has not been identified, I require the following information so that I can make an informed decision:

Also remove the bit about loss from here:

6. The provision is a penalty and not a genuine pre-estimate of loss for the following reasons:

As it is Brunel University, did you read Anthony94's thread as well as the other winning v UKPC threads (IndigoMondayToyota was another one).