Time to display permit

Redx

ESPECIALLY read the recent ones honed by member BARGEPOLE


post your proposed draft below for critique


thats the way it works on here, you post the proposal and it gets adapted and honed by critical feedback


and there is no S in defence, please spell check what you write as a judge will be seeing it , so spell it correctly in your draft

Somehelpplease

Lol. I knew that, but the spellchecker corrected it.

In defence, I thought I had corrected it back.

KeithP

Perhaps use a UK spellchecker rather than a US one.

Somehelpplease

So here goes: I have until 5th November to file this but will probably do so earlier if possible. Any comments gratefully received.

IN THE COUNTY COURT

CLAIM No: CXXXXXX

BETWEEN:

UKCPM (Claimant)

-and-

nnnnn nnnnnn (Defendant)

The claim is based on a PCN issued because my car was parked without a valid valid permit.

At the time of the issue of the notice, the car was parked in a visitor space. This is not denied.

As a family, my daughter had made us all aware that when visiting, we needed to display a permit when parking in a visitor space, we have always adhered to that. None of us had ever read the signage, we did not need to, we obeyed the rules religiously. After parking, we would walk to the entry point and buzz ourselves in, to collect the required permit (a scratch-card,) which we would then display on the dashboard of the car.

In previous contact with the parking management company, I was told by an employee of UKCPM that there was a grace period of ten minutes to display the required parking permit. The signage on the site does not confirm a grace period. To allow a valid contract to be entered into the lack of a ten minute grace period should be displayed.

My daughter lives on the 9th floor of a block of flats adjacent to the visitor parking. At the time the parking notice was issued, my daughter had a three month old baby, who she was breast feeding. It often took a few minutes for her to buzz you into the flat. The lift, if available, takes @60 seconds to rise to the 9th floor, if still available after collecting the permit, it takes another @60 seconds to descend. Add to that any time spent waiting for the lift to arrive and it becomes impossible to meet a 5 minute grace period. Indeed it is sometimes a challenge to complete the task in 10 minutes.

On the date in question, the driver returned to the vehicle from collecting the permit to find that a Parking Charge Notice had been issued. This showed the UKCPM employee had observed the car at 15:31 and issued the charge at 15:38 an elapsed time of 7 minutes.

I have not managed to get UKCPM to confirm the contract they hold to manage the parking, they claimed they could not tell me where their authority came from because of the data protection act. I managed to get confirmation from the Land Managers (Pinnacle Property) that they had granted such a contract. They confirmed that their terms included a ten minute grace period. This is patently not being adhered to.

I will provide evidence that on another occasion the ten minute grace period they were obliged to allow was not adhered to.

No sum payable to this Claimant is therefore accepted nor even known about by any driver; as they were not given a fair opportunity to discover the onerous terms by which they would later be bound.

I believe the facts contained in this Defence Statement are true
Signed

Coupon-mad

You need the usual heading:

DEFENCE

Go through it and change all instances of 'I', 'me', 'my' and 'we' to the third person, 'the Defendant'.

And revisit actual defences because it reads like a Witness Statement (so have you been looking at them by mistake?). Read defences.

Somehelpplease

OK take two and thanks for the pointer to recheck some Defences. I found a case which was similar and have reworded it. Could someone validate the legal references are still valid? Any comments appreciated. TIA.


IN THE COUNTY COURT

CLAIM No: xxxxxxxxxx

BETWEEN:

UK CAR PARK MANAGEMENT LTD (Claimant)

-and-

xxxxxxxxxxxx (Defendant)

________________________________________
DEFENCE
________________________________________

1. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.

2. The facts are that the vehicle, registration XXXX, of which the Defendant is the registered keeper, was parked on the material date in a marked bay allocated to visitors and the driver was collecting the required permit when the PCN was issued.

3. It is denied that a contract was formed, and it is further denied that any contravention of a valid visitor scratch card being displayed occurred, given the driver was not being given sufficient time to display such a permit.

4. The Particulars of Claim state that the Defendant was the registered keeper and/or the driver of the vehicle. These assertions indicate that the Claimant has failed to identify a Cause of Action, and is simply offering a menu of choices. As such, the Claim fails to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4, or with Civil Practice Direction 16, paras. 7.3 to 7.5. Further, the particulars of the claim do not meet the requirements of Practice Direction 16 7.5 as there is nothing which specifies how the terms were breached.

5. Due to the sparseness of the particulars, it is unclear as to what legal basis the claim is brought, whether for breach of contract, contractual liability, or trespass. However, it is denied that the Defendant, or any driver of the vehicle, entered into any contractual agreement with the Claimant, whether express, implied, or by conduct.

6. Further and in the alternative, it is denied that the claimant's signage sets out the terms in a sufficiently clear manner which would be capable of binding any reasonable person reading them. They merely state that “valid visitor’s scratch cards must be displayed in windscreen”, but does not quantify how soon after parking these need to be displayed or where they can be obtained.

7. The terms on the Claimant's signage are also displayed in a font which is too small to be read from a passing vehicle, and is in such a position that anyone attempting to read the tiny font would be unable to do so easily. It is, therefore, denied that the Claimant's signage is capable of creating a legally binding contract.

8. The Claimant is put to strict proof that it has sufficient proprietary interest in the land, or that it has the necessary authorisation from the landowner to issue parking charge notices, and to pursue payment by means of litigation.

9. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4, at Section 4(5) states that the maximum sum that may be recovered from the keeper is the charge stated on the Notice to Keeper, in this case £100. The claim includes an additional £60, for which no calculation or explanation is given, and which appears to be an attempt at double recovery.

10. In summary, it is the Defendant's position that the claim discloses no cause of action, is without merit, and has no real prospect of success. Accordingly, the Court is invited to strike out the claim of its own initiative, using its case management powers pursuant to CPR 3.4.

I believe the facts contained in this Defence are true.

Name
Signature
Date

Coupon-mad

Absolutely fine defence, a bargepole special!

The_Deep

Somehelpplease wrote: »

MA is Managing Agent? Is there any easy way to find who that is? I contacted the housing association tht my daughter is in shared ownership with and they said it was nothing to do with them, so I am at a loss.

The above makes no sense. The MA is the company who maintain the complex, do the gardening, cleaning the common parts, etc., et., etc., They will have been contracted by the HA.

IME, HAs often try to disassociated themselves with these scammers, but they are ultimately responsible for the actions of their poodle.

If the HA is a registered charity, get the leaseholder to make a complaint to the Charity Commissioners, and to her MP.

This is an entirely unregulated industry which is scamming the public with inflated claims for minor breaches of contracts for alleged parking offences, aided and abetted by a handful of low-rent solicitors.

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, and another company have already been named and shamed in the house as have Gladstones Solicitors, and BW Legal, (these two law firms take hundreds of these cases to court each week, hospital car parks and residential complex tickets have been especially mentioned. They lose most of them, and have been reported to the regulatory authority by an
M.P. for unprofessional conduct

The problem has become so widespread that MPs have agreed to enact a Bill to regulate these scammers. Watch the video of the Second Reading in the House of Commons recently

http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/2f0384f2-eba5-4fff-ab07-cf24b6a22918?in=12:49:41

and complain in the most robust terms to your MP. With a fair wind they will be out of business by Christmas.

Somehelpplease

Yes a Bargepole special. ;-) Thanks to everyone for their help, it has been really appreciated. Fingers crossed.

Somehelpplease

A quick question. Obviously I would prefer them to just drop the case, but the Directions Questionaire asks if I want opt to have the case referred to the Small Claims Mediation Service. Is this worth considering?