Claim Form Defence Advice

JohnAllan

Hello, I've read a lot of information on here regarding the process to take when faced with a parking ticket. I'm at the stage now where a defence from myself is required through a claims form and I'm here to seek advice on what to say based on the circumstances. I will outline the history below.

February 2017

I had a 'Parking Notice' packet attached to my window after spending the day parking on SIP Carpark on Jersey Street in Manchester. I had been parking here numerous times during the previous months and have always paid for a ticket. I had a valid ticket clearly displayed in my window so was quite shocked when I received the notice, and assumed it was because they did not see my displayed ticket. The notice and ticket was kept safe should anything of come up.

Based on a little bit of research I purposely, and probably wrongly ignored the notice and expected it to just go away. A few months passed and I had received a few letters demanding money. These letters where going to my parents house which is actually my previous address. I have since updated my address details on DVLA.


May / June 2017

I received an alarming letter threatening court action. I now believe this letter to be the LBC, which shouldn’t really be ignored. So I telephoned SIP Car Parks to query the charges seeing as I had a ticket clearly displayed. They told me that the notice was because I was parked in a space which was for contractual use only. Apparently it was for some of the work men working on a nearby site. I don’t remember seeing any sign explaining this and it was the usual side I had always parked on. I told the company that I didn’t think this was fair and I was not planning to pay it. Their reply was ‘We’ll see you in court then’.


August 23rd 2017

During a visit to my parents house a brown envelope was waiting for me. I opened it and it was a claims form from a county court in Northampton from Gladstone Soliciters. Dated 9th August 2017. I spent the first few hours researching this form, because the ones I’d seen online where blue, and looked more official. This one has a photocopied stamp on and the crest at the top looks very pixelated. After some more research it was apparent that I needed to log into MCOL and file an Acceptance of service. I did so by signing up with Government Gateway and followed some simple instructions, which now has allowed me an extra 14 days to file a defence.

The total amount is currently for a total of £240.05. £165.05 for the claim, £25 court fee, and £50 legal costs.


August 24th 2017

With this situation on my mind now, I tried to log back in to MCOL but with no success. The password was wrong for some reason. I wanted to make sure the AOS was delivered and the claim was not going to default to a CCJ. I tried to call the county court 20 times in row using different contact numbers, and not one answer.

I decided to ring a more local county court to see if they could help me. I gave them my claim number and they could see that I had recently filed the AOS and I now had until the 11th of September to file my defence.

After this, I emailed MCOL and received some strange replies. They where not helpful in the slightest to get me back into my account, and explained that the defence could be submitted via email or post (which I've since learned that this is the best way to submit). I plan to send it via email. I've also gave them my updated address, so any further correspondence will come straight to me.

I’ve since spoken to my friend who has studied law and his advice was to explain that no sign was visible to me regarding contractual spaces. We’ve spoke a little more and have decided that because the claim details on the claim form do not describe the reason, rather it just states that I had breached the terms, then I should send a photograph of my valid ticket to them explaining I had paid for a ticket and take it from there.

I had kept the ticket safe, but the bad news is that now I can not find it anywhere. I have spent most of the day searching high and low.

So with no attempt from myself to appeal the notice, no ticket for proof, and no recollection of a sign stating the spaces where for contractual workers, I’m now seeking some advice on which direction to go to defend myself. I’m aware of the things not to say from reading another thread on here, but my question now is what should I say? Am I to just ask for proof my car was without a ticket? Am I to explain the telephone conversation and write about not seeing any sign? Should I not mention the telephone conversation? Am I to request photographs that my car was a. without a ticket and/or b. clearly parked in a place where I shouldn’t of been?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Redx

you need to file a defence now and email a SIGNED and DATED copy of it to the CCBC in Northampton once its been approved

see post #2 of the NEWBIES sticky thread

my personal advice is that you ALSO read the current SIP GLADSTONES court claim threads on here over the last 3 months or so , definitely 2017 ones only and start to draft your own defence based on those others

there are also GLADSTONE defences on here from this year for other PPC,s too, so read some of those , perhaps a dozen or so, then you get the idea of what goes into the initial defence

and read BARGEPOLE advice linked in the newbies thread post #2 as to what happens and when, plus what he says will FAIL in any defence as well

do not miss the CCBC deadline to get your defence in , then read up on the next stage after NOA and local court and DQ has been determined

get ahead of the game, but also read and follow those who went before you, are further along than you are , or who have actually completed the tasks and possibly any court case

it may get struck out , or they may fail to pay the filing fee later on, but prepare to go the whole hog

ps:- just been reading this 2017 one where they knew less than you yet managed to follow the advice (but no update since)

3 links removed

there are plenty more on here using the drop down search box , so good research will help you , its not as if you are the first one

JohnAllan

Thank you.

you need to file a defence now and email a SIGNED and DATED copy of it to the CCBC in Northampton once its been approved

Approved by who? Is this two different things to do? As far as I am aware, my next stage is to only email my defence to the county court so they can file it.

My main questions are yet to be advised. Maybe someone else reading this thread can help me? The big question is what will be the best kind of defence in my case?

Thank you, I will read the links you have provided.

Redx

nobody here is going to analyse your case and advise you, its not a legal forum , its a parking charge forum

if YOU do the research and post your defence draft on here for critique, some people (very few) will look at it and advise on its content etc (but nobody will do it for you)

once approved on here by other members for submission the FINALISED defence is saved as a PDF by you, printed by you , signed and dated by you , scanned by you and emailed as an attachment with the words DEFENCE and MCOL ref number in both the email title and email comments box (the process has been detailed on here in various sections and posts)

so the signed and dated defence is emailed as an attachment to the CCBC after its been approved for submission by a few knowledgeable members on here

the CCBC do much more than just file it !!!

once you have done the research and put up a defence draft , people may analyse your questions from post #1 and make further suggestions, until then I doubt you will get an answer because at the moment you have not done what I said and read the links or the NEWBIES post #2 or the BARGEPOLE posts either

I know this due to the questions you are asking

to be blunt , do the research first , read maybe 10 or 20 other defences from this year alone (nothing older) , then draft your defence and post it on here , minus personal info and no reference numbers or VRM details in it for now

I gave you 3 links to start with (and told you to read that post #2 about court claims too), most people are told to find similar defence threads for themselves after reading that post #2

its all work in progress and you do the work, then you get feedback

I tell it like it is so I can assure you that the best advice you will get is when you have done the above, same as everyone else is told to do

your "questions" come later on in the process when tweaking the draft defence , but most defences rely on legal arguments , so are all similar in content

at this early stage I ignored your questions because no draft was posted plus no in depth research had been done on here and so I pointed out the initial steps you must take , plus I told you what the completed defence needs (like signing and dating and scanning)

JohnAllan

I'm not looking for someone to write my defence. I'm fully capable of sourcing the relevant parts from the links provided. The only advice I really need at this stage is about which direction to go with defending myself. Please don't waste anymore time detailing what I should be doing as I already know the relevant processes. I am only looking for direction.

Redx

sorry to see I am "wasting your time"

with that attitude I dont think you will get many replies

you appear to want a volunteer working for free to legally analyse post #1 in depth and provide legal answers to your questions after maybe an hours study of just your case alone

I told you what needs to be done, same as others are told the same advise

the correct reply was

"thank you redx for such a swift reply including links to similar cases and to the information thread. I will do as you said and post a working draft once I have composed one after I have done the further research you mentioned"

but hey ho, its your "funeral" , I will just carry on helping others who are more receptive to the general advice on offer and where I am not wasting their time or my own time

JohnAllan

sorry to see I am "wasting your time"

You're not wasting my time. I was concerned about you wasting your own.

Thanks for the help Redx.

Coupon-mad

Unoffically ''approved'' by us, is what we mean!

I’ve since spoken to my friend who has studied law and his advice was to explain that no sign was visible to me regarding contractual spaces. We’ve spoke a little more and have decided that because the claim details on the claim form do not describe the reason, rather it just states that I had breached the terms...

At this stage you send no evidence or attachments, but you must cover all the bases that you might want to rely on later at the hearing. So you will see that Gladstones case defences here often start with some preliminary matters, pointing out to the court that the Particulars of Claim are woefully inadequate, asking the court to strike the claim out.

And we normally have paragraphs denying liability under the POFA and pointing out that even if the court finds that the keeper can be held liable for this, the maximum charge that Schedule 4 allows to be recovered is the sum on the Notice to Keeper letter (£100), no additional costs because that would be double recovery and was not recovered in the Beavis case (only £85, the charge itself). And in this case, no additional costs were specified as a sum, on the signs, if any were there warning of any no parking zone.

Then a paragraph about the signs - like your friend said. There will have been standard signs up (certainly) but no prominent ones to tell the driver that this area was a temporary no-parking zone. No signs and lines were seen to even suggest that, and this goes against the IPC CoP which says operators should add extra signs if they are either in a new site, or if restrictions have changed recently.

Clearly a temporary requisitioning of normally-used spaces is a big change and would need big signs/lines (cite Lord Denning's Red Hand Rule).

And if this area was meant to be a no parking zone then there can have been no offer to park there. That would be a perverse situation: ''these spaces are for builders only, no parking, but if you pay ScammersRus £100 we will let you do what we've just prohibited''! That has been covered before, in defences about prohibitive signs, and the case about it (County court only, so not case law but we have a transcript) is PCM v Bull and others.

We know you didn't see the sign about the prohibition on parking there (if there was one) but your defence should move on in steps, so after arguing that the driver didn't see any such sign/lines, the next bit says:

''Even if the court finds that signs prohibiting parking were adjacent to the vehicle, it is confidently argued that these cannot have been prominent...blah blah...no contract formed...''

then next logical step:

''Even if the court finds there were prominent signs, the Defendant avers that a prohibition on parking cannot also be a contractual offer to do that which is forbidden, for a 'charge'...blah blah...PCM v Bull (read it in the Parking Prankster's case law pages and it's Blogged about here) and the transcript you will need later, in evidence with your Witness Statement:

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/pcm-uk-signage-does-not-create-contract.html

But Judges don't always like the 'forbidding signs' argument, so you also need safety nets in the form of more defence points that feasibly could win the day, such as putting the Claimant to strict proof of their contract with the retailer/landowner. I would be specifically saying that it is believed that, if the Claimant has a contract flowing from the landowner, it is only a bare licence at best, and authority only to issue tickets to drivers who fail to pay and display. The driver did not fail to pay and display, and so the Defendant avers that there was not only no breach of contract of terms on any prominent signs but also there was no breach that was authorised by the landowner, and the Claimant appears to have invented new reasons to ticket drivers that are not covered by their contract with the site landowner.

Then (next logical step in the defence from that):

''Even if the court is minded to believe that this site could, in theory, charge money for an issue such as this one (unrelated to the pay and display 'rules') then in any case, this would be an issue falling only under the tort of trespass, a matter which remains in the gift of the landowner themselves only. Then talk about how the ParkingEye v Beavis case at the Supreme Court, reiterated the trite law fact that ParkingEye could not have charged anything for trespass because they suffered no loss and were not the party in possession of the land.

Add other Beavis case stuff you see in defences, such as the point that ParkingEye only escaped their charge being held to be an unrecoverable and unenforceable penalty because they showed that their charge was a contractually agreed sum, which underpinned a business model with a compelling legitimate interest and commercial justification, driven by the legitimate need to ensure regular turnover of parking bays in a free car park. They granted a licence to park, with a £85 charge when that licence expired - but this case can be fully distinguished and must turn on its own unique facts.

And the quote about 'it can be fairly said that in the absence of agreement on the charge'... ParkingEye could not have recovered anything. And in this case there was no 'agreement on the charge' and the driver in fact fulfilled what they reasonably understood to be the contract in that parking space, by paying and displaying.

I've also gave them my updated address, so any further correspondence will come straight to me.

Given the CCBC the new address? You also need to email that to Gladstones and could take the opportunity to robustly tell them as well that you have submitted your defence and that you will win because the Claimant, their client, has no cause of action and failed the requirement for clear contractual signs, among other issues with the claim which is obviously without merit and a vexatious and unreasonable pursuit of a punitive sum that was never agreed by the driver, who paid and displayed.

Don't offer money to settle, in that email! This is winnable in defence.

then I should send a photograph of my valid ticket to them explaining I had paid for a ticket and take it from there.

Not yet; the ticket (when you find it) is part of the evidence that you submit with your later Witness Statement, before the hearing, when you get your court date.

Stick around throughout - those here who win (and 99% do) are those who don't just grab a defence and run (hoping it will all go away) but it's those posters who come back and get ''forum approval''(!) of their WS and evidence as well, then also come back to get tips and advice about how to play the hearing...right at the end.

The court reports of wins prove it.

JohnAllan

Wow. Thank you very much. I have some questions, but this is an incredible start for me. I will respond properly very shortly.

JohnAllan

Thank you again for the advice. I have a few questions if you don’t mind.

Am I to mention the phone call which determined why the notice was issued? If so, shall I include this at the beginning of my defence?

Is it advisable to cite previous cases even if I have not read them? Does it work in my favour to remind / advise the judge (or whoever reads these cases at a ‘county court business centre’)?

I will contact Gladstones to let them know my address change and as you say to ‘robustly tell them that I will be submitting my defence…’ Will an email to them be ok for this?

Would there be a chance they revoke the case knowing that I am defending myself? I’ve read online that they may not want to incur any further costs for themselves if they know I will be defending.

If it gets revoked / or even goes all the way and I win, would the parking company attempt to use another solicitors to continue trying to get the money from me?

Should I ever be bothered about bailiffs turning up, or would that only happen if I lose and the court order me to pay, but I don’t pay? Or can bailiffs be hired by the parking company or the solicitors?

I will begin to craft my defence now using your direction and some bits I have collected from another thread. Thank you.

JohnAllan

I have drafted an email / letter (whichever you recommend) to the solicitors. I would be happy to receive your comments on the following...

To Solicitors,

You contacted me via post regarding a parking notice for SIP Parking. I contacted SIP directly a few months ago to query this notice, as the driver of the vehicle did have a valid ticket on display. SIP informed me that the notice had been issued due to parking in an allocated space for contractual use. I have now received your claim from the county court. I’m writing to you today to let you know that I will be submitting a defence in the coming days. After seeking my own legal advice I will win - because your client has no cause of action and has failed the requirement for clear contractual signs, among other issues with the claim which is obviously without merit and a vexatious and unreasonable pursuit of a punitive sum that was never agreed by the driver, who had paid and displayed.

I have since changed address since your client bought my details from DLVA, so please direct all correspondence to my new address at..

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