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HELP! CEL County Court Business Centre Claim (x2)
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plymouth_damo
Posts: 33 Forumite
Hi MSE
I was wondering if you could help me.
Have just received a CCBC form from CEL for what I am assuming is a a parking infringement but to be honest the claim is from so long ago I can't remember.
I have read the newbies thread, here is the particulars of the claim:
Will put all the particulars of claim below:
Outstanding Debt and damages
DATE-DESCRIPTION-AMOUNT-DUE DATE
17/08/15 ref********** 236.00 18/08/15
Total Due-236.00
(ref:ce-service website URL or Tel:01158225020)
The claimant claims the sum of 276.19 for
outstanding debt and damages
including 40.19 interest pursuant to
s.69 if the county courts Act 1984
Rate 8.00% pa from dates above to - 02/10/17
Same rate to judgement or (sooner) payment
Daily rate to judgement- 0.05
Total debt and interest due - 276.19
I will provide the defendant with separate detailed particulars within 14 days after service of the claim form.
Honestly I have no knowledge or recollection of this infringement, its possible they have written to me in the past regarding this but I tend to ignore all civil parking letters of claim, but I have no recollection of such correspondence being received. I have also since sold that vehicle so am referring to the vehicle I had at the time of alleged claim in my draft defence.
THEY HAVE ACTUALLY CLAIMED THIS ON TWO SEPARATE CCBC Claim forms with DIFFERENT claim numbers (same reference and amounts)
I have acknowledged service on BOTH claims extending my deadline to the 28 days via MCOL (and the guidelines on the AOS thread).
I have found the template CEL defence (June 17) and was wondering if you could help me tailor it, particularly as I have no recollection of any of the details of this infringement and also the fact they have sent out 2 claims, would i need to defend both with the same defence or defend one and claim DUPLICATION on the other?
In the County Court Business Centre
Claim Number: ***********
Between:
Civil Enforcement Limited v ************
Defence Statement
I am *************, the defendant in this matter and was the registered keeper of vehicle ***********. I currently reside at ********************.
I deny I am liable for the entirety of the claim for each of the following reasons:
1. The Claim Form issued on the *************** by Civil Enforcement Limited was not
correctly filed under The Practice Direction as it was not signed by a legal person but signed by “Civil Enforcement Limited (Claimant’s Legal Representative)”.
2. This Claimant has not complied with pre-court protocol. And as an example as to why this prevents a full defence being filed at this time, a parking charge can be for trespass, breach of contract or a contractual charge. All these are treated differently in law and require a different defence. The wording of any contract will naturally be a key element in this matter, and a copy of the alleged contract has never been provided to the Defendant.
a) There was no compliant ‘Letter before County Court Claim’, under the Practice Direction.
b) This is a speculative serial litigant, issuing a large number of identical 'draft particulars'. The badly mail-merged documents contain very little information.
c) The Schedule of information is sparse of detailed information.
d) The Claim form Particulars were extremely sparse and divulged no cause of action nor sufficient detail. The Defendant has no idea what the claim is about - why the charge arose, what the alleged contract was; nothing that could be considered a fair exchange of information. The Claim form Particulars did not contain any evidence of contravention or photographs.
e) The Defence therefore asks the Court to strike out the claim as having no reasonable prospect of success as currently drafted.
f) Alternatively, the Defendant asks that the Claimant is required to file Particulars which comply with Practice Directions and include at least the following information;
(i) Whether the matter is being brought for trespass, breach of contract or a contractual charge, and an explanation as to the exact nature of the charge
(ii) A copy of any contract it is alleged was in place (e.g. copies of signage)
(iii) How any contract was concluded (if by performance, then copies of signage maps in place at the time)
(iv) Whether keeper liability is being claimed, and if so copies of any Notice to Driver / Notice to Keeper
(v) Whether the Claimant is acting as Agent or Principal, together with a list of documents they will rely on in this matter
(vi) If charges over and above the initial charge are being claimed, the basis on which this is being claimed
(vii) If Interest charges are being claimed, the basis on which this is being claimed
g) Once these Particulars have been filed, the Defendant asks for reasonable time to file another defence.
3. The Claimant failed to meet the Notice to Keeper obligations of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. Absent such a notice served within 14 days of the parking event and with fully compliant statutory wording, this Claimant is unable to hold me liable under the strict ‘keeper liability’ provisions.!
Schedule 4 also states that the only sum a keeper can be pursued for (if Schedule 4 is fully complied with, which it was not, and if there was a 'relevant obligation' and relevant contract' fairly and adequately communicated, which there was not as there was no clear, transparent information about how to obtain a permit either inside or outside the site) is the sum on the Notice to Keeper. They cannot pluck another sum from thin air and bolt that on as well when neither the signs, nor the NTK, nor the permit information mentioned a possible £276.19 for outstanding debt and damages.
4. The Claimant has added unrecoverable sums to the original parking charge. It is believed that the employee who drew up the paperwork is remunerated and the particulars of claim are templates, so it is simply not credible that £40.19 and I deny the Claimant is entitled to any interest whatsoever.
5. This case can be distinguished from ParkingEye v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 (the Beavis case) which was dependent upon an undenied contract, formed by unusually prominent signage forming a clear offer and which turned on unique facts regarding the location and the interests of the landowner. Strict compliance with the BPA Code of Practice (CoP) was paramount and Mr. Beavis was the driver who saw the signs and entered into a contract to pay £85 after exceeding a licence to park free. None of this applies in this material case.
6. In the absence of any proof of adequate signage that contractually bound the Defendant then there can have been no contract and the Claimant has no case.
a) The Claimant is put to strict proof that at the time of the alleged event they had both advertisement consent and the permission from the site owner to display the signs.
b) In the absence of strict proof I submit that the Claimant was committing an offence by displaying their signs and therefore no contract could have been entered into between the driver and the Claimant.!
c) Inadequate signs incapable of binding the driver - this distinguishes this case from the Beavis case:
(i) Sporadic and illegible (charge not prominent nor large lettering) of site/entrance signage - breach of the POFA 2012 Schedule 4 and the BPA Code of Practice and no contract formed to pay any clearly stated sum.
(ii) Non existent ANPR 'data use' signage - breach of ICO rules and the BPA Code of Practice.
(iii) It is believed the signage and any terms were not transparent or legible; this is an unfair contract, not agreed by the driver and contrary to the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in requiring a huge inflated sum as 'compensation' from by an authorised party using the premises as intended.
(iv) No promise was made by the driver that could constitute consideration because there was no offer known nor accepted. No consideration flowed from the Claimant.
(v) The signs are believed to have no mention of any debt collection additional charge, which cannot form part of any alleged contract.
d) BPA CoP breaches - this distinguishes this case from the Beavis case:!
(i) the signs were not compliant in terms of the font size, lighting or positioning.
(ii) the sum pursued exceeds £100.
(iii) there is / was no compliant landowner contract.
7. No standing - this distinguishes this case from the Beavis case:
It is believed Civil Enforcement do not hold a legitimate contract at this car park. As an agent, the Claimant has no legal right to bring such a claim in their name which should be in the name of the landowner.
8. No legitimate interest - this distinguishes this case from the Beavis case:
This Claimant files serial claims regarding sites where they have lost the contract, known as revenge claims and it believed this is one such case. This is not a legitimate reason to pursue a charge out of proportion with any loss or damages the true landowner could pursue.!
9. The Beavis case confirmed the fact that, if it is a matter of trespass (not breach of any contract), a parking firm has no standing as a non-landowner to pursue even nominal damages.
10. The charge is an unenforceable penalty based upon a lack of commercial justification. The Beavis case confirmed that the penalty rule is certainly engaged in any case of a private parking charge and was only disengaged due to the unique circumstances of that case, which do not resemble this claim.
11. In the Beavis case, Mr Beavis was an admitted driver who accepted that he had seen the signs and that a contract existed. None of those facts match this matter.
12. Due to the length of time, the Defendant has little to no recollection of the days in question, which were unremarkable. It would not be reasonable to expect a registered keeper to be able to recall the potential driver(s) of the car some years later. In any case, there is no such obligation in law and this was confirmed in the POPLA Annual Report 2015 by parking expert barrister and Lead Adjudicator, Henry Greenslade, who also clarified the fact that registered keeper can only be held liable under the POFA Schedule 4 and not by presumption or any other legal argument.
The Defendant denies any liability whatsoever to the Claimant in any matter and asks the Court to note that the Claimant has:
(a) Failed to disclose any cause of action in the incorrectly filed Claim Form issued on 3rd October 2017.
(b) Sent a template, well-known to be generic cut and paste 'Particulars' of claim relying on irrelevant case law (Beavis) which ignores the fact that this Claimant cannot hold registered keepers liable in law, due to their own choice of non-POFA documentation.
The vague Particulars of Claim disclose no clear cause of action. The court is invited to strike out the claim of its own volition as having no merit and no reasonable prospects of success.
I confirm that the above facts and statements are true to the best of my knowledge and recollection.
Signed
Date
(Please please, and help and advice would be gratefully received!)
I was wondering if you could help me.
Have just received a CCBC form from CEL for what I am assuming is a a parking infringement but to be honest the claim is from so long ago I can't remember.
I have read the newbies thread, here is the particulars of the claim:
Will put all the particulars of claim below:
Outstanding Debt and damages
DATE-DESCRIPTION-AMOUNT-DUE DATE
17/08/15 ref********** 236.00 18/08/15
Total Due-236.00
(ref:ce-service website URL or Tel:01158225020)
The claimant claims the sum of 276.19 for
outstanding debt and damages
including 40.19 interest pursuant to
s.69 if the county courts Act 1984
Rate 8.00% pa from dates above to - 02/10/17
Same rate to judgement or (sooner) payment
Daily rate to judgement- 0.05
Total debt and interest due - 276.19
I will provide the defendant with separate detailed particulars within 14 days after service of the claim form.
Honestly I have no knowledge or recollection of this infringement, its possible they have written to me in the past regarding this but I tend to ignore all civil parking letters of claim, but I have no recollection of such correspondence being received. I have also since sold that vehicle so am referring to the vehicle I had at the time of alleged claim in my draft defence.
THEY HAVE ACTUALLY CLAIMED THIS ON TWO SEPARATE CCBC Claim forms with DIFFERENT claim numbers (same reference and amounts)
I have acknowledged service on BOTH claims extending my deadline to the 28 days via MCOL (and the guidelines on the AOS thread).
I have found the template CEL defence (June 17) and was wondering if you could help me tailor it, particularly as I have no recollection of any of the details of this infringement and also the fact they have sent out 2 claims, would i need to defend both with the same defence or defend one and claim DUPLICATION on the other?
In the County Court Business Centre
Claim Number: ***********
Between:
Civil Enforcement Limited v ************
Defence Statement
I am *************, the defendant in this matter and was the registered keeper of vehicle ***********. I currently reside at ********************.
I deny I am liable for the entirety of the claim for each of the following reasons:
1. The Claim Form issued on the *************** by Civil Enforcement Limited was not
correctly filed under The Practice Direction as it was not signed by a legal person but signed by “Civil Enforcement Limited (Claimant’s Legal Representative)”.
2. This Claimant has not complied with pre-court protocol. And as an example as to why this prevents a full defence being filed at this time, a parking charge can be for trespass, breach of contract or a contractual charge. All these are treated differently in law and require a different defence. The wording of any contract will naturally be a key element in this matter, and a copy of the alleged contract has never been provided to the Defendant.
a) There was no compliant ‘Letter before County Court Claim’, under the Practice Direction.
b) This is a speculative serial litigant, issuing a large number of identical 'draft particulars'. The badly mail-merged documents contain very little information.
c) The Schedule of information is sparse of detailed information.
d) The Claim form Particulars were extremely sparse and divulged no cause of action nor sufficient detail. The Defendant has no idea what the claim is about - why the charge arose, what the alleged contract was; nothing that could be considered a fair exchange of information. The Claim form Particulars did not contain any evidence of contravention or photographs.
e) The Defence therefore asks the Court to strike out the claim as having no reasonable prospect of success as currently drafted.
f) Alternatively, the Defendant asks that the Claimant is required to file Particulars which comply with Practice Directions and include at least the following information;
(i) Whether the matter is being brought for trespass, breach of contract or a contractual charge, and an explanation as to the exact nature of the charge
(ii) A copy of any contract it is alleged was in place (e.g. copies of signage)
(iii) How any contract was concluded (if by performance, then copies of signage maps in place at the time)
(iv) Whether keeper liability is being claimed, and if so copies of any Notice to Driver / Notice to Keeper
(v) Whether the Claimant is acting as Agent or Principal, together with a list of documents they will rely on in this matter
(vi) If charges over and above the initial charge are being claimed, the basis on which this is being claimed
(vii) If Interest charges are being claimed, the basis on which this is being claimed
g) Once these Particulars have been filed, the Defendant asks for reasonable time to file another defence.
3. The Claimant failed to meet the Notice to Keeper obligations of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. Absent such a notice served within 14 days of the parking event and with fully compliant statutory wording, this Claimant is unable to hold me liable under the strict ‘keeper liability’ provisions.!
Schedule 4 also states that the only sum a keeper can be pursued for (if Schedule 4 is fully complied with, which it was not, and if there was a 'relevant obligation' and relevant contract' fairly and adequately communicated, which there was not as there was no clear, transparent information about how to obtain a permit either inside or outside the site) is the sum on the Notice to Keeper. They cannot pluck another sum from thin air and bolt that on as well when neither the signs, nor the NTK, nor the permit information mentioned a possible £276.19 for outstanding debt and damages.
4. The Claimant has added unrecoverable sums to the original parking charge. It is believed that the employee who drew up the paperwork is remunerated and the particulars of claim are templates, so it is simply not credible that £40.19 and I deny the Claimant is entitled to any interest whatsoever.
5. This case can be distinguished from ParkingEye v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 (the Beavis case) which was dependent upon an undenied contract, formed by unusually prominent signage forming a clear offer and which turned on unique facts regarding the location and the interests of the landowner. Strict compliance with the BPA Code of Practice (CoP) was paramount and Mr. Beavis was the driver who saw the signs and entered into a contract to pay £85 after exceeding a licence to park free. None of this applies in this material case.
6. In the absence of any proof of adequate signage that contractually bound the Defendant then there can have been no contract and the Claimant has no case.
a) The Claimant is put to strict proof that at the time of the alleged event they had both advertisement consent and the permission from the site owner to display the signs.
b) In the absence of strict proof I submit that the Claimant was committing an offence by displaying their signs and therefore no contract could have been entered into between the driver and the Claimant.!
c) Inadequate signs incapable of binding the driver - this distinguishes this case from the Beavis case:
(i) Sporadic and illegible (charge not prominent nor large lettering) of site/entrance signage - breach of the POFA 2012 Schedule 4 and the BPA Code of Practice and no contract formed to pay any clearly stated sum.
(ii) Non existent ANPR 'data use' signage - breach of ICO rules and the BPA Code of Practice.
(iii) It is believed the signage and any terms were not transparent or legible; this is an unfair contract, not agreed by the driver and contrary to the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in requiring a huge inflated sum as 'compensation' from by an authorised party using the premises as intended.
(iv) No promise was made by the driver that could constitute consideration because there was no offer known nor accepted. No consideration flowed from the Claimant.
(v) The signs are believed to have no mention of any debt collection additional charge, which cannot form part of any alleged contract.
d) BPA CoP breaches - this distinguishes this case from the Beavis case:!
(i) the signs were not compliant in terms of the font size, lighting or positioning.
(ii) the sum pursued exceeds £100.
(iii) there is / was no compliant landowner contract.
7. No standing - this distinguishes this case from the Beavis case:
It is believed Civil Enforcement do not hold a legitimate contract at this car park. As an agent, the Claimant has no legal right to bring such a claim in their name which should be in the name of the landowner.
8. No legitimate interest - this distinguishes this case from the Beavis case:
This Claimant files serial claims regarding sites where they have lost the contract, known as revenge claims and it believed this is one such case. This is not a legitimate reason to pursue a charge out of proportion with any loss or damages the true landowner could pursue.!
9. The Beavis case confirmed the fact that, if it is a matter of trespass (not breach of any contract), a parking firm has no standing as a non-landowner to pursue even nominal damages.
10. The charge is an unenforceable penalty based upon a lack of commercial justification. The Beavis case confirmed that the penalty rule is certainly engaged in any case of a private parking charge and was only disengaged due to the unique circumstances of that case, which do not resemble this claim.
11. In the Beavis case, Mr Beavis was an admitted driver who accepted that he had seen the signs and that a contract existed. None of those facts match this matter.
12. Due to the length of time, the Defendant has little to no recollection of the days in question, which were unremarkable. It would not be reasonable to expect a registered keeper to be able to recall the potential driver(s) of the car some years later. In any case, there is no such obligation in law and this was confirmed in the POPLA Annual Report 2015 by parking expert barrister and Lead Adjudicator, Henry Greenslade, who also clarified the fact that registered keeper can only be held liable under the POFA Schedule 4 and not by presumption or any other legal argument.
The Defendant denies any liability whatsoever to the Claimant in any matter and asks the Court to note that the Claimant has:
(a) Failed to disclose any cause of action in the incorrectly filed Claim Form issued on 3rd October 2017.
(b) Sent a template, well-known to be generic cut and paste 'Particulars' of claim relying on irrelevant case law (Beavis) which ignores the fact that this Claimant cannot hold registered keepers liable in law, due to their own choice of non-POFA documentation.
The vague Particulars of Claim disclose no clear cause of action. The court is invited to strike out the claim of its own volition as having no merit and no reasonable prospects of success.
I confirm that the above facts and statements are true to the best of my knowledge and recollection.
Signed
Date
(Please please, and help and advice would be gratefully received!)
0
Comments
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can anyone please help with this....particularly the fact its been submitted as TWO SEPARATE DUPLICATE claims...can someone take a look at my defence above and also advise about how i go about defending the two separate claims....do I just put the same defence twice or do I put a separate defence for one of them claiming duplication?0
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So have they issued 2 claims for the same "infringement" or is this 2 separate case?0
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PPCs use stock wording. Check very carefully that the date/times of the infringement in the particulars of claim section are not different. If they are different dates/times you are obviously defending two claims.
If there is duplication, you should write the the claimant and invite them to serve a notice of discontinuance in respect of one within 7 days, facing which you will apply to strike out the duplicate as an abuse of process and a waste of court resources - for which you will also claim the costs of the application.0 -
So have they issued 2 claims for the same "infringement" or is this 2 separate case?
so this is 2 claims for the same Infringement (the reference number in the particulars of claim are identical, but the claim numbers on the CCBC forms are different.
Is there a line in my defence I can put in to deal with this (and to reinforce the 'template' defence?0 -
PPCs use stock wording. Check very carefully that the date/times of the infringement in the particulars of claim section are not different. If they are different dates/times you are obviously defending two claims.
If there is duplication, you should write the the claimant and invite them to serve a notice of discontinuance in respect of one within 7 days, facing which you will apply to strike out the duplicate as an abuse of process and a waste of court resources - for which you will also claim the costs of the application.
I can do that, but assuming they don't respond or don't do that, obviously time is ticking so can i put something in my defence to also reference this duplication and if so do I put the same defence (including this part) in both claims?0 -
looking at the overall defence, how does this look? Also bearing in mind in the particulars section they say they were forward more particulars of this claim within 14 days, the claims were issued on the 3rd so this date has now passed on no further information has been received from the claimant...can i put this in the defence also?0
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Given this wording
Have you now received by post direct from the claimant the complete Particulars of claim? You are under no time pressure to prepare a defence until served with complete Particulars. That may shed more light on matters.I will provide the defendant with separate detailed particulars within 14 days after service of the claim form.
Assuming two claims continue to be erroneously brought, in ONE only of the two separate defences you will need to prepare (I suggest the one which was issued second) I would add the additional wording in italics below. For clarity I would have headings for each date of alleged infringement in the multiple ticket defence.
Ticket issued on [date]
Res Judicata
This matter is already subject to separate proceedings issued by the claimant at the Northampton County Court under claim number XX17XXX. The Defendant avers that this part of the claim is duplicative of those existing proceedings, is vexatious in its current form and concerns issues likely to have been determined by another court by the date of trial. The claimant should not be permitted to bring this part of the claim.
0 -
Date of service is 5 days after the issue date so they still have time issue the PoC.I will provide the defendant with separate detailed particulars within 14 days after service of the claim form
Other than that do as Johnersh says. Will be interesting to see what happens with this0 -
Date of service is 5 days after the issue date so they still have time issue the PoC.
Other than that do as Johnersh says. Will be interesting to see what happens with this
So 14 days after date of service has now passed, still no written particulars received (for either claim number). Can I put this into my defence to strength it?0 -
Given this wording
Have you now received by post direct from the claimant the complete Particulars of claim? You are under no time pressure to prepare a defence until served with complete Particulars. That may shed more light on matters.
Assuming two claims continue to be erroneously brought, in ONE only of the two separate defences you will need to prepare (I suggest the one which was issued second) I would add the additional wording in italics below. For clarity I would have headings for each date of alleged infringement in the multiple ticket defence.
Ticket issued on [date]
Res Judicata
This matter is already subject to separate proceedings issued by the claimant at the Northampton County Court under claim number XX17XXX. The Defendant avers that this part of the claim is duplicative of those existing proceedings, is vexatious in its current form and concerns issues likely to have been determined by another court by the date of trial. The claimant should not be permitted to bring this part of the claim.
THANKYOU, this is very useful and will add it into my existing defence. Will post here before submitting as just want to get clarity also on the fact I haven't received the 'detailed particulars' within 14 days as they stated I would, obviously this will strengthen the defence but not quite sure how to word that.0
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