Another CEL claim.

bails1964

In the County Court Business Centre
Claim Number:

---

Between:

Civil Enforcement Limited v

---

I am

---

, the defendant in this matter and previous 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 4/10/2017 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 (as outlined in the new Pre Action Protocol for Debt Claims, 1 October 2017). 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 £350.52 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 £50 'legal representative’s (or even admin) costs' were incurred. 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) 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.
(ii) 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.
(iv) 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.

The Defendant denies any liability whatsoever to the Claimant in any matter and asks the Court to note that the Claimant has:

(a) 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


The points about LBC and MCOL have been added here in point 2, can any suggest anything further? If not then I guess the defence is ready to be sent and the rest will be left for the witness statement as said above by KeithP.


Thanks for all the help so far.

bails1964

Also, since the keeper submitted the that they wanted to appeal the whole amount via the MCOL site, CEL have since sent a letter headed Particulars of Claim, is this normal?


Thanks.

nosferatu1001

Did your claim form state they would send further particulars?
If YES then you should not have acknowledged the claim until the particulars were sent (see the dozens of threads on CEL failing to sending particulars out right now) but it doesnt harm you

You will of course need to now make sure your defence deals with these, the ACTUAL PoC, and not the ones on the claim form

If NO then these are NOT the particulars of this specific claim, but a !!!! up by CEL. Another one. Formally, these should not be considered, and you should ONLY make reference tot the particulars served on the claim form.

bails1964

nosferatu1001 wrote: »

Did your claim form state they would send further particulars?
If YES then you should not have acknowledged the claim until the particulars were sent (see the dozens of threads on CEL failing to sending particulars out right now) but it doesnt harm you

You will of course need to now make sure your defence deals with these, the ACTUAL PoC, and not the ones on the claim form

If NO then these are NOT the particulars of this specific claim, but a !!!! up by CEL. Another one. Formally, these should not be considered, and you should ONLY make reference tot the particulars served on the claim form.

The only mention on the original claim form is stated under "Time allowed to reply to this claim" Where it then goes on to say "You must respond to this claim within 14 days of the day of service (or particulars of claim if served separately). Which they were as they arrived yesterday. If the keeper had waited for this PoC to arrive, then it would have fallen outside of the 14 day window as to which you have to respond if you are wanting to defend the claim?

KeithP

Were these words in the PoC box:

"I will serve additional Particulars of Claim within 14 days"

If so, read this post:

forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=73316652&postcount=38

bails1964

KeithP wrote: »

Were these words in the PoC box:

"I will serve additional Particulars of Claim within 14 days"

If so, read this post:

forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=73316652&postcount=38

Yes, that is stated.

bails1964

Okay, so far all the steps have been followed on how to defend the claim. On Friday, a letter was received with the "Notice of allocation to the small claims track" including a court time/date etc.


The letter also talks a lot about Mediation, is this something that should be accepted or not? I cant find any information online on this but I'm guessing it should be ignored? Is the next step to put together a witness statement and all documentation and hand this in 14 days before the hearing?


If anyone could advise on what to do next that would be great.


Thanks.

KeithP

Dealing with the Notice of Allocation is covered in Bargepole's walkthrough linked from post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ thread.

Post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ thread should be your first port of call with any queries at this stage.

Have you read any other CEL threads?

Have another look at that thread Redx pointed out to you back in October and see how that progressed.

bails1964

KeithP wrote: »

Dealing with the Notice of Allocation is covered in Bargepole's walkthrough linked from post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ thread.

Post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ thread should be your first port of call with any queries at this stage.

Have you read any other CEL threads?

Have another look at that thread Redx pointed out to you back in October and see how that progressed.

Yes, I have read that, point 5. of the bargepole thread does not mention anything about mediation.


The thread Redx posted is at a similar stage to this. One of their claims has been struck out, the other is waiting on allocation I presume.

Coupon-mad

the bargepole thread does not mention anything about mediation

Yes he does.