Parking charge

Anonysmith

Hi there guys, I'm in a bit of a situation, I have received a notice from a debt collector though I have never received a notice from the car park controller. As soon as I got this I raised a complaint to the sport centre that employs them as during my previous visit a couple of years ago, they did not have a parking operator in place. I hadn't seen the sign outside as it was in march at night and the sign at the entrance is obscured from view by a bigger sign as I turn onto the road prior to the turning into the car park. The sign is on the left and faces mostly towards the road prior to the turning. I had missed this completely and when I parked I went in through the fire exit that most people enter when open. The sport centre manager has said that they can't do anything as it's at the debt collection stage and the debt collectors had advised that it could be cancelled if I contact the car park controller yet the number that I called which said it had operators to talk to during normal working hours cuts me off after I put the car parking charge number saying it is now with the debt collectors. They have an email address which is for reporting car park abuse but nothing else other than an address but I don't feel that writing a letter will help me with pleading my case. I have used a template letter and reworded it to fit my case and I will post the correspondence following this. Any advice on further steps to take would be of great help. Thanks in advance for any help.

Anonysmith

Dear Sirs

Parking Charge Number XXXXXXXXXX

I refer to your letter of 28/09/17, and earlier correspondence.

Firstly, I have no intention of paying the money demanded by your client, and any court proceedings will be vigorously defended.

Second, should it be your client's intention to start court proceedings, they must provide a Letter Before Claim which complies with the requirements of Annex A Para 2 of the Practice Direction on Pre-action Conduct:

Please also note that a failure and/or refusal to comply with the Practice Direction will result in a complaint being made to the court and an application for a stay of the action and costs pursuant to the provisions of paragraph 4 of the Practice Direction on non-compliance and sanctions.

In the meantime, you should note that this charge is disputed as I had not received any prior notice of charge until this stage, and you must now refer this matter back to your client and cease and desist all further contact with me. Failure to do so will result in a complaint to the Credit Services Association.

I trust that I have made myself clear.

Yours faithfully

Anonysmith

Good afternoon

Thank you for your email, your comments have been noted accordingly.

Please note that we work solely on the instruction of our client. Our client has confirmed that all the correspondence has been sent and the account has progressed correctly.

Our instruction remains to pursue the full balance of £200.

Without payment, the account will progress and further charges may apply.

Kind regards

Anonysmith

Can you contact your client and ask them for any and all evidence they have so I can review and consider my next steps. As I have stated, your letter was the first and they state it was not. For myself to be afforded reasonable time and consideration of the claim, I request this information. As they are not reachable on my behalf and you seemingly can and stating in your letter that you are "here to help" then I make this request to you as you are acting as the intermediary. Regards,

Quentin

Before starting a new thread everyone is politely asked to read the newbies faq thread and then start a thread if they have further questions


You should go there now to familiarise yourself with this "game"


Advice on debt collectors is ignore them!!


Also advice is never reveal who was driving, so edit your posts to remove those details, and of course your name etc!!


The ppcs monitor here and can use your posts against you

Anonysmith

Further to the email I just sent, I would like you to inform your client that their charge is for an alleged 'breach of the terms and conditions' and yet clearly it is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss. As such, this is a breach of the BPA Code of Practice. As no loss has been established whatsoever, this charge is also unenforceable in contract law and indeed the Office of Fair trading stated to your Trade Body the BPA Ltd that a 'parking charge' is not automatically recoverable simply because it is stated to be a parking charge, as it cannot be used to state a loss where none exists. Parking charges cannot include tax-deductible business costs for running a parking company, such as site signage and maintenance, staff employment, membership fees, postage, etc. It should not be recoverable as it is being enforced purely as a penalty. The fact that the 'charge' is fixed at the same cost, whether the allegation is a serious matter of obstruction or a trifling matter (such as a few minutes perceived overstay) shows it to be merely a penalty where no loss exists.

Your clients charge has no 'commercial justification' because it is punitive, relies on obfuscation by a mere agent with no standing nor authority and it is not in the legitimate interest of your clients principal to proceed. A complaint has already been lodged with civil enforcement Ltd's client and will be escalated if they do not cancel this charge.

I was a genuine customer and yet you have never made it clear that this would have exempted myself for any charge, if i had known their secret 'user manual' terms in the landholder contract. This is a misleading omission - an unfair, hidden but vital term which must be communicated at the point of alleged contract - and therefore any alleged contract causing loss or detriment to me is unenforceable.

Your clients signage is not sufficient to create a contract between civil enforcement ltd and the motorist because it is unreadable, being obscured by a large sign owned by the hospital out of my line of vision on arrival, before parking also due to the sign having no lighting attached as my time of entry to the sports facility as a customer at 20:59 in pitch darkness. Not only does this, once again, breach the BPA Code of Practice on mandatory entrance signs but it fails to create any contract at all when a driver does not see the terms before parking, as in this case.

I consider there is reasonable doubt that you're client has written authorisation in place with the landowner, specifically allowing them to form contracts with drivers and to pursue unpaid charges to court in your clients own name. I believe your clients contract has clauses similar to the contract in ParkingEye v Somerfield where ParkingEye were a mere agent. This is confirmed by the lost court claims in ParkingEye v Gardam and ParkingEye v Sharma, where the District Judges scrutinised Parking eye's basic contract and found ParkingEye to be an agent with no standing. Clearly I will require sight of your unredacted contract to make an informed decision about my position, prior to any proceedings and I will consider the fact you are withholding this vital information as proof of inherent flaws in your case. A witness statement will not suffice and will no doubt raise more issues, as it has done in recent cases ParkingEye has lost or been forced to drop, e.g. ParkingEye v Walkden, ParkingEye v Byrne and ParkingEye v Barrett.


Resolution of the Dispute - ADR (popla)

I would suggest that this matter is resolved using the bespoke ADR for private parking, POPLA, to save your wasted costs and the court's precious time. The above points can be considered to represent my appeal points in order to prompt a rejection letter and POPLA code now. If we use POPLA, as you are aware your costs will be a mere tax-deductible £27. If you use the court, then you will incur further costs, including £15 filing fee, £25 hearing fee, and approximately £250 as costs payable for your legal representative from LPC Law or other firm.

Failure to agree to my offer of both parties abiding by a POPLA decision would be evidence of civil enforcement Ltd failing to mitigate the alleged loss which I will draw the court's attention along with any unreasonable behaviour, obfuscation and delay. I will also invite the Judge to apply the principle of Halsey v Milton Keynes General NHS Trust [2004] EWCA Civ 576 regarding costs.

If you're client rejects this resolution and proceeds to court I will robustly oppose any costs over £27 and will in my first defence statement, ask the court to stay the case and insist on a POPLA decision instead. POPLA have confirmed that a code can be issued by the operator at any time. The 28 days is merely a time limit that starts when the code is generated and sent to the motorist and I will state this fact to the court if civil enforcement Ltd or yourselves suggest otherwise.

There is a compelling initial order, in the Croydon County Court where a similar claim by ParkingEye has been stayed by order of the court and they were required to issue a POPLA code instead. I will point that out to the court at the earliest opportunity along with your refusal to mitigate your clients loss and consider the obviously appropriate ADR.

Please do not send me a generic template letter which does not address my requests for information because I shall send all correspondence to the Solicitors Regulation Authority and ask it to investigate your breach of the Principles set out in the SRA Handbook version 8, published on 1st October 2013.

I look forward to hearing from you within 14 days with either:

- the documents you're client intends to rely upon in these proceedings including your clients unredacted landholder contract and user manual,

or

- a rejection of the points raised above along with a POPLA code, and the unredacted landholder contract and user manual

or

- confirmation that this matter is not proceeding and the charge is cancelled.


yours,

Anonysmith

Good afternoon,

Thank you for your email, your comments have been noted accordingly.

Please be advised that all evidence will be provided in the case of litigation.

The signage on site has been approved by the British Parking Association meaning that it has met all the critera needed in order to be displayed on site.

It is the driver's responsibility to always ensure that they adhere to the terms and conditions displayed on the site. If you do not agree with the terms and conditions you must seek alternative parking. Because you did not adhere to the terms and conditions displayed and therefore you have been issued this Parking Charge Notice correctly.

Please note, as this account has progressed to the debt recovery stage the options currently available are to either pay the outstanding balance in full or allow this account to progress accordingly.

We work solely on our client's instruction and that is to pursue the outstanding balance of £200. If no payment is received by the 27 October 2017, the account will be left to progress and further charges may apply.

Please contact our offices to arrange payment.

Kind regards,

Quentin

OP - follow the advice in #5 regarding remaining anonymous


The ppc will have no problem identifying you from all the unique to you clues you have posted!

Anonysmith

And finally I responded with: Can you please respond to all points raised as a generic answer will not suffice. You also advised me to contact your client yet they have made it virtually impossible to contact. Also they themselves have not responded to the message I have sent thus failing to allow me to argue my case and be afforded any way to defend my claim that this is unjust. Why has your client failed to allow me to do this? I also require on top of the evidence they with to rely on, the evidence that their signage at the time complied with the bpa. I refute the claim that their signage was adequate due to poor lighting and being obscured by other signage before entering the Cark park and I will be collecting evidence to support this. Again, I cannot agree to terms and conditions if I do not see them clearly when entering the car park and a contract cannot be formed on that basis. I repeat, I was a genuine customer and yet you have never made it clear that this would have exempted myself for any charge, if i had known their secret 'user manual' terms in the landholder contract. This is a misleading omission - an unfair, hidden but vital term which must be communicated at the point of alleged contract - and therefore any alleged contract causing loss or detriment to me is unenforceable. And having never received any prior notification before your own demand I consider that the first notification. Also again, I consider there is reasonable doubt that you're client has written authorisation in place with the landowner, specifically allowing them to form contracts with drivers and to pursue unpaid charges to court in your clients own name. I believe your clients contract has clauses similar to the contract in ParkingEye v Somerfield where ParkingEye were a mere agent. This is confirmed by the lost court claims in ParkingEye v Gardam and ParkingEye v Sharma, where the District Judges scrutinised Parking eye's basic contract and found ParkingEye to be an agent with no standing. Clearly I will require sight of your unredacted contract to make an informed decision about my position, prior to any proceedings and I will consider the fact you are withholding this vital information as proof of inherent flaws in your case. A witness statement will not suffice and will no doubt raise more issues, as it has done in recent cases ParkingEye has lost or been forced to drop, e.g. ParkingEye v Walkden, ParkingEye v Byrne and ParkingEye v Barrett.

Finally I repeat, and this will be the last time, Please do not send me a generic letter/response which does not address my requests for information because I shall send all correspondence to the Solicitors Regulation Authority and ask it to investigate your breach of the Principles set out in the SRA Handbook version 8, published on 1st October 2013.
I require all of my concerns, points and information requested to be answered and actioned in full as this is a serious matter and I am not prepared to pay the balance you believe I owe when I am not being afforded the right to defend my claim with your as you advised initially due to their lack of response and ability to provide a proper form of contact them via their website.
Yours,


I understand that some advise not contacting them but I felt at a loss due to the fact that the car park operator is virtually unreachable and hasn't responded to my message to them.

Anonysmith

Thanks, it's just frustrating that they are refusing to provide me with the information I've requested and being a genuine customer of the centre and my reasoning I feel I am justified to fight this. The lack of any correspondence from them prior to the debt recovery notice is even more frustrating. What's the legal standpoint with their claim that they had sent these out?

Quentin

If you read up on this in the newbies faq thread you will see you are now in the debt collectors/wait and see stage


All advice on what to do is in the faq


Ignore everything unless you get a court claim or mcol


If so come back at that time for advice on how to defend in court