Help please! My small claims hearing against UKPC is in around 20 days...

nosferatu1001

You will not get your costs back for a solicitor. Almost no chance of that. You woul dhave to show the other side is unreasonable - see the reference to the CPR I gave you.

I am wary that your statement is "epic". Its more likely that it isnt "epic" but lengthy, rambling and will bore and / or annoy the court. You dont want this! You CAN share it here, and I do urge you to - it will let you refine it to a puncyy document. it is much harder to write concisely than verbosely, and the former is what youre after. I could be entirely wrong, however your closing sentence alone reads poorly.

"breach" of POFA is irrelevant when it comes to making a counterclaim, plus if you are already on your way to a court hearing you have missed that chance anyway! Concentrate on their claim first.

Chris1a

Very useful answers there Coupon-mad, thank you once again.

I will post a more detailed update later this evening, or tomorrow morning.
My 'epic' updated defence isn't that important now, as the claimant has responded to that with their evidence pack & a bunch of points in response to my statement.

I am in the process of ripping apart their evidence and have decided that I will just be representing myself at the hearing in March. Just waiting for the lease to come through from the land registry office, as that is the only piece of evidence I am missing at the moment, but they have assured me it is in the post and will arrive in time, before I have to submit my final witness statement in around 2 weeks time.

I will share my final statement with you all when possible so you can recommend amendments to that before I submit.

There are so many flaws in their statement though, so I am feeling confident the claim will be dismissed.

Chris1a

I start my witness statement by thanking SCS for providing me with the contract that UKPC had/have in place with the management company on our old estate along with the other attachments they included in their paperwork.
I then say ‘I am also grateful that SCS agreed at the recent hearing to set aside the court judgement, that was unnecessarily submitted and unprofessionally presented. It is a shame that the letter before action, referred to in the claimant’s statement as ***, was not sent to my current address.'

I am then questioning the £100 cost per pcn and whether the terms of that contract have therefore been broken, as the contract states £90. I am asking for further evidence to be brought to court proving they following the conditions stated in the contract, giving 1 months’ notice to their client in writing.

I then quote the following:

3. In paragraph 4, on page 2 of the claimant’s statement I am being accused of causing an obstruction. However, the vehicle in question, along with a large number of other residents’ vehicles were not actually causing an obstruction. We were safely parked, with ample space for large vehicles such as the refuge collection lorries and fire engines to pass with no issues.
I am referencing here the definition of the word ‘obstruct’ from the Oxford dictionary (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/obstruct), ‘Block (an opening, path, road, etc.); be or get in the way of.’. Also the Cambridge dictionary definition ((https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/obstruct), ‘to block a road, passage, entrance, etc. so that nothing can go along it, or to prevent something from happening correctly by putting difficulties in its way’. As there is no proof to show the vehicle obstructing and instead the photo evidence provided by the claimant shows otherwise (see page 30 or page 56 for example where there is plenty of space for large vehicles to pass).

They have tried to state that their NTKs were pursuant to schedule 4…, so I then quote the following in response to that point:

4. I would like to point out that the ‘notice to keeper’ (NTK) documents as mentioned in paragraph 6 of the claimant’s statement, are not actually pursuant to Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (‘POFA’). When issuing an NTK, a requirement of POFA is that the notice must be given in accordance with certain requirements. One specific requirement that has not been met is shown within a printout of this schedule that I attach as evidence (referencing exhibit ***). I have highlighted the relevant wording and I stress again how the NTK’s were never received within 14 days of the alleged incident. In order for the claimant to have the right to claim unpaid parking charges from the keeper of a vehicle the claimant should have issued the NTK documents within 14 days. The evidence put forward by the claimant proves this (exhibit KA/3). If you pay attention to the dates each letter was posted to me (e.g. page 26 of the claimant’s bundle), you can also see that little attention was paid to the accuracy of these letters and amounts being claimed. Please see page 50 of the claimant’s pack where the letter was dated 17/02/2014 is referencing a parking charge date the same as what is shown in the top right hand side of the page, but then different to that within the payment slip below. Also on page 50 within this NTK the total due is only £60 with a 14-day early payment of £40 being offered, whereas no other PCN’s or NTK’s offer that amount of discount.

They have also argued about the charges being fair and quote the Beavis case, so I respond with the below:

5. With reference to paragraph 8 on page 3 of the claimant’s statement, I would like to point out that all the invoices and correspondence associated to those invoices were sent to my old address - prior to the ParkingEye v Beavis case. I took legal advice to ignore those invoices, along with most other residents on the Birchwood Place estate. Although I now regret not appealing, I had rights and good reasons to do so as the invoices were unfairly and unjustly issued.

As I am still waiting for the full lease to arrive I haven’t finalised this next paragraph, but this is in response to where they say, ‘the lease would include the control and management of parking (the introduction of which was authorised by the landowner to manage and facilitate parking for the benefit of the estate and its residents).

6. I am arguing with the claimant’s point 10, as within our lease there is no such mention of ‘control and management of parking’. The only restriction with reference to parking is not to cause an obstruction, as shown within my evidence attached (exhibit ***). I refer you back to my paragraph 3 above where I define the word obstruct. I also stress the fact that there is no evidence provided in this case, that can prove the vehicle/s in question were obstructing anyone on Birchwood Place.

On top of the above, I also have the DVLA dates when my license was checked, so I am going to add that as an additional piece of evidence to support my point 4, as mentioned above.

I will then finish by detailing that I would like the claimant to refund my costs and I will include a breakdown of those costs along with receipts, a payslip/proof of annual leave taken & bank statement showing when the set aside cost was paid.

Feedback/questions on the above are massively appreciated.

Lamilad

Why don't you just post your WS up here instead of giving us some long winded description of it.

I start my witness statement by thanking SCS for providing me with the contract that UKPC had/have in place with the management company on our old estate along with the other attachments they included in their paperwork.
I then say !!!8216;I am also grateful that SCS agreed at the recent hearing to set aside the court judgement, that was unnecessarily submitted and unprofessionally presented. It is a shame that the letter before action, referred to in the claimant!!!8217;s statement as ***, was not sent to my current address.'

This isn't how you write a WS. If you want help and advice - post it!

Chris1a

Hi Lamilad,

My witness statement is currently still a work in progress & I appreciate your response, but I am just following the format of the claimants witness statement here. I have just included some quotes above from what I have written so far.

Cheers all the best,
Chris

The_Deep

UKPC are fraudsters, be sure to make the judge aware of this

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11858473/Parking-firm-UKPC-admits-faking-tickets-to-fine-drivers.html

Also watch this

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

It is more than possible that they will be put out of business by Christmas so give the pot a stir and complain robustly to your MP.

nosferatu1001

Dont follow their format. Do it correctly.

Coupon-mad

Chris1a wrote: »

Hi Lamilad,

My witness statement is currently still a work in progress & I appreciate your response, but I am just following the format of the claimants witness statement here. I have just included some quotes above from what I have written so far.

Why didn't you just Google 'Witness Statement' and follow the UK.GOV format?

DO NOT thank the other side.

logician

Chris1a wrote: »

T

Here is what I have so far for my counterclaim:

One of my reasons for counterlaim is, that the claimant has not conformed to the requirements of POFA when claiming keeper liability.
The above is worth £750 alone right?

I hope you have not made a formal counterclaim on the point of non compliance with POFA on the basis of your reasoning below...

Chris1a wrote: »

They have tried to state that their NTKs were pursuant to schedule 4!!!8230;, so I then quote the following in response to that point:

4. I would like to point out that the !!!8216;notice to keeper!!!8217; (NTK) documents as mentioned in paragraph 6 of the claimant!!!8217;s statement, are not actually pursuant to Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (!!!8216;POFA!!!8217;). When issuing an NTK, a requirement of POFA is that the notice must be given in accordance with certain requirements. One specific requirement that has not been met is shown within a printout of this schedule that I attach as evidence (referencing exhibit ***). I have highlighted the relevant wording and I stress again how the NTK!!!8217;s were never received within 14 days of the alleged incident. In order for the claimant to have the right to claim unpaid parking charges from the keeper of a vehicle the claimant should have issued the NTK documents within 14 days.

Your reasoning is flawed given you have confirmed on PPP that these were windscreen issued tickets.
Therefore the Ntk must arrived as applicable pursuant to Section 8(5) of Schedule 4..

ie. keeper details cannot be obtained until 29 days after the parking event and should be issued within a 28 day period from that time.

Your Witness Statement needs a lot of work

Chris1a

Thank you all for the comments. The format of my witness statement is already as per the .gov recommended one, well pretty much anyway.

I will share it on here when possible, hopefully tomorrow, as I only have 8 or 9 days before that has to be received by the claimant and the court.

The lease has turned up now, so I will be including quotes from there, along with what I have already mentioned above.

You are right that I do need to put a lot more work in before it is finalised, but I only have another 8 days to polish it off now.

@logician, it looks to me like the relevant paragraph on pofa is actually section 9 (4), not 8 (5).
I haven't admitted to being the driver here, so ntk is being taken in to account, not ntd.

Thanks again,
Chris