Parking Awareness Service (PAS) PCN

Coupon-mad

your client had employed evidenced and documented deceit to excuse their lack of compliance with statute

What was that excuse, I am not quite following why you say they ''lied''...did they say their company or the site was being audited and so it delayed them getting DVLA data?  It makes no difference.  The deadlines are set in stone.

KeithP

In that reply, replace To Whom it May Concern with Dear Sirs and replace Regards with Yours faithfully.

johjames

Coupon-mad said:

your client had employed evidenced and documented deceit to excuse their lack of compliance with statute

What was that excuse, I am not quite following why you say they ''lied''...did they say their company or the site was being audited and so it delayed them getting DVLA data?  It makes no difference.  The deadlines are set in stone.

PAS stated in writing to me that, and I quote from PAS's letter to me, that 'The PCN sent to you was NonPOFA as the DVLA carried out an audit (to ensure legitimacy of the request) causing the issue of the PCN to be delayed.' The DVLA have of course stated that this is not true and that no such audit was undertaken at the time, hence PAS lied, and that even if there had been such an audit it would not have delayed any request for information they would have made, should they have done that.

johjames

KeithP said:

In that reply, replace To Whom it May Concern with Dear Sirs and replace Regards with Yours faithfully.

Thank you KeithP. I didn't wish to write 'Dear Sirs' because it implies a lack of respect I don't have! Would not doing so have an impact? I've amended Regards.

Umkomaas

It's a formal business letter to an outfit trying to extort money from you. It's definitely Dear Sirs/Yours faithfully.  'Impact' is neither here nor there. 

If anything infers respect it's 'Regards', in my view. 

Keep it very formal, because a Judge might soon be reading what you write. 

Coupon-mad

Dear Sirs, and Yours faithfully, is correct. 

Do it properly as you may want a Judge to look at this evidence later, as @Umkomaas says.

johjames

Keith P; Coupon-mad and Umkomaas your advice has been taken. Thank you. Amended version of the letter is below. Is there anything else that you would add or amend please?

Dear Sirs/Madams,

Re: Letter of Claim

Your reference: xxxxx

The driver of the vehicle to which these PCN’s pertains was not able to be identified in 2017 and your client is not able to hold me liable as registered keeper. To have had this right, your client should have paid due regard to the POFA schedule 4 guidelines for service of a Notice to Keeper. Your client failed to do this and then proceeded to employ deception to excuse their failure to meet their statutory obligations, thereby wrongfully bringing the DVLA into disrepute. Your client informed me that ‘The PCN sent to you was NonPOFA as the DVLA carried out an audit (to ensure legitimacy of the request) causing the issue of the PCN to be delayed.’ 

When I enquired as to the veracity of your client’s excuse, the DVLA informed me in writing that your client’s claim was wholly untrue, stating that ‘The Agency has not undertaken any audits, during the period in question [xx/xx/2017-xx/xx/xxxx], on Parking Awareness Services Ltd (PAS). Also, and as advised previously, a DVLA audit would not be expected to delay the processing of requests for DVLA data. If an audit is being conducted, that should not affect the ability to request data from DVLA.’

Please provide any evidence you have which may assist me in identifying the driver as more than one person used the vehicle in question in 2017 and even if I were able to remember them all, which I am not, I would not be naming them. Nor would I be obliged to divulge the vehicle insurance document from 2017. Even were I to have this document, it would have no bearing on this matter, because any individual with third party insurance can drive other vehicles and so the possible drivers would not be limited to the names on such a document.

Please spare me the intrusive template response which firms such as yours tend to rely upon to demand information which they are not entitled to from innocent parties.

Your client’s claim is entirely without merit and their ongoing behaviour in relation to this matter is causing me distress. The fact that you deem it fit to embark upon sending a Letter of Claim, when your client has employed deceit which has been evidenced and documented, to excuse their lack of compliance with statute is troubling. They have no cause of action against a registered keeper because they chose in 2017 not to take the appropriate steps to identify the alleged contracting party, instead they waited for months before they saw fit to write to me. They then, as I have evidenced above, flagrantly lied as to the reason for this delay when challenged.

The time I have had to expend dealing with this matter, despite the fact it is both vexatious and unmerited has been significant and as a medical professional working during the pandemic it is wasting my time, of which I currently have precious little.

Yours faithfully,

Coupon-mad

  No, the salutation to a solicitor firm is just ‘Dear Sirs’. The rest is fine.

johjames

Coupon-mad said:

  No, the salutation to a solicitor firm is just ‘Dear Sirs’. The rest is fine.

I will amend accordingly, thanks again.

johjames

Would it be worth adding the following to my response to the LBC please?

As you and your client must know, the Practice Direction and Protocol bind all potential litigants, whatever the size or type of the claim. Its express purpose is to assist parties in understanding the claim and their respective positions in relation to it, to enable parties to take stock of their positions and to negotiate a settlement, or at least narrow the issues, without incurring the costs of court proceedings or using up valuable court time. It is astounding that your firm have sent me such a vague and un-evidenced 'Letter before Claim' in complete ignorance of the pre-existing Practice Direction and the new Protocol.

Nobody, including your client, is immune from the requirements and obligations of the Practice Direction and now, the Protocol. 

I require your client to comply with its obligations by sending me the following information/documents:

1. To explicitly state whether they are pursuing me as driver or keeper. 

2. To explicitly state whether they are relying on the provisions of Schedule 4 of POFA 2012. 

3. What the details of the claim are; where exactly it is claimed the vehicle was parked and for how long; how the monies being claimed arose and have been calculated.

4. If the claim is for a contractual breach what is the date of the agreement and the names of the parties to it? Provide to me a copy of that contract. 

5. Provide me with a copy of the contract with the landowner under which they assert authority to bring the claim, as required by the IPC code of practice section B, clause 1.1.

6. Provide details of the original charge, and detail any interest and administrative or other charges added

7. Provide a copy of the Information Sheet and the Reply Form

If your client does not provide me with this information then I put you on notice that I will be relying on the cases of Webb Resolutions Ltd v Waller Needham & Green [2012] EWHC 3529 (Ch), Daejan Investments Limited v The Park West Club Limited (Part 20); Buxton Associates [2003] EWHC 2872, Charles Church Developments Ltd v Stent Foundations Limited & Peter Dann Limited [2007] EWHC 855 in asking the court to impose sanctions on your client and to order a stay of the proceedings, pursuant to paragraphs 13 ,15(b) and (c) and 16 of the Practice Direction, as referred to in paragraph 7.2 of the Protocol. 

Until your client has complied with its obligations and provided this information, I am unable to respond properly to the alleged claim and to consider my position in relation to it, and it is entirely premature (and a waste of costs and court time) for your client to issue proceedings. Should your client do so, then I will seek an immediate stay pursuant to paragraph 15(b) of the Practice Direction and an order that this information is provided.