PCM claim form, Ticketed in my own space!

Le_Kirk

The NEWBIE thread post # 2 is your bible, in there you will find advice on exactly what you requested, from defence (presume you've already submitted) through Witness Statement (WS), Ring Binder for your WS, Cost Schedule and evidence and how to act and what to expect on the day.

jw505

@Le_Kirk, thanks, I am reading that thread which gives me a lot of confidence.

I have uploaded the full letter from Gladstones to google drive.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E1gqYzL1YusNMSWBhf5JS1s0OI3fI0Ou/view?usp=sharing

Reading the post #2 in pinned thread, I am planning the following preparations:
1. write the WS and send it with documents before 28 March. On this topic, can I get some help on the writing please? I plan to use Bargepole's template. anything to add for a resident own parking situation?
2. (f) find my lease agreement and locate the clause about parking rules (goes into WS)
3. File relevant documents like the signs and previous communications.
4. (g) which case transcript should I prepare??
5. from the email I received, it seems Gladstones is not planning to "settle" the claim. therefore I don't need to write the reply, correct?

Coupon-mad

Ouch, look at the WS about your first appeal where you said you were the driver! If in your defence you DENIED being the driver, then you have lied.

How will you explain that? Never 'deny' being the driver if that's not true.

which case transcript should I prepare??

From the Parking Prankster's case law pages:

PCM v Bull & ors (about PCM signs that only offer a contract to permit-displayers)

and this one about no contract with a non permit holder:

PACE v Lengyel

and these residential ones:

PACE v Noor

Link v Parkinson

Jopson v Homeguard

5. from the email I received, it seems Gladstones is not planning to "settle" the claim. therefore I don't need to write the reply, correct?

No need to reply to that trash.

write the WS and send it with documents before 28 March. On this topic, can I get some help on the writing please? I plan to use Bargepole's template.

AFAIK, there is no bargepole witness statement residential template that I can recall in the NEWBIES thread? Don't go looking at the example defences, you are not at defence stage.

The NEWBIES thread tells you about WS, with examples, including a residential permit one I expect (it's been a while since I added them as links). And it gives you tips about evidence to think about including, and tells you to use it to expose gaps in the Claimant's own WS.

For example:

- they have not addressed your primacy of contract as a resident and paid no regard at all to your rights and easements.

- nor have they shown the inside of the car, carefully avoiding a seat view.

- the sign does NOT say a permit must be on the dashboard, or where it must be displayed...it only says 'permits within the windscreen'. Well, it WAS visible 'within' the windscreen, but the PPC has taken one photo, straight on, from a end-of-bonnet angle. Mock up some photos taken from an angle that shows a permit can be seen on the seat, through the windscreen (even if you have a different car, mock it up as an illustration that the permit was ''within the windscreen''). Get some good angles taken close up through the windscreen, showing a permit on the seat easy to read and perfectly well displayed, without ambiguity.

- On a strict interpretation of those words, the whole inside of the car is within the windscreen!

- the signage only makes an offer to permit-displaying drivers so there is no evidence of the elements of a contract - no consideration from both sides. PACE v Lengyel deals with that aspect.

- A third party non-landowner cannot re-offer parking terms with different (far more onerous) and chargeable terms, because you already have that right to park within your lease and the bay is allocated to you, with an implied right of way, easement and/or right to peaceful enjoyment, not to be stalked by a well known scammer at your own home who could easily have knocked the permit themselves when pushing between cars (used to happen in the clamping days - and PCM were an aggressive and notoriously unfair clamper firm, pre-2012).

- the landowner authority is not signed by any landowning party (it's neither the freeholder, nor anyone identified as authorised to act for the freeholder, nor their legal advisers, nor is it the leaseholder - you). There is no evidence that any party with title in the land, who could be described as the 'landholder' (in possession) signed this in 2012.

- it requires PCM to abide by the BPA CoP. But PCM left the BPA to hop to the IPC for an easier appeals system skewed heavily in their favour, on 01/04/2014. So they are arguably in breach of their alleged 'landowner contract' that is out of date.

- the landowner authority - even if the Court finds it acceptable - only provides for enforcement rules summarised as 'permit parking in allocated bays'. You did NOT contravene that term, which is silent about if a driver of a car must display their permission. On a strict and very simple (the only) interpretation, there is nothing there about requiring a permit to be in a certain place, at all (could even be in the flat or held online) and PCM have added their own words to the sign that are unsupported by the signatory - whoever they may be - thus there is no 'legitimate interest' in pursuing the charge and using the tests applied in the ParkingEye v Beavis case, the lack of commercial justification here, renders this an 'unrecoverable and unconscionable penalty' set to punish an authorised driver for a permit slipping.

- The Beavis case decision said a charge CANNOT be levied just to punish a driver, because that (unlike the complex and fact-specific charge in Beavis which was about a retail car park) falls foul of Lord Denning's four tests for a penalty. End of.

- And it was also said in Beavis (where £85 was claimed, and no more) that a private parking charge already includes a very significant and high percentage in profit and more than covers the costs of running an automated regime of template letters. Thus, there can be no 'damages' or 'loss' (as this Claimant is trying to make up, whether it was on the sign or not) to pile on top of any parking charge, and the Defendant asks that the Court takes judicial notice of this industry's repeated abuse of this fundamental point.

jw505

@Coupon-mad, thanks so much for your reply!

1. Regarding the driver statement, I did make the mistake in first appeal email conflicting myself in my defence document. What should I do on this?

2. I'm reading the cases you referred and trying to understand some sentences. But the legal words are harder than I thought T_T

3. I have uploaded my defence form, lease document in the same folder. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ek_6QG6YAVN0dMspd4nleZUOXYmLdTdP

4. I am start writing the WS today. Should I include all the points you mentioned in the reply?

In lease document the clause related to parking, Page 26, Clause 5:
The right to use the parking space allocated for the time being to the Premises the
parking space allocated at the time hereof being that shown on Plan 2 with the number
corresponding to the flat number of the Premises
It didn't require displaying the permit at all.

Coupon-mad

I expect the lease also has clauses about:

- your right to peaceful enjoyment of your property, and

- The Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 NOT applying or enabling any third party to amend the lease?

KeithP

JW, your full name is visible on that N9B form in your google drive folder.

You vehicle registration mark is clearly visible on that N9B form in your google drive folder.


In their Witness Statement in that google drive folder:

The PCN number is clearly visible more than once.

Your vehicle's registration mark is visible several times.

jw505

- your right to peaceful enjoyment of your property, and
There's this clause in Page 13 of the lease document:

That the Leaseholder paying the rents hereby reserved and performing and observing
the covenants herein contained may peaceably hold and enjoy the Premises during
the term without any lawful interruption by the Landlord or any person rightfully
claiming under or in trust for it

- The Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 NOT applying or enabling any third party to amend the lease?

There's no mentioning of Act 1999 or third party in the lease document at all.

Coupon-mad

OK perfect; the clauses you did mention give you rights to park = primacy of contract.

Regarding the driver statement, I did make the mistake in first appeal email conflicting myself in my defence document. What should I do on this?

Do you man the appeal was wrong as you positioned yourself (at appeal stage) as if you were the driver, as you thought you were dealing with a decent firm and thought it made no difference that you were in fact not the driver?

Or that you were the driver, and need to mention in your WS that you retract that part of your defence as you realise on that occasion you were the driver, as you now realise it was the event for which you wrote an appeal as driver.

jw505

Or that you were the driver, and need to mention in your WS that you retract that part of your defence as you realise on that occasion you were the driver, as you now realise it was the event for which you wrote an appeal as driver.

this (I was the driver in this event and only named driver on the car insurance). How should I retract that part of the defence or address this in witness statement?

Coupon-mad

By using the words I just gave you!