Any Advice - Letter Before Claim Premier Park

WelshGoblin

Hi
First thanks for your helpful content. Mine seemed to be a standard PCN and I followed the general advice on here for newbies going through the appeals process but lost at Popla. Since then I didn't receive any letters from debt collectors but now have what I understand to be a letter before claim.
I have scanned a copy (blacking out my details of course) but am struggling to upload it here so have copied and pasted the plain text as a quote below (taking out personal details and links/numbers etc which the site won't let me post). Will try to split it into pictures or similar and put it on here although any suggestions would be welcome.
Has anyone dealt with one of these or have any advice as couldn't find similar on the forum?
Thanks in advance.

XX May 2018

Dear Mr XXXXXXXX,

Claim for debt in relation to unpaid Parking Charge Notice XXXXXXX (the Debt)

We are writing at this time to obtain payment of the above Debt from you. We refer to the previous statements and correspondence sent by us.

This letter is being sent to you in accordance with the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims (the Protocol) contained in the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR). In particular we refer you to paragraph 7 of the Protocol, and paragraphs 13 to 16 of the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct and Protocols regarding the court's powers to impose sanctions for failing to comply with the provisions of the Protocol.

CIRCUMSTANCES RESULTING IN THE DEBT BECOMING PAYABLE

On XX November 2017 at XXXX, XXXXXX was parked at Marina Car Park Torquay in a manner by which you have become liable for the Debt.

A contract was entered into with Premier Park Limited, as the terms for parking were set out in the signs, clearly displayed in accordance with the British Parking Association (BPA) guidance. By so parking you agreed in particular to pay the sum of £100 unless you complied with the terms set out on the signage. The signage further set out that, in the event that enforcement action were necessary, this amount would be increased in accordance with Section 23.1(b) of the BPA Approved Operator Scheme Code of Practice.

In breach of the contract, you failed to comply with the terms set out in the signage by failing to register your Vehicle Registration Number or pay for the duration of your stay. Accordingly, a PCN was issued to you on the XX November 2017 which to this date you have failed to pay.

In the circumstances, you now owe the sum of £150.00. The Debt is payable immediately and does not include costs. Should we obtain an order for this sum at court we shall also be asking the court to make an order for interest and fixed costs in accordance with the CPR.

RELEVANT DOCUMENTS

We have previously provided the documents that are most relevant to the Debt including:

1. The original Parking Charge Notice

2. Reminder letters

This is not purported to be an exhaustive list of documents relevant to the Debt.

Please also provide any other documents that you consider to be relevant and confirm that you will take proper and appropriate steps to ensure no relevant documents, including electronic documents, that are in your control, are altered, lost, destroyed or disposed of pursuant to paragraph 7 of CPR Practice Direction 31B.

PAYMENT OF THE DEBT

The Debt can be paid via our Website at XXXXXXXXX or by telephone, you will need your PCN reference number to complete payment. You may contact us on XXXXXXXXXXX to discuss possible repayment options. You should also note that free independent advice and assistance can be obtained from the organisations listed below.

ALTERNATIVE DEBT RESOLUTION (ADR)

The appropriate ADR service is POPLA being the independent appeals body administered by The Ombudsman Service Limited. We will consider any appropriate offer to resolve this matter via POPLA.

THE NEXT STEPS

Your response to this letter should be provided no later than 30 days after the date of this letter. We enclose the Information Sheet, Reply Form and Standard Financial Statement required by the Pre-Action Protocol which may be used for this purpose.

We reserve all rights, including the right to commence proceedings (without further reference to you should that prove necessary and appropriate) to obtain a court judgment requiring you to pay the Debt plus interest and costs.

Ignoring this letter may lead to our starting proceedings against you and may increase your liability for costs. You may want to take independent legal advice on the contents of this letter.

Yours faithfully,

Matthew James
Legal Team
Premier Park Ltd

Enc.
Information Sheet
Reply form in accordance with Pre-Action Protocol
Standard Financial Statement

freester

WelshGoblin wrote: »

Hi
First thanks for your helpful content. Mine seemed to be a standard PCN and I followed the general advice on here for newbies going through the appeals process but lost at Popla. Since then I didn't receive any letters from debt collectors but now have what I understand to be a letter before claim.
I have scanned a copy (blacking out my details of course) but am struggling to upload it here so have copied and pasted the plain text as a quote below (taking out personal details and links/numbers etc which the site won't let me post). Will try to split it into pictures or similar and put it on here although any suggestions would be welcome.
Has anyone dealt with one of these or have any advice as couldn't find similar on the forum?
Thanks in advance.

Ooh Premier Park threatening court. I'm not sure this would count as an LBC. Lots of 'reserve the right' and 'may' but no 'will'. I'm sure others can advise.

Probably worth getting up to speed with the beginnings of the 'Small Claim' section. Post #2 of the FAQ... https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=64350585&postcount=2

It would be good to see the original. You'll have to upload it to a picture hosting site - smugmug, flickr, imgBB, photobucket etc. Post the links but break them (replace http with hxxp) and someone with more posts can 'mend' the links.

WelshGoblin

Thanks freester
Have saved as jpegs and uploaded to photobucket. Link below modified as you said. Afraid this is out of my comfort zone tech wise so may not work.

hxxp://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f347/WelshGoblin/PP1of2_zpszebthxfk.jpg

freester

WelshGoblin wrote: »

Afraid this is out of my comfort zone tech wise so may not work.

hxxp://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f347/WelshGoblin/PP1of2_zpszebthxfk.jpg

Nope - all good

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f347/WelshGoblin/PP1of2_zpszebthxfk.jpg

Quentin

That looks to be a lbcca


Go now to the newbies faq thread near the top of the forum for advice on how to deal with this (#2 there covers court process from receipt of the lbcca to the hearing)

Coupon-mad

Does the second page give you 30 days to reply and did they enclose reply forms?

WelshGoblin

Coupon-mad
Yes 30 days to respond. There was an information form, reply form and a standard financial statement with the letter.

KeithP

Then follow Quentin's guidance.

WelshGoblin

Update on this, I have now been to court and have lost. I will have a look at some of the documents disclosed and may put some up as maybe useful to others.

The Judge started quite harshly against the In house lawyer from Premier Park (can't remember his name sorry) and I thought things may be going my way. He answered most of the questions well and was surprisingly clued up compared to my expectations.

After the lawyer guided the Judge through the bundle of evidence showing what the contract was including how the signage complied with the BPA code, what the breach of the terms was, the evidence for this and finally correspondence between us where I asked for information explaining what they gave me and what they didn't including why. After this the Judge told me he was only going to deal with what was relevant and not the majority of queries and points I had raised which had little to do with the case. The fact I had simply misread the sign was not relevant and I think I did myself no favours fighting this in the manner I did. End result was defeat and I have had to pay PCN at £150 plus the fixed costs.

I had a chat with the lawyer afterwards who was surprisingly friendly. He said there are too many who are advised by some on forums to fight all tickets without ever questioning or getting real advice as to whether they are valid or not. He also said the industry as a whole often does itself no favours and there are far too many tickets issued which are either not fair or not properly dealt with at appeal and won't stand up in court but this leads to the individuals like me stuck in the middle who lose out as they have no way to know whether to believe the companies or some of the forum posters. He did say not that many cases go to court but his team was relatively new and looking to take more cases forward.

If I was to do this again or was giving advice to anyone I would consider the following:
1. Don't use scatter-gun approach, make only relevant points
2. Check whether the mistake was mine/theirs before fighting

The charge still hardly seems fair for such a minor mistake, but on reflection I think I made it worse for myself by not following those steps.

nosferatu1001

OK wow, you took this all through defence etc without getting some guidance?
It woudl be good to know what your defence was, given we saw noting of this

£150 should have been challengabel, as this was above all COP limits.

WelshGoblin

Thanks nosferatu1001,
I followed Quentin referred advice at #5 above and also kept an eye of similar matter for pdmum rather than post everything again here. I'll put up the final defence used and few over bits in a few days.

I thought the COP allowed up to £170? Not that I want to go back and argue over £50 whether I can or not.