Letter before claim - Parking Ticket at my office car park - POPLA appeal rejected.

Daman1985

Good afternoon all, Im hoping for a little advice on whether to keep arguing this or not. The issue is with One Parking Solution.

I picked up a ticket at my normal working office car park. All employees are given parking permits, but the new ones this year came with a self adhesive backing that I stuck to the window, I left the old one in my old tax disk holder (big mistake as it was used as grounds to reject my appeal). The new parking permit came loose and feel off the front screen so I got a ticket as the operator saw the out of date permit and didnt look to see the new one sat on the passenger seat (or consciously ignored it perhaps).

Anyway, Ive been through the normal appeals process, placed an appeal and was rejected. I included all the normal POPLA appeal statements outlined in this forum, and added a little extra bit thats specific to my case: The "extra" being that their signage allows for a permit And/Or Pre approved vehicles in allocated spaces. Because we share the building with other companies, my company has allocated bays for our staff. These are not specific to individual employees, just spaces that are reserved for my company with the company name on metal plaques on the floor of the car park.

In the POPLA appeal I argued as an employee of my company, which keeps records of my vehicles, I am pre-authorised to park in our company car parks. Because I didn!!!8217;t know what would prove employment I left a note in the POPLA appeal saying please contact me to request evidence of employment (2nd big mistake). In response POPLA said "I also note that the appellant states that his vehicle is pre-authorised to park. However, he has not provided any evidence to support this statement.", obviously POPLA just wont ask for more detail even if told it exists.

Im thinking of writing a letter refusing the claim, do the members of the forum think this is a good idea? Or am I better off paying up then risking court fees?

Daman1985

I am thinking of the letter essentially saying:

In response to your "LETTER BEFORE CLAIM"; (copy enclosed), please be advised that I refute your claim of a debt of £100 is owed to you. I still maintain all points raised in my appeal are valid, and I still have refuting evidence for submission should you wish to take this matter further.

It should also be noted that there is a placard at the car park entrance outlining that Allocated Parking spaces are denoted by a Blue "XXX"; plaque (please see image below, noting that your T&Cs signage is visible in the same image). As demonstrated by your own pictures taken on the day in question, the vehicle was indeed parked in a bay marked with a blue "XXX"; plaque and thus was parked in an appropriate bay for a XXX employees as is required by your signage (your wording states parking is permitted for "PRE-AUTHORISED VEHICULES PARKED WHOLLY WITHIN THEIR ALLOCATED PARKING SPACE").

I would kindly ask you to inform me of what you would deem adequate evidence of employment by the XXX group of companies. I will do my utmost to supply said evidence (subject to existence and data protection requirements), my contact details are detailed at the top of this letter along with my work (XXX) and personal email addresses. Given my 9 year tenure with XXX, with my place of work contractually defined as the Fareham office throughout, I am confident that by co-operating with each other we will be able to quickly find some form of evidence that meets your requirements and would allow you to close this claim on your system.

I should also like to suggest that you should improve your communication with the companies that operate from within car parks managed by your service and/or supply better technological devices to your staff to enable them to fully check your systems. It is simply unacceptable that permanent employees based in the XXX office are being chased for parking fines due to your systems and policies being unable to properly identify authorised vehicles that are properly parked!

If you are threatening court action I request the appropriate papers within 14 days of todays date (22.05.2018) and I will vigorously defend my position before a judge in the small claims court. In the absence of papers in the timescale given I will consider the matter closed.

Quentin

Are you sure you got a lbcca?


It should come with forms to return to the claimant (don't!) and give you 30 days to pay before court action will commence


If this is just another debt collecting attempt ignore it


(Is your forum name your real name?? If so get MSE to change it to somethin anonymous - the PPCS monitor here and can use your posts against you)

Umkomaas

Not sure why you're worrying too much about court?

http://www.parkingappeals.info/companydata/One_Parking_Solution.html

Did their 'LBC' comply with the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims?

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/pdf/protocols/debt-pap.pdf

Have you read the NEWBIES FAQ sticky, post #2 about how to deal with a (real) LBC?

What is your employer doing to get this cancelled and protect his staff from this harassment - you have asked him, haven't you?

Coupon-mad

I would kindly ask you to inform me of what you would deem adequate evidence of employment by the XXX group of companies. I will do my utmost to supply said evidence (subject to existence and data protection requirements), my contact details are detailed at the top of this letter along with my work (XXX) and personal email addresses. Given my 9 year tenure with XXX, with my place of work contractually defined as the Fareham office throughout, I am confident that by co-operating with each other we will be able to quickly find some form of evidence that meets your requirements and would allow you to close this claim on your system.

The above tells them who the driver was...don't do that. Did your previous appeals carefully respond only as the keeper, not driver, or did you add things that said ''I was authorised''?

If not, don't blab about that now.

And there is no point writing about co-operating with OPS, because you can't co-operate with a firm like them.

Daman1985

Its titled as a "letter before claim", it came with no forms and no time limit so its possible its just a scare tactic. it does make a number of mentions of "practice directions" and the like. i will try to find a way to upload the image soon!

Daman1985

Coupon-mad wrote: »

And there is no point writing about co-operating with OPS, because you can't co-operate with a firm like them.

Whilst i figured that would be ignored by OPS, i thought it might look quite good to a judge if they did go as far as court :rotfl:


Unfortunately, i was kinda forced to mention that i was the driver, the entire argument hinged on me being parked at my place of work!

Daman1985

So I have now received an official Claim Form for around £250 (£50 of which is a legal representatives fee and £25 is the court fee). It came over last weekend whilst I was away, so i've got around 2 weeks left to respond.

As per the advice on this forum when I first received the LBC I requested a SAR from One Parking Solution (and received the documents), and responded to Gladstone’s LBC asking for details (and received nothing).

Now I guess I’m at the defending a court case stage. I know I’ve stupidly shot myself in the foot by admitting I was the driver by naively thinking appeals would consider the validity of me parking at my office but I’ve taken a stab at writing the defence anyway.

I would really appreciate people’s thoughts on the defence, and Id also appreciate peoples thoughts on whether its still worth me fighting given I stupidly admitted I was the driver….

Daman1985

In The County Court
Claim No: [CLAIM NUMBER]
Between
One Parking Solution Ltd (Claimant)

-and-

[MY NAME] (Defendant)

____________
DEFENCE
____________

1. The Defendant was the registered keeper and driver of vehicle registration number [REG NUMBER] on the material date. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.

2. The facts of the matter are that the Defendant is an employee of the [COMPANY] group of companies, and has continued to hold a parking rights for the [OFFICE NAME] car parking for the entire duration of [COMPANY]’s tenure at that location (as do all [COMPANY] employees). The ‘land’ which forms the basis of the current claim consists of a reasonable number of spaces marked “[COMPANY]” (which are specifically for use by [COMPANY] employees) located amongst numerous other spaces, the permit is valid for all Spectrum spaces and the “[COMPANY]” spaces are reserved for [COMPANY] employees (whether they have a permit or not), The vehicle was parked in a [COMPANY] space at the date in question ergo was not in breach of any supposed ‘contract’.

3. It should also be considered that given this lack of clarity regarding how or where an employee with or without a parking permit is, or is not, allowed to park in this car park, no contract can be construed from the Claimant's signage, under the ‘contra proferentem’ principle.

3. Accordingly, it is denied that the Defendant breached any of the Claimant's purported contractual terms, whether express, implied, or by conduct.

4. In addition, the purpose of the parking restrictions at [OFFICE NAME] is to limit members of the public using the spaces to visit a nearby unaffiliated shopping centre, not to limit workers in the attached office being able to attend their place of work. Ergo the claimant has overstepped their remit in ticketing an authorised vehicle and should have retracted the parking ticket once their error was realised

5. The Claimant is put to strict proof that it has sufficient interest in the land or that there are specific terms in its contract to bring an action on its own behalf. As a third party agent, the Claimant may not pursue any charge, unless specifically authorised by the principal. The Defendant has the reasonable belief that the Claimant does not have the authority to issue charges on this land in their own name, and that they have no right to bring any action regarding this claim.

6. The Defendant has the reasonable belief that the Claimant has not incurred £60 costs to pursue an alleged £100 debt. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, in Schedule 4, Para 4(5) states that the maximum sum that may be recovered from the keeper is the charge stated on the Notice to Keeper, in this case £100.

7. In summary, the Claimant's particulars disclose no legal basis for the sum claimed, and the Court is invited to dismiss the claim in its entirety.

Statement of Truth:

I believe that the facts stated in this Defence are true.

Name
Signature
Date

The_Deep

So I have now received an official Claim Form for around £250

Possibly an abuse of process, read this

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6014081/abuse-of-process-district-judge-tells-bwlegal

Nine times out of ten these tickets are scams so consider complaining to your MP.

Parliament is well aware of the MO of these private parking companies, many of whom are former clampers, and on 15th March 2019 a Bill was enacted to curb the excesses of these shysters. Codes of Practice are being drawn up, an independent appeals service will be set up, and access to the DVLA's date base more rigorously policed, persistent offenders denied access to the DVLA database and unable to operate.

Hopefully life will become impossible for the worst of these scammers, but until this is done you should still complain to your MP, citing the new legislation.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/8/contents/enacted

Just as the clampers were finally closed down, so hopefully will many of these Private Parking Companies

KeithP

What is the Issue Date on the Claim Form?

Did it come from the County Court Business Centre in Northampton, or from somewhere else?