Excel parking county court claim form received

Airey1

Hi all
I have read countless threads in here and to be honest I am some what confused and now worried that I have received a county court claim form and will have to pay the fine.
The back drop to the case is I parked my wife’s car in an excel car park and paid for the parking but in error inputted my car reg instead of my wife’s. So the parking have received payment for the use of the car park in full and have not lost any earnings
I have followed all of the guides and instructions to appeal the various staged. The car park is an underground one with low lighting and poor signage etc.
I am really against paying this as I paid initially but not sure how to defend on the court papers
Can anyone help and give me some clear guidance

Redx

fist task is - has the driver been divulged ?


if not , edit post #1 above and only use the words DRIVER for what happened on the day and KEEPER for what happened since


this willl then define if this is being defended by the DRIVER or the KEEPER


once edited, read post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread near the top of this forum, do the AOS online (nothing else) and then read maybe a dozen 2018 defences in other court case threads


then draft your own defence and post it on here for critique


ps:- this is NOT a "FINE" and that word must be avoided at all costs, only YOU may be calling it this legal word, which it isnt and means nothing in these cases, its a Parking Charge Notice, or PCN for short, and its legal term is an INVOICE


so the demands were for an unpaid INVOICE , not a "fine", this company cannot "fine" you , me or the queen for that matter , they have no legal authority to issue a fine and their paperwork will NOT say the word fine either


it is NOT a fine, its an INVOICE, so never use the word "fine" again


capiche ?


pps:- if you lose in civil court, you will pay the JUDGMENT , issued by a judge

Airey1

Hi
The Driver has been divulged as we mistakenly thought initially that they would accept that payment was made. Only after that I was advised to visit these sites
Thanks for the clarity on the use of the word fine I had not considered the implications of that.

Does the disclosure of the driver effect the way we defend this ?

Thanks for quick response

Redx

yes it does, it means it cannot be defended using POFA2012 or keeper liability


BUT , it also means the driver defends it with first hand knowledge of the day in question and all the alternative defence issues and legal points that a driver can use , such as these examples :-



NO LANDOWNER CONTRACT
NO CONTRACT ENTERED INTO BY THE DRIVER
POOR AND INADEQUATE SIGNAGE (AND LIGHTING if at night)
NOT THE SAME AS BEAVIS
ANY RELEVANT CoP failures (IPC CoP in your case)

IF THE PENALTY RULE IS ENGAGED (ie:- possible trespass only)
if bylaws apply (such as on railway land , airports and ports etc)


and anything else I may have missed , like DE MINIMIS , if the driver explained what had happened and they have had their money for parking , it was a minor driver error and no attempt to deceive or avoid paying was tried, so simple human error that does not warrant a court case once the driver told EXCEL what had happened

Airey1

Ok so if so the AOS online and then review the threads you described for similar cases of defence
Then draft my own post on here before submitting ?
Is that right ?

I appreciate the help

Thanks

Coupon-mad

Read the NEWBIES thread post #2 and also, just search the forum:

Excel defence VRN error or Excel defence VRN wrong

may well find one someone has written already.

Also in your defence (although this is a private PCN not a Council one) I would mention the key case (Council PCNs) Dr Evans v Birmingham decision by the Chief Adjudicator, Caroline Sheppard, case ref BM07586G:

''While the CEO cannot be criticised for issuing the PCN, in my view the Council should have immediately cancelled this penalty charge since they had in their own system proof that Doctor Evans had paid £3.30 for parking the car. He had no means of knowing when he left the car park that his payment had been recorded against his own car rather than Miss Price's but it was clear when he explained in his letter of 20 September what had happened.''

It's years old and not about contract law but shows a proper decision by a proper adjudicator that a Judge may be happy to consider.

[Deleted User]

I'd keep this simple. No point addressing theoretical signage defects as the facts are you knew you had to pay and there was some form of contractual obligation, since you did exactly that.

Where the signage does come in, is with regard to the additional charges chasing the debt. The terms in the signs are invariably inadequate, tiny and probably illegible in low light.

The points are:

1. They had the money;
2. You can prove they had the money;
3. There is no loss;
4. You can prove ownership of both cars (between you) so no ticket was transferred in breach of any parking term;
5. The registration number is merely a means of automated checking (assuming ANPR not a parking attendant). At all times the system knows what vehicles are in the car park and could have been designed so as not to accept registration inputs for cars not present.
6. It is a penalty to seek £100 fine for a typo where a small piece of manual administration would marry up the payment.
7. The use of court proceedings is grossly disproportionate to seek to recover any payment for the cross referencing that would have been required, wastes costs and the time of the court contrary to the principles of the overriding objectives at CPR Part 1.

The_Deep

If they took this to court they might struggle. A judge would almost certainly regard this as a trifle, and the law does not concern itself with trifles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_minimis

This is an entirely unregulated industry which is scamming the public with inflated claims for minor breaches of contracts for alleged parking offences, aided and abetted by a handful of low-rent solicitors.

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, and another company have already been named and shamed, as has Gladstones Solicitors, and BW Legal, (these two law firms take hundreds of these cases to court each year). They lose most of them, and have been reported to the regulatory authority by an M.P. for unprofessional conduct

Hospital car parks and residential complex tickets have been especially mentioned.

The problem has become so rampant that MPs have agreed to enact a Bill to regulate these scammers. Watch the video of the Second Reading in the HofC recently.

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

and complain in the most robust terms to your MP. With a fair wind they will be out of business by Christmas.