UKCPM/Gladstones Claim Form Defence.. Comment please!

noisyneighbour

Hello all,

I'd be really grateful if you could kindly review and give your expert comments on my defence prepared against a claim by UKCPM/Gladstones. (AOS sent 3wks ago)
Although I have been studying this board very hard for a many days now, I found it difficult to search an exact one applicable to my situation. (Maybe I didn't search hard enough..)

Many thanks in advance,

The Situation:
20 months ago, I stopped my car for 10 mins in front of the entrance of our flat (=a residential block of flats), whilst taking my two boys - 5month; and 3years y/o - to our home in the middle of a cold night.

• I was a leaseholder (Shared Ownership) at the time with an allocated parking bay (numbered).
• My allocated parking bay was located 200 metres away from the entrance of our block, hence this 'offence'....
• A resident parking permit (with my bay number) was displayed on the windscreen.
• There is no designated area specifically for loading/unloading within the development where the leaseholder can put down passengers, according to the Plan of the Lease. However, the area in dispute has been commonly used by residents for loading/unloading.
• There is visible presence of signage installed by UKCPM throughout the parking bays (with typical UKCPM wordings). However, the area of !!!8216;offence!!!8217; itself was not marked in hatch / road marking / raised pavement.
• 'Photographic evidence'; were 4 x poorly exposed digital images, and was time stamped at XX:XX. Interestingly, the UKCPM letters state that the Incident Time was YY:YY, 25mins after taking these photographs, although I was there only 10 minutes. My Google Location record tells me that the photos were taken 7 minutes after arriving at the location.

Paper trail:
PCN was not affixed to the window. Instead, it arrived via post 2 weeks later. (Basis for PCN: No Parking Outside of a Designated Area)
Since then, I disregarded/ignored:

• 2 x letters from UK CPM;
• 3 x letters from DRP;
• 1 x from Gladstones.

A LBC was issued three months ago. I pointed out lack of details and asked Gladstones to provide full evidence, and they replied with copies of CPM letters and 4 images with a FAQ. However, I did not follow it up, which I regret now. A N1 Claim Form was received last month and I did AOS. I now have approx. 1wk left to reply (too late, I know^%#$$% )

The Lease:
It appears that the Lease condition seems to be pretty 'tight' as below:

Under Landlord's Covenants:5.1 Quite Enjoyment: That the Leaseholder may peaceably enjoy the Premises during the term without any lawful interruption by the Landlord or any person rightfully claiming under or in trust for it.
In Schedule 2 - Mutual Covenants

• Not to leave any vehicle bicycle tricycle perambulator toy motor car or other object or thing on any part of the Residential Common Parts so as to cause a nuisance annoyance or inconvenience to the owners and occupiers of the Building
• Not to park (or to permit or suffer any occupier of the Premises to park) any motor vehicle on any other parking space in the Building save as may be allocated for use in connection with the Premises

In Schedule 3 - Easements, Rights and Privileges

• An exclusive right to park a single private motor car in the Parking Space PROVIDED ALWAYS that the Landlord shall have the right on giving prior written notice and at its own cost from time to time to alter such car parking rights provided further that the alteration shall be no less commodious unless with the agreement of the Leaseholder and for the avoidance of doubt shall include the alteration of the Parking Space and/or the Parking Area

At the end of the lease following definitions were listed:
'Parking Area means the area within the estate coloured blue on the Car Parking Plan as defined in the Transfer
Parking Space means such parking space within the Parking Area as is from time to time allocated by the Landlord to the Leaseholder for the parking of one private motor vehicle and as at the date of this Lease edged red on Plan 2
Residential Common Parts includes (but without limitation) the entrance corridors lobbies accessways; external pavements and other parts of the Building which are intended to be or area capable of being enjoyed or used by the Leaseholder in common with others in the Building

Below is my defence:

IN THE COUNTY COURT BUSINESSS CENTRE
CLAIM No. DXXXXXXX
Between:
UK Car Park Management Ltd (Claimant)
-and-
Mr XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX (Defendant)

___________
DEFENCE
__________

Background
1. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief claimed in the sum of £XXX, or at all, for the reasons stated in the following paragraphs.
2. It is admitted that the Defendant is the Registered Keeper of the vehicle in question on the material date. The Defendant was also the leaseholder of a property at the location at that time, and displayed a resident!!!8217;s parking permit for use of an allocated parking bay.
3. On the material date, the Defendant stopped the vehicle at a convenient point close to the entrance of the building for less ten minutes, whilst transferring two sleeping infants to a flat owned by the Defendant on the 6th floor of the building.

2016 Appeal case (a Gladstones parking claim turning on similar facts) is persuasive
4. The facts of this case are similar to those in the Appeal case of Jopson v Homeguard Services (B9GF0A9E, Oxford County Court, 2016), where a car had stopped temporarily near the entrance in order to unload some furniture. HHJ Harris QC held, in his Judgment at [18], that ''a right of access permitted short incidental stops for the purpose of access to her flat''. Specifically, it was stated that brief stops for delivering or unloading items, dropping off passengers, etc. were not 'parking'; a definition which was fully explored by this Senior Circuit Judge, who observed that life at a block of flats would be ''unworkable'' if every resident or visitor ran a risk of immediate ticketing, when the vehicle was not in fact parked, and before any contract could possibly have been agreed.
5. The Judgment in Jopson also makes it clear that the factual circumstances are quite different from those which applied in ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67, and that case is distinguished.


No Reasonable Grace Period Allowed by the Claimant - no contract formed
6. It is denied that there was any 'relevant obligation' or 'relevant contract' relating to any parking event, in fact it is denied that the car was actually parked/left for any period of time that can warrant any 'contractual parking charge'.
7. On any reasonable construction, this action did not constitute 'parking'. In any event, it would be an implied term of the lease that leaseholder should be able to park near the entrance temporarily, in order to loading/unloading as well as dropping off passengers from the vehicle to the property, or vice versa.
8. Less than ten minutes cannot be considered as reasonable 'grace period'. This is in breach of the International Parking Community (IPC) code of practice, to which the Claimant is an Accredited operator, and by which they must therefore abide. Whilst this Code of Practice is not statutory, compliance with the Code is mandatory in order for parking operators to obtain vehicle keeper details from the DVLA.

Misleading Trading Practices / Artificially inflated charges
9. The Claimant is put to strict proof that they have standing to bring any claim in the absence of a contract that expressly permits the Claimant to do so, in addition to merely undertaking parking management. The Claimant, who is not a party to the Lease, and has no proprietary interest in the land, has provided no proof of any such entitlement.
10. The Claimant has previously sent threatening and misleading demands which stated that further debt recovery action would be taken to recover what is owed by passing the debt to a recovery agent (which suggested to the Defendant they would be calling round like bailiffs) adding further unexplained charges of varying amounts (£49, £26.65, £60). The Claimant has at no time provided an explanation how the sum has been calculated, the conduct that gave rise to it or how the amount has changed from £149 to £126.65 to £149 to £160 to £179.52. This appears to be an attempt at adding costs with no legal basis, and an attempt at double recovery, in order to circumvent the Civil Procedure Rules.
11. The Claimant did not serve a compliant !!!8216;Letter Before County Claim!!!8217;, on the Defendant, as mandated by the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct. Further to this, the Particulars of Claim as pleaded in the N1 Claim Form are extremely sparse, and do not disclose a proper Cause of Action, but instead offer a menu of choices. As such, the Particulars do not comply with CPR 16.4, and the Court is invited to strike out the claim of its own initiative, using its case management powers.
12. If the Court is not minded to make such an order, then when Directions are given, the Defendant asks that there is an order for sequential service of witness evidence (rather than exchange) because it is expected that the Claimant will use its witness statement to provide the sort of detail which should have been disclosed much earlier, and the Defendant should have the opportunity to consider it, prior to serving evidence and witness statements in support of this Defence.

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


....................................... ......................
(Defendant) (Date)

thetriggerhappypwner

I think that this defence is reasonable given the facts although I cannot give proper advice since I know little of these matters.

I am sure one of the MSE team will reply with good and correct advice.

KeithP

What is the Date of Issue on your Claim Form?

noisyneighbour

Hi, the Date of Issue is 11-Jun.

KeithP

noisyneighbour wrote: »

I now have approx. 1wk left to reply (too late, I know^%#$$% )

noisyneighbour wrote: »

Hi, the Date of Issue is 11-Jun.

Then you have exactly one week left.

You have until 4pm on Monday 16th July 2018 to file your Defence.

That is plenty of time to compile a Defence.
Just copy one of the very recent ones found by putting UKCPM Defence into the forum search facility, choosing 'Show Posts'.

One posted a few days ago by jollyroger10 might be a good starting point.

When you are happy with the content, your Defence should be filed via email as described here:

1) print your Defence
2) sign it
3) scan the signed document back in and save it as a pdf.
4) send that pdf as an email attachment to CCBCAQ@Justice.gov.uk
5) just put the claim number and the word Defence in the email title, and in the body of the email something like 'Please find my Defence attached'.

Coupon-mad

The defence looks good to me; concise and clear. Jopson is very similar!

noisyneighbour

Thank you, everyone! I've now sent this defence via e-mail.

@KeithP: The up-to-date e-mail address appears to be ccbcaq @ hmcts.gsi.gov.uk on the CCBC website. I've sent the identical e-mail to both e-mail addresses, anyway..

Coupon-mad

The up-to-date e-mail address appears to be ccbcaq @ hmcts.gsi.gov.uk on the CCBC website.

No - although that's on the website, it's not the up to date one. KeithP gave you that.

noisyneighbour

Thanks - Yes, confirming that the e-mail address that KeithP gave me is the correct one! i.e. CCBCAQ@Justice.gov.uk

Coupon-mad

Already said it 3 times now. Yes...

You'd have been quicker to just search the forum for that email address as your keyword, to find it said a hundred times on other threads the same as yours. Both CCBCAQ emails would work.

noisyneighbour

Hello all,

Would it be OK to complete the N180 (=Directions Questionnaire) and return it to CCBCAQ@Justice.gov.uk , although I didn't receive one from CCBC yet? (Defence filed on 12-Jul-18)

It is because I will be away for the next 3wks and I don't want to potentially miss the N180 deadline whilst on holiday.

Thank you for your help & support to date. Very much appreciated!