County court claim

akn_2018

Hi,

Could you please advise / suggest what I should do about a Court claim that a PPC has issued against me.

The alleged contravention happened in december last year, where a local shopping centre carpark was taken over by NCP.
The take over might have happened a few weeks prior to the incident. It used to be and still is a pay and display carpark, with no barriers or cameras.
Once they took over they installed ANPR and a VRN ticket machine. I have only been to the carpark once after thsese chages have been made.

There was no clear signage to indicate the ANPR and the new parking terms. I paid for an hour but I was sent a PCN for overstaying by 15 minutes.
I still have the ticket with me and also have the ticket i bought the previous day ,where i did not incur any PCN.
I ignored the PCN and all subsequent threat letters but now they have sought a claim in the county court.I need to defend/admit the claim by 07/08/8.
The total charge now stands at £242.00.

If i defend and lose will i incur more charges? I read m from the small claim guide that they can't bring in liabilty for court representations etc.
if it will be still £242.00 , I would rather defend the whole claim on the basis of lack of signage and unclear parking terms at the hearing.please help.
I have uploaded the documents i received.

thanks
AKN

System

When you say "overstay" is it overstay by 15 mins from the expiry of the P&D ticket?

Who is the PPC?

Have you Acknowledged the claim?

Have you read the helpful Newbies thread that covers this?

KeithP

What is the Date of Issue on the Claim Form?

Coupon-mad

If i defend and lose will i incur more charges?

No. And no CCJ, and it would be likely you'd pay less than £200 if you lost.

That's why everyone here defends these scams. There is no risk, nothing to lose. See the second post of the NEWBIES thread.

And please answer IamEmanresu's and KeithP's questions.

The_Deep

If you were to lose, the most the Judge would award the PPC is likely to be under £200, the rest is unlawful double charging.

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 House of Commons recently

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

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

akn_2018

Hi IamEmanresu,


When you say "overstay" is it overstay by 15 mins from the expiry of the P&D ticket?

Yes. But this isn't stated on the NtK. They only have photos of entry and exit with times.
I still have the P&D ticket , on which the time starts about 5 minutes past the entry time.
Exit as on the NtK is 15 mins after the ticket time.

Who is the PPC?
NCP. Which took over the carpark literally a few weeks prior to this.And this is the Brittania Carpark in Hinckley . Now pursued through BW legal.

Have you Acknowledged the claim?

I did not. I wasn't aware of the all the changes in the tactics of the PPCs.
I ignored all the threat letters up to LBCC. To be honest, I was completely ignorant of the way these are handled by the PPCs.

Have you read the helpful Newbies thread that covers this?
I didn't but I am now.

Quentin

Concentrate on doing the AOS first.

All covered in the Newbies FAQ thread #2

akn_2018

Hi Keith,

The date of issue is 17/ July /2018. I was looking for a way to upload the scanned PDFs of the documents here but I couldn't figure out yet.

akn_2018

Hi The Deep,
I am starting on a petition to my MP. Thank you for you advice.

Redx

you cannot upload files to this forum, they do not allow it

as for one of the questions you were asked, it was about the AOS on the MCOL website , not if you had ignored previous paperwork

get the AOS done on the MCOL website asap, do not put anything in the defence box, not even a full stop

the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread post #2 has walkthroughs on doing this task, so follow it to the letter

once the AOS is done , start drafting your defence as a word doc, based on previous defences listed on this forum (find a suitable defence and adapt it)

as this alleged "overstay" was 15 minutes, look at the BPA CoP that was in force on the date of the original contravention, read clause #13 about grace periods, one before the car was parked and one to leave after the parking period

5 minutes before and 10 minutes to leave are covered by that clause #13

but your defence will also have several other legal points , not just clause #13 of the BPA CoP

KeithP

akn_2018 wrote: »

Hi Keith,

The date of issue is 17/ July /2018.

As Redx says you must do the Acknowledgement of Service to buy yourself an extra fourteen days to prepare your Defence.

Full instructions on how to do the AoS are in post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread - in a dropbox file linked from there.

You have until 5th August to do the AoS, but no need to delay.

Having done the AoS, you then have until 4pm on Monday 20th August 2018 to file your Defence.

That may seem a long way away, but it really is worth starting on your Defence as soon as possible.


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

1) Print your Defence.
2) Sign it and date 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'.
6) Log into MCOL after a few days to see if the Claim is marked "defended". If not chase the CCBC until it is.
7) Wait for the Directions Questionnaire and come back here.