Gladstone Claim - Help needed on Steps

facilitator999

Your 'credit score' cannot be affected until a County Court Judgement is made against you.

That cannot happen until a court case has taken place, and you have lost that case, and you have then failed to pay whatever the court decides within one month.

Coupon-mad

1. Could I be asked to pay more than the claim of £249.93? No, likely much less.
2. Will it immediately go on my credit report? No.

That is why these are worth fighting, and because we see 99% wins still reported, and have done for almost two years now, since we really made a more concerted effort to confront the influx of claims head on.

facilitator999

I, ……………………., am the defendant in this case.!

1. The facts in this statement come from my personal knowledge. Where they are not within my own knowledge there are true to the best of my information and belief.

2. I am not liable to the Claimant for the sum claimed, or any amount at all and this is my Witness Statement in support of my defence as already filed.


3. I was the registered keeper of the vehicle in question in this case. However due to the long passage of time since the alleged contraventions, I am unable to recall who might have been driving. As the dates cover over a year, this could have involved different drivers on each occasion, given that the vehicle was insured with more than one named driver and other drivers given permission to drive*.


4. The dates in question are unremarkable and I therefore have no recollection of the circumstances surrounding these events.


5. I recall receiving some letters in the post from the claimant and I ignored them as I believed them to be scam letters due to the excessive amounts being claimed. I felt vindicated in that decision when I received no further letters or contact of any kind from the claimant on this matter.


6. I was then surprised to receive a letter before claim from the claimants representatives. I did some research into why I may have received this and it seems the claimant and similar parking companies are submitting masses of court claims for old “parking charges” and are inappropriately using the court system as a form of debt collection.

7. A compliant Letter before Claim was not sent to me.


8. The sign is mostly a wall of small font text, from which a driver in a vehicle cannot understand and therefore cannot!be deemed to have!accepted!the terms.!of.!The dates of the PCNs range from mid 2017, and in that time it is averred that the signs will have changed, been replaced or updated (to reflect changes in the BPA Code of Practice) and indeed some may have been removed or damaged. There is no evidence that these signs existed throughout the time-span of this claim and it is argued that this operator did not comply with the 'signage' and 'entrance signs' sections of the BPA Code of Practice as it changed between 2015 to date**.

10. The sign does not explicitly explain that a driver would be entering into a contract by the specific act of parking and neither does it clearly state who that contract would be with. This is contrary to BPA guidance. The sign submitted also claims that the charge is £90 and yet the claimant has claimed the sign creates a charge for £100. There is no evidence of any contract creating a charge of £100. Regardless, this part of the sign is in very small text and is therefore illegible.

11. Many of the documents submitted were photos of the vehicle in the car park. They show the poor lighting in the area and high placement of the signs. It cannot be expected that a driver can be able to read and accept any terms on the signage.!


12. Many of the photos are also of questionable accuracy. Many of the timestamps are illegible and so it cannot be confirmed what time or day they were taken. I am also of the opinion that some of the photos have very similar surroundings despite being claimed to have been taken at different times. Given the history of the claimant for falsifying photo evidence, I do not believe these photos can be relied upon for accuracy.


13. The copies of the letters that the claimant has claimed were sent to me are not compliant with the Protection of Freedom Act 2012 and therefore cannot claim keeper liability. Firstly, the notices to keeper in relation to the parking charges dated “..........” do not identify who the creditor is as required by Paragraph 8(2)(h) of the POFA 2012.!

14. Secondly, all of the notices to keeper issued do not state a specific “period of parking” that the as required by Paragraph 8(2)(a). Neither do the notices to keeper repeat the relevant information from the notice to driver as required by Paragraph 8(2)(c).

15. Finally, Paragraph 8(2)(f) requires that any notice to keeper gives 28 days from the day after the day the notice was given for full payment or the details of the driver. All of the notices to keeper issued do state this but they also state that payment must be made within 28 days of the date of the notice, which is conflicting information and not compliant with POFA 2012.


I believe that the facts stated in this Witness Statement are true.!


Signed……………………..!



Dated………………………

Coupon-mad

2. I am not liable to the Claimant for the sum claimed, or any amount at all and this is my Witness Statement in support of my defence as already filed.

No it's not.

You are at defence stage, surely, so stop copying a Witness Statement.

Go back and read the example defences, not WS (a different thing).

Show us your draft DEFENCE. The thing written in the third person...as per the examples in the NEWBIES thread that I call 'defences'. NOT 'witness statements'.

facilitator999

Could you point to a defence which is more basic than ones here?

Coupon-mad

Search the forum for bargepole defence. This is not difficult.

You've been reading witness statements, and I have no idea why.

facilitator999

IN THE COUNTY COURT

Claim No.: xxxxxx
Between

UK CAR PARK MANAGEMENT LIMITED
(Claimant)
-and-

xxxxxx
(Defendant)

__________________________________________________ ________________________

DEFENCE
__________________________________________________ _________________________

I deny I am liable for the entirety of the claim on the following grounds:

1. The Claim Form issued on the 13 August 2018 by UK Car Park Management Limited was not correctly filed under The Practice Direction as it was not signed by a legal person. The claim does not have a valid signature and is not a statement of truth. It states that it has been issued by UK Car Park Management Limited; as the Claimants Legal Representative. Practice Direction 22 requires that a statement of case on behalf of a company must be signed by a person holding a senior position and state the position. If the party is legally represented, the legal representative may sign the statement of truth but in his own name and not that of his firm or employer.

2. This Claimant has not complied with pre-court protocol (as outlined in the new Pre Action Protocol for Debt Claims, 1 October 2017) and as an example as to why this prevents a full defence being filed at this time, a parking charge can be for trespass, breach of contract or a contractual charge. All these are treated differently in law and require a different defence. The wording of any contract will naturally be a key element in this matter, and a copy of the alleged contract has never been provided to the Defendant.

a. There was no compliant Letter before County Court Claim under the Practice Direction.

b. The Claim Form Particulars were extremely sparse and divulged no cause of action nor sufficient detail. The Defendant has no idea what the claim is why the charge arose, what the alleged contract was; nothing that could be considered a fair exchange of information. Furthermore, the Claim Form Particulars did not contain any evidence of contravention or photographs. These documents, and the Letter before County Court Claim should have been produced, pursuant to paragraph 6 of the Practice Direction Pre Action Conduct. This constitutes a deliberate attempt to thwart any efforts to defend the claim or to take stock, pursuant to paragraph 12 of the Practice Direction. Again, this totally contradicts the guidance outlined in the new Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims (2017), the aims of which are:

i. Early engagement and communication between the parties, including early exchange of sufficient information about the matter to help clarify whether there are any issues in dispute

ii. enable the parties to resolve the matter without the need to start court proceedings, including agreeing a reasonable repayment plan or considering using an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) procedure

iii. encourage the parties to act in a reasonable and proportionate manner in all dealings with one another (for example, avoiding running up costs which do not bear a reasonable relationship to the sums in issue) and

iv. support the efficient management of proceedings that cannot be avoided.

c. The Defence therefore asks the Court to strike out the claim as disclosing no cause of action and having no reasonable prospect of success as currently drafted

3. The Claimant failed to meet the Notice to Keeper obligations of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (POFA 2012). Such a notice was not served within 14 days of the parking event and when the notice was served, did not fully comply with statutory wording. The Claimant is therefore unable to hold the defendant liable under the strict keeper liability provisions:

The Claimant did not comply with POFA 2012 and give the registered keeper opportunity, at any point, to identify the driver. A Notice to Keeper can be served by ordinary post and the Protection of Freedoms Act requires that the Notice, to be valid, must be delivered no later than 14 days after the vehicle was parked. No ticket was left on the windscreen and no notice to keeper was sent within the 14 days required to comply with POFA 2012 only a speculative invoice entitled Parking Charge Notice which was sent outside of the 14 day period, which did not comply with POFA 2012. This would exclude the registered keeper being liable for any charges.

Henry Greenslade, lead adjudicator of POPLA in 2015 and an eminent barrister and parking law expert, stated that; However keeper information is obtained, there is no reasonable presumption in law that the registered keeper of a vehicle is the driver. Operators should never suggest anything of the sort. Schedule 4 also states that the only sum a keeper can be pursued for (if Schedule 4 is fully complied with, which it was not, and if there was a 'relevant obligation' and relevant contract' fairly and adequately communicated, which there was not) is the sum on the Notice to Keeper. They cannot pluck another sum from thin air and bolt that on as well when neither the signs, nor the NTK, nor the permit information mentioned a possible £248.93 for outstanding debt and damages. The additional costs, which the defendant contests have not been incurred, are none of its concern.

4. The Claimant has added unrecoverable sums to the original parking charge. It is believed that the employee who drew up the paperwork is remunerated, and the particulars of claim are templates, so it is simply not credible that £50 legal representatives costs were incurred. The Defendant believes that UK Car Park Management Limited has artificially inflated this claim. They are claiming legal costs when not only is this not permitted (CPR 27.14) but the Defendant believes that they have not incurred legal costs. According to Ladak v DRC Locums UKEAT/0488/13/LA the claimant can only recover the direct and provable costs of the time spent on preparing the claim in a legal capacity, not any administration cost. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to any interest whatsoever. The claimant has not explained how the claim has increased from the original parking notice to £248.93 If the Claimant alleges that they claim the cost of its in-house administration, these cannot be recovered - they are staff performing the task that they have been employed for and essential to the Claimant's business plan.

5. This case can be distinguished from ParkingEye v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 (the Beavis case) which was dependent upon an undenied contract, formed by unusually prominent signage forming a clear offer and which turned on unique facts regarding the location and the interests of the landowner. Strict compliance with the BPA Code of Practice (CoP) was paramount and Mr Beavis was the driver who saw the signs and entered into a contract to pay £85 after exceeding a licence to park free. As far as I can ascertain, based upon the very vague particulars of claim and complete lack of evidence and photographs, and without having been furnished with the alleged signage contract, none of this applies in this material case.

6. In the absence of any proof of adequate signage contractually bound the Defendant then there can have been no contract and the Claimant has no case

a. The Claimant is put to strict proof at the time of the alleged event they had both advertisement consent and the permission from the site owner to display the signs

b. In the absence of strict proof I submit that the Claimant was committing an offence by displaying their signs and therefore no contract could have been entered into between the driver and the Claimant

c. Inadequate signs incapable of binding the driver this distinguishes this case from the Beavis case:

i. Sporadic and illegible (charge not prominent nor large lettering) of site/entrance signage - breach of the POFA 2012 Schedule 4 and the BPA Code of Practice and no contract formed to pay any clearly stated sum
ii. It is believed the signage was not lit and any terms were not transparent or legible; this is an unfair contract, not agreed by the driver and contrary to the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in requiring a huge inflated sum as compensation from by an authorised party using the premises as intended
iii. No promise was made by the driver that could constitute consideration because there was no offer known nor accepted. No consideration flowed from the Claimant
iv. The signs are believed to have no mention of any debt collection additional charge, which cannot form part of any alleged contract.
v. The signs are believed to have no mention of any debt collection additional charge, which cannot form part of any alleged contract.

d. BPA CoP breaches this distinguishes this case from the Beavis case:
i. The signs were not compliant in terms of the font size, lighting or positioning
ii. The sum pursued exceeds £100
iii. There is/was no compliant landowner contract.

7. No standing this distinguishes this case from the Beavis case:
It is believed UK Car Park Management Limited do not hold a legitimate contract at this car park. As an agent, the Claimant has no legal right to bring such a claim in their name which should be in the name of the landowner.!

8. The Claimants have artificially inflated the claim value by claiming to have paid vague costs (legal fees or debt collectors). The Defendant puts the Claimant to strict proof that all claimed costs were invoiced and paid.

9. The defendant wrote to the claimant on 18th August 2018 asking for:
a. Full particulars of the parking charges
b. Who the party was that contracted with UK Car Park Management Ltd
c. The full legal identity of the landowner
d. A full copy of the contract with the landholder that demonstrated that UK Car Park Management Ltd had their authority.
e. If the charges were based on damages for breach of contract and if so to provide justification of this sum.

The claimant has not responded with any of the above information. As Gladstone’s are a firm of solicitors who’s Directors also run the IPC Trade Body and deal with private parking issues every single day of the week there can be no excuse for these omissions.

10. The Defendant denies any liability whatsoever to the Claimant in any matter and asks the Court to note that the Claimant has failed to disclose any cause of action in the incorrectly filed Claim Form issued on 13 August 2018.

11. The vague Particulars of Claim disclose no clear cause of action. The court is invited to strike out the claim of its own volition as having no merit and no reasonable prospects of success.

STATEMENT OF TRUTH

I confirm that the contents of this Defence are true to the best of my knowledge and recollection.



XXXXXXX
17 September 2018

nosferatu1001

OK, so any questions?
Anythingyou dont understand? have you proof read ot make sure it ALL applies in YOUR case, and all names of companies, dates are correct?

facilitator999

i edited the post with corrections, seems ok, i have 4 hours now... to

1) Print the 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'.

nosferatu1001

Are yo happy? anything you dont understand?

Do everything sa per post 2 of this thread.
You could more easily take a scan of your signature, on VERY white p[aper, and insert that into your doc, THEN convert to PDF. Saves paper and means you have a smaller end PDF.