CCBC Form received for UKCPM/Gladstones

FTB_Peter

I’m drafting it now but to be honest I’m struggling. I don’t know whether to rely on the verbal agreement we’d be ok to park where we did, or go to town on the lack of signage at the entrance, no lines to determine where the parking bays were, or no contract being available for non permit holders?

nosferatu1001

OR you do all three, as your defence is merely an argument; your WS is where you set out the EVIDENCE that supports your argument - bearing in mind the WS itself is evidence!

FTB_Peter

Finally finished the first draft.....




In the County Court at xxxxxxxxx
Claim Number: xxxxxxx

Between:

UK Car Park Management Ltd (Claimant)

v

Mr xxxxx xxxxxx (Defendant)

WITNESS STATEMENT

1. I am Mr xxxxx xxxxx, of (Address), (Postcode), the Defendant in this matter. I will say as follows:


1.1 On (Date), my wife and I had privately hired (said soft play area) as a venue to host our Daughter’s 3rd birthday party.


1.2 We parked directly outside the premises and unloaded items needed for the party. I then asked one of the members of staff if we would be ok parked there, to which they replied ‘as it was out of hours on a Saturday afternoon, we should be ok as we had privately hired the soft play centre’. (Regrettably this member of staff has since left the business meaning a Witness Statement is not available).


1.3 It is my position that, under the doctrine of promissory estoppel, the Claimant has no standing, or cause of action, to litigate in this matter.


2. Should this alone not be sufficient to dismiss the Claim, I would also call upon the following;


2.1 In correspondence from the Defendant, received by the Claimant on 5th July 2016, a copy of the contract between the Claimant and the landowner was requested. This contract has not been provided.
2.2 Should such a contract exist, in Pace v Lengyel (2017), District Judge Iyer dismissed the case, referring to the IPC’s Code of Practice, Schedule 1 part 5, in that signage displayed must have clear and intelligible wording and be designed such that it is clear to the reasonable driver that he is entering into a contract with the creditor or committing a trespass as the case may be. I have enclosed a photograph of the Claimant’s signage and nowhere within this sign does it inform the reader that by parking in the car park, he is entering into a contract with the Claimant. Indeed, the words “contract” or “agreement” do not appear at all within the sign. The phrase “terms and conditions” are not synonymous with a contract.
2.3 Both the IPC and BPA’s Code of Practice state a standard form of entrance sign must be placed at the entrance to the parking area. In the enclosed photograph of the entrance to the car park there are no signs displayed at the entrance.



3 In UKCPM’s own signage it is stated that ‘vehicles displaying bay or area allocated permits must park in the corresponding bay or area’. In the enclosed photographs there are no white lines todelineate any bays or areas.
4 In this case neither the Claimant nor the landowner, is offering anything to motorists who do not have a permit. The Defendant avers that the sign - in fact, not seen by the driver due to outside line of sight placement and lack of signage on the entrance - creates a prohibition against parking without a permit. The notices cannot, therefore, reasonably be construed as having created a contractual relationship between the Claimant and the Driver.


5 In addition to the original £60.00 parking charge, for which liability is denied, the Claimants have artificially inflated the value by adding purported solicitor costs of £50.00 which I submit have not actually been incurred by the Claimant.
5.1 Whilst £50.00 may be recoverable in an instance where a Claimant has used a legal firm to prepare a claim, UKCPM have not expended such a sum on my case. They employ salaried in-house solicitors and file hundreds of similar robo-claims per week, not incurring any legal cost per case.


6 The Court is invited to dismiss the Claim, and to allow such defendant’s costs as are permissible under Civil Procedure Rule 27.14.
I believe the facts stated in this Witness Statement are true.


Signature of Defendant:




Date:

Coupon-mad

I've changed the numbering to a straightforward 1, 2, 3, etc., and removed parts that are legal arguments, which are not for a Witness Statement, but are for you to mention at the hearing (e.g. the added £60 costs that were never actually paid).

I have also suggested some evidence - you really need evidence:

FTB_Peter wrote: »

In the County Court at xxxxxxxxx
Claim Number: xxxxxxx

Between:

UK Car Park Management Ltd (Claimant)

v

Mr xxxxx xxxxxx (Defendant)

WITNESS STATEMENT

1. I am Mr xxxxx xxxxx, of (Address), (Postcode), the Defendant in this matter. I will say as follows:

2. On (Date), my wife and I had privately hired (said soft play area) as a venue to host our Daughter’s 3rd birthday party. Parking spaces exist outside those premises and we parked directly outside and unloaded items needed for the party. [attached evidence P1 - the booking]

3. No terms/signs were seen that alerted us to any reason why a patron and hirer of the soft play area could not park there for that legitimate purpose. I consider myself a circumspect and observant driver and nothing informed myself or my wife, that I would be deemed to have accepted an onerous contract to pay £100 for the privilege of parking there.

4. However, there were other businesses on site and to avoid any doubt, I then asked one of the members of staff if we would be OK to park there. She advised that, as it was out of hours on a Saturday afternoon, we would be OK as we had privately hired the soft play centre. Regrettably this member of staff has since left the business, meaning a Witness Statement is not available, but we were, to our knowledge, authorised to park by a lessee onsite company.

5. It is my position that, under the doctrine of promissory estoppel, the Claimant has no standing, or cause of action, to litigate in this matter. The Claimant is put to strict proof that the soft play centre were not authorised to allow visiting families to park on a Saturday, since I relied upon that promise in good faith.

6. It is also my position that no contract existed between the Claimant and myself. If they contend that no parking was allowed on a Saturday with or without a physical permit, or that no parking was on offer for users of the soft play centre, then it was the burden of the Claimant to make that unexpected position very clear with prominent, large signs and warnings in accordance with Lord Denning's well known 'Red Hand Rule'.

7. In this case neither the Claimant nor the landowner, is offering anything to motorists who do not have a permit. The Defendant avers that the sign - in fact, not seen by myself or my wife, due to outside line of sight placement and lack of signage on the entrance - creates a prohibition against parking without a permit. The notices cannot, therefore, reasonably be construed as having created a contractual relationship between the Claimant and the Defendant.

8. I was astonished to receive a parking charge and a series of demands for parking as agreed by the soft play centre on site. I collected photographs of the lack of signs and I asked the Claimant for proof of their authority to issue PCNs out of office hours/at weekends and who had authorised them to do this.
I received no such evidence.

9. Even if one lessee business on site had entered into a contract with the Claimant, there was no reason to suppose that they would have the power to ban parking by patrons of another lessee business. This would be akin to one leasehold flat owner trying to impose rules on other flat owners at a residential car park. There would be a question of standing, and the Claimant has failed to demonstrate its legitimate interest and commercial justification flowing from the overall site landowner, who is xxxxxxxxxx according to the Land Registry [attached evidence P2 - Land Registry records for the site].


10. Even if such a contract exists with the landowner, it would have been impossible for patrons/hirers of the soft play area relying upon verbal agreement, to display a permit they were never issued with, so any twisting of this event into an alleged/agreed 'contract' would be void for impossibility.

11. Further, even if authority flows from the owner of this land for this parking regime including enforcement out of hours and at weekends to penalise soft play area users, the elements of a contract do not exist. If parking is prohibited for those who UKCPM consider are 'non-authorised' drivers, then there was no consideration and any such conduct could only be pursued by the landowner in possession, as nominal damages for trespass.

12. My position is supported by a County Court decision in Pace v Lengyel (2017), which whilst not a precedent, is a parking/no permit case decision by a District Judge which is on all fours with this case [attached evidence P3 - transcript of PACE v Lengyel].

13. I have enclosed a photograph of the Claimant’s signage and nowhere within this sign does it inform the reader that by parking in the car park, he is entering into a contract with the Claimant. Indeed, the words “contract” or “agreement” do not appear at all within the sign. The phrase “terms and conditions” are not synonymous with a contract, and in any case, this wordy sign was not clear and obvious that patrons of the soft play area were to be prohibited, or penalised [attached evidence P4 - photograph of the wording of the sign that was not seen on the day until it was too late].

14. The Claimant is a member of the International Parking Community, whose Code of Practice states that a standard form of entrance sign must be placed at the entrance to the parking area. In the enclosed photograph of the entrance to the car park there are no signs displayed at the entrance that tell a visitor that the area is managed and/or that restrictions apply to patrons of some of the businesses as opposed to others. [attached evidence P5 - no entrance signs].

15. In the Claimant's signage, it is stated that ‘vehicles displaying bay or area allocated permits must park in the corresponding bay or area’. In the enclosed photographs there are no white lines to delineate any bays or areas, so it is reasonable to conclude that the Claimant has used a generic sign template and has failed to communicate any restrictions clearly and fairly, to patrons of the soft play area, who would need and reasonably expect to park when hiring the facility. [attached evidence P6 - photographs of the site - no bay lines].

16. In addition to the original £60.00 parking charge, for which liability is denied, the Claimants have artificially inflated the value by adding various 'costs' that have neither been quantified, nor in fact expended at all. An additional 'indemnity costs if applicable' of £60 have been variously described in the demands, as debt collection costs, or damages, and even purported solicitors costs. But in addition, the Claimant has added 'legal costs' of £50.00. Excluding the usual filing/hearing fees, I submit that none of the other added costs have actually been incurred by the Claimant, given that debt collectors charge no fee for letters to the parking industry, and Gladstones' involvement has not included legal advice from a supervising solicitor. These roboclaims are filed by an administration team with no legal costs being incurred per case, and there were certainly no damages over and above the already highly-inflated for profit, sum of £100.

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


Signature of Defendant:

You need to number your evidence photos & transcript and proof of booking, to match where they are referred to in the WS. Then add a contents page, and finally, number every page too.

Put that in a ring binder marked on the front with the claim number and the date of the hearing (important, to stop it being filed in a drawer!) and take that file in person to the local court in time.

The Claimant gets an email of all of it, or 2 emails to break down the attachments a bit! ADD A READ RECEIPT!

And then print out your 'sent item' and read receipt, and put that in your own file version of everything (your court bundle) as proof that the evidence and WS was emailed and received in time. Sometimes the hired reps lie that the D's WS was never sent!

FTB_Peter

Coupon-mad, thank you so much for your input, it’s very much appreciated!

I’ll request a copy of our booking and get onto the Land Registry tomorrow (a quick google search brought up many different options which all require payment, am I looking at the right thing?)

Coupon-mad

Yes a LR search for a site owner/deed, costs about £3.50 which has to be worth it (you can add it to your costs schedule!).

What if it shows the overall landowner as X, and yet the Claimant rocks up with a 'landowner authority' from Y who are just another lessee business like the soft play area were? That would throw the Claimant's standing off balance to say the least - as stated in your WS - why would one lessee have power/more parking rights & easements than another lessee, unless the C proves that is the case?

Worth it - as you MUST have evidence.

Someone lost last week and they admitted it was because they didn't take the ONE piece of evidence the friendly Judge wanted to see, and it was clear the Judge wanted to find in their favour, but couldn't.

FTB_Peter

Not having much luck this morning!


The young lady at the soft play area could not pull any bookings up on their system from that long ago, so she is waiting for her manager to come in and see if she has more luck.


Currently searching for a bank/credit card statement that shows a payment for the booking but not having much luck there as I often change credit cards for 0% balance transfer reasons.


So far I only have a debit card transaction for goods purchased on the day.


The LR search I requested has come back with references made to shaded areas on a map, only no map has been provided! And low and behold there is no phone number for them, just an email address, so it's a waiting game on that front aswell.

Coupon-mad

I always come off a maze of a website then Google instead, if I can't find the right thing on the website. Not sure if this still works but Google had this phone number info:

https://eservices.landregistry.gov.uk/contactus.html

nosferatu1001

Rememebr your witness statement is personal, so "the defendant" is never used - it is "I" or "me"

FTB_Peter

Unfortunately I panicked a bit last night and paid £17 through a company called LandRegistrySearches.com. In an effort to get the correct plan I paid £3 through HM land registry who have now sent me a plan for the land adjacent to the one I enquired about. Think I should just go back to bed today!


In the Newbies thread bargepole mentions including POFA schedule 4 and Popla's Annual Report from 2015 with a WS. Would these be relevant in my case?