Received over 10 tickets, need help!

missyjingles

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Please, not again:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/75293961#Comment_75293961

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/75293205#Comment_75293205

For your own sake, you are overthinking it. Get on with the defence...


No, but the facts are relevant to be briefly stated within the defence that will be based on the usual bargepole versions.

Like here...please can people just write a defence like this, just copy & adapt, it is simple:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/75283628#Comment_75283628

Thank you coupon-mad for the virtual kick up the butt, first defence draft follows plus one note at the bottom:


IN THE COUNTY COURT
CLAIM No: xxxxxxxxxx
BETWEEN:
PARKING CONTROL MANAGEMENT LTD (Claimant)
-and-
xxxxxxxxxxxx (Defendant)

________________________________________
DEFENCE
________________________________________

1. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.

2. The facts are that the vehicle, registration XXXXXXX, of which the Defendant is the registered keeper, was parked on the material date, allocated to Parking Control Management at XXXX XXXXX.

3. The Particulars of Claim state that the Defendant XXXXXX XXXXXXXX was the registered keeper and/or the driver of the vehicle(s) XXXXXXX. These assertions indicate that the Claimant has failed to identify a Cause of Action, and is simply offering a menu of choices. As such, the Claim fails to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4, or with Civil Practice Direction 16, paras. 7.3 to 7.5. Further, the particulars of the claim do not meet the requirements of Practice Direction 16 7.5 as there is nothing which specifies how the terms were breached.

4. Due to the sparseness of the particulars, it is unclear as to what legal basis the claim is brought, whether for breach of contract, contractual liability, or trespass. However, it is denied that the Defendant, or any driver of the vehicle, entered into any contractual agreement with the Claimant, whether express, implied, or by conduct.

5. The claimant rented a room with off street parking in good faith at the said location. The landlord failed to supply a parking permit, the claimant requested one repeatedly. After a period of 10weeks an eviction notice was served at the address as the landlord was not the landlord at all and was illegally sub-letting the rooms. All tenants were evicted and all deposits were lost.

6. There are 8 outstanding tickets which the defendant has requested to be amalgamated and served on one claim. However, this claim does not include all 8, this is escalating costs and wasting the court's time.

7. Further and in the alternative, it is denied that the claimant's signage sets out the terms in a sufficiently clear manner which would be capable of binding any reasonable person reading them. They merely state that vehicles must be parked correctly within their allocated parking bay, giving no definition of the term 'correctly parked', nor were there any road markings to indicate any parking bays.

8. The terms on the Claimant's signage are also displayed in a font which is too small to be read from a passing vehicle, and is in such a position that anyone attempting to read the tiny font would be unable to do so easily. It is, therefore, denied that the Claimant's signage is capable of creating a legally binding contract.

9. The Claimant is put to strict proof that it has sufficient proprietary interest in the land, or that it has the necessary authorisation from the landowner to issue parking charge notices, and to pursue payment by means of litigation.

10. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4, at Section 4(5) states that the maximum sum that may be recovered from the keeper is the charge stated on the Notice to Keeper, in this case £100. The claim includes an additional £60, for which no calculation or explanation is given, and which appears to be an attempt at double recovery.

11. In summary, it is the Defendant's position that the claim discloses no cause of action, is without merit, and has no real prospect of success. Accordingly, the Court is invited to strike out the claim of its own initiative, using its case management powers pursuant to CPR 3.4.

I believe the facts contained in this Defence are true.

Name
Signature
Date


My husband and I both remember there being no clear parking bay markings, I added this to point 7, this was due to the development being quite new and works were still in progress.

Coupon-mad

Very good indeed!

Now the only thing I could spot (a glaring error) is that this needs to say Defendant:

5. The claimant rented a room with off street parking in good faith at the said location.

missyjingles

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Very good indeed!

Now the only thing I could spot (a glaring error) is that this needs to say Defendant:

oops! :rotfl:

Do you think I should enter another point stating'

2 PCNs have already been the subject of a claim. The defendant was unable to respond in time due to being out of the country. Payment was made in time and under protest, in order to avoid a CCJ.

nosferatu1001

No. It muddies the water.

Coupon-mad

You can save the PACE v Lengyel transcript to adduce as evidence with your later Witness Statement, and it doesn't need mentioning in defence yet, so I think your defence is ready for the named Defendant to print, sign & email to the CCBC, as per KeithP's reply on every defence thread.

See the NEWBIES thread to be ready for the next stages. Please, no post asking about the DQ N180 form, or wondering why Gladstones will send you a N159 and a template letter about 'not having a hearing'...this is all covered in the NEWBIES thread already!

KeithP

Coupon-mad wrote: »

...as per KeithP's reply on every defence thread.

Yes... post #57 above.

missyjingles

quick question, this court claim is for 3 PCN's yet in point 10 it only talks about the charge for one, should the amounts be changed for all 3 or is it for each?

Coupon-mad

Change the amounts for all 3.

missyjingles

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Change the amounts for all 3.

So just to be sure before I send, I change it to £480 as below? Or should it be the full amount of the court claim which is £654.27?

10. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4, at Section 4(5) states that the maximum sum that may be recovered from the keeper is the charge stated on the Notice to Keeper, in this case £300. The claim includes an additional £180, for which no calculation or explanation is given, and which appears to be an attempt at double recovery.

Coupon-mad

I would say more, as I think we don't strike hard enough about this abuse of process:

10. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (the POFA) at Section 4(5) states that the maximum sum that may be recovered from the keeper is the charge stated on the Notice to Keeper, in this case for three PCNs, a maximum of £300 depending on the Claimant's full compliance with the POFA and establishing a breach of a 'relevant obligation' and/or 'relevant contract' from adequately prominent, large lettering terms on copious and clear signage.

10.1. This claim inflates the total to an eye-watering £654.27, in a clear attempt at double recovery. The Defendant trusts that the presiding Judge will recognise this wholly unreasonable conduct as a gross abuse of process and may consider using the court's case management powers to strike the claim out of the court's own volition. The acid test is whether the conduct permits of a reasonable explanation, but the Defendant avers it cannot.

10.2. 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 costs allegedly incurred by already renumerated clerical staff working for a firm of solicitors in issuing robo-claims.

10.3. Not only are such costs not permitted (CPR 27.14) but the Defendant believes that the Claimant has not incurred legal costs at all. The Defendant avers that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste claims at all.

10.4. It was held in the Supreme Court in Beavis (where £85 was claimed, and no more) that a private parking charge already includes a very significant and high percentage in profit and more than covers the costs of running an automated regime of template letters. It is also a fact that debt collection agencies act on a no-win-no-fee basis for parking operators, so no such costs have been incurred in truth. Thus, there can be no 'damages' to pile on top of any parking charge claim, nor 'indemnity costs if applicable', whatever that cut&paste phrase may mean. The Claimant knows this, as do their solicitors who charge little or no fee to IPC members, given the connection between Gladstones and the IPC Trade Body, and the Defendant asks that the Court takes judicial notice of this repeated abuse of consumers rights and remedies, caused by IPC/Gladstones' clients artificially inflating their robo-claims.