Letter Before Claim - SCS Law & UKPC - CASE WON!

DAngel

Hello forumites, just wanted to give you all an account of what happened today, to the best of my memory – it all feels like a bit of a blur already!

We were listed for 10am at Kingston County Court, so I arrived around 9.30am and as you know from previous posts, the rep from SCS made himself known, handed me his appendix of evidence, kept reiterating to me just how much evidence there was, and all the while I politely smiled and nodded.  He tried asking me a couple of questions, to which I replied I’ll talk through in court.  He then left me alone and went back to his seat, thankfully!

We were finally called around 11.40am, and went into the courtroom to be met by the Judge – I THINK it was DDJ Jacobs, but wasn’t sure as it was a little bit of a blur and wasn’t stated on the notice board, or on any of my paperwork. 

The claimant starting by trying to make my witness statement inadmissible due to it apparently being filed late – I assured her that I sent it on the day I was supposed to, and made sure it was sent recorded next day delivery so that it got there in time.  She allowed it.

She heard the evidence, and whilst the claimant was giving theirs, there were quite a few items of evidence missing, so much so that we spent around 20 minutes whilst he fumbled around trying to find them.  She was stern with him and challenged him on lots of points.

She then listened to me and was much softer – at one point, I was a little nervous and neglected to mention a couple of the clause points that I should be referring to in my evidence and she prompted me and said “do you want to just have another read through that and check there is nothing else in there you want to refer to”, and I did so, and actually pulled out some further points that I needed. 

We spent a lot of time looking at the ‘contract’ between the MA and UKPC and she scrutinised this at length, picking up on all the variation of wording in the contract and almost felt to me like she was deliberately trying to pull out anomalies – The only thing I could note about that contract was that it had no date on it – she went a lot deeper than this.

Throughout the hearing, I admitted that I was the driver and agreed that I had parked outside the marked bays, or not in my own parking space.  I did make the point though, that as a tenant, we had only ever followed the example of other tenants who all do the same  - after all, there Is only one allocated bay per apartment, and most apartments have more than one car per household. No one from the managing agent anywhere in the lease had it stated that we could NOT do this.

We talked briefly about signage, but this didn’t’ last too long.  Likewise we barely even touched on the ‘abuse of process’ section in my defence around the extra £60 that is added to each parking ticket. There was also a brief skim over the outcome of the case law examples I had provided but I think our Judge was fairly familiar with these cases already.  She had at least 3 parking cases booked for today alone!

We were in the court room for 2 hours in total – mostly down to SCS’s reps fumbling.  I have to say though, despite his fumbling, and despite his lack of evidence and despite his idiocy for representing these scam artists in the first place, he put up a fair fight and there were times where I felt it was very close.

We took a break around 1.40pm and were called back in around 2.15pm for judgement (by which point I was starving, and felt quite faint -  I’d had some water before we went in but that was it… advice to others – take a snack and a drink with you!)

During judgement, she started by talking about the contract and she was satisfied that there WAS a valid contract between the MA and UKPC and had no issues with that at all.  She was also satisfied with the point on the lease that stated that I was allowed to “go-pass and re-pass at all times and for all purposes of access to and egress from the demised premises and the allocated parking space and the visitors parking spaces only with or without vehicles”.  They both laboured the word “only” here and suggested that all I was allowed to do, was travel to and from my allocated space or a visitors space or potentially load and unload.   

However, the winning points were around the specific term ‘Estate Regulations’ on the Lease.   On the lease it says that estate regulations mean “any reasonable regulations made by the manager from time to time for the proper management and use of the estate” She said that nowhere is there any substantial evidence to state what the Estate Regulations are and what they constitute.  And there was no evidence from either party to show that there had been substantial consultation or with the residents to inform them a) where they cannot park and b) that they would be introducing a parking management scheme. 

So for that reason she said that I had clearly never been instructed otherwise, so basically, how would I know where I am not allowed to park, and ruled in favour of me.  

I asked for my costs and she asked me why I had stated “further costs for claimants unreasonable behaviour……” in addition to the normal costs of a days leave, mileage and parking.  She said that she didn’t think the claimant had acted unreasonably and awarded me £109 only to be paid within 21 days.  When I left the room,  the rep said someone would be in touch about that – we’ll see!!

Reading between the lines of how it all went today, I definitely felt the judge in my corner – she prompted me to give her more when she felt I’d left things out, she laboured points in the reps case that I would never have thought relevant and found things that I didn’t even know were there, she thoroughly read all of my documents, knew her case law inside out when it came to other parking cases and it all felt like it was very familiar to her.  I could have hugged her at the end!!! She was incredibly smart and definitely didn’t suffer fools. All in all, I liked her a lot!

I just wanted to extend my HUGE thank you to all of you here who helped – it was tough love at times, and it was still a lot of work, but you gently steered me in the right direction and I doth my hat to each and every one of you who give up your own time do help out others in need.  All for the greater good of course, but couldn’t have done it without you.  THANK YOU!

beamerguy

Congratulations and a good report.
SCSLaw should really reflect on why the hell they get involved in the parking scam. Getting a spanking in court is no good for their image, as the other dodgy legals keep discovering. 
Your judge would have read and understood the abuse of process but as we are seeing, they choose to find another way to dismiss the case.  I think it's because that after the BWLegal and VCS  faff of appealing, the courts simply have no want or desire to waste their time further.  Abuse of process must still be high on the agenda. How the judge will interpret this is really a matter of choice as long as they dismiss the case
Your Judge had 40 mins to decide how she was going to dismiss the claim which she no doubt knew before the break ?
Surely SCSLaw have better things to do than involve themselves in a known countrywide scam ??
MAYBE NOT

DAngel

So very true!! It’s just a relief it’s all over really! 

DAngel

Fun fact - my ‘word of the day’ app presented me the word ‘Sanguine’ this morning whilst I was waiting in court. Quite fitting I thought! 

Redx

a BIG well done from me

Another one bites the dust !!       UKPC , read em and weep !! after 18 long months (own space)

beamerguy

DAngel said:

Fun fact - my ‘word of the day’ app presented me the word ‘Sanguine’ this morning whilst I was waiting in court. Quite fitting I thought! 

Trouble is, when will SCSLaw wake up that they support a known fraudster, UKPC, who were banned by the DVLA for faking and doctoring pictures ........  Puts SCSLaw in the scammers bracket

If that's what they want, so be it, they will keep on being spanked ? The penalty they pay for supporting  a scammer.  SCSLaw should dump UKPC 

Supporting a scammer like UKPC is bad for business, don't SCSLaw  understand this ????? GUESS NOT