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

DAngel

Thanks all, if there are no further comments or steer on my defence I will be emailing it over in the next few days.

DAngel

update: Defence was emailed today

DAngel

Update - 2 weeks since i submitted my defence and although i've had an acknowledgement letter from the court, I've still not received the DQ - appreciate i can get this online easily, but the advice is to wait for it to be sent, so I am. I have chased the court via email.

Quick Q - I have a neighbour who is prepared to write a witness statement for me to corroborate the facts. She was actually the neighbour who led the resident's committee to get these crooks revoked. The DQ indicates that the Witness has to be present at the hearing - is this the case? If it is, she may not be able to attend.

Thanks!

nosferatu1001

Or just get it online. It makes no difference

Youre also assuming that the claimant has responded back to the court saying they want to proceed, and IF they have, that the court has processed that response. Two assumptions on your part.

Yes, she should be there, however you can notify the court and claimant and see what they say.

DAngel

well yes, here's to hoping that they won't proceed! Fingers crossed

DAngel

Hi all, latest update is that I have now received a General form of judgment or order, and it states that the case has been allocated to the small claims track and that it’s suitable for mediation (which I am not going to do).

There is also instructions in there to prepare my evidence and witness statement.

I’m slightly concerned as I have not yet received a letter allocating a date for the hearing and I wondered if that should have come by now, or if it will be due subsequently?

Can anyone shed any light please? Thanks

Redx

Check both sides of your letter , the hearing date may be on the back

Either way it's a court order , so do what it tells you by the deadline date listed on it , if no date is listed you will receive a follow up letter from your nominated court

Nearer the deadline date , if you haven't received the hearing date , phone the nominated court and ask about it , getting it emailed or reposted out to you

However , if it's on the rear of this latest letter , learn to read and digest paperwork more closely

Le_Kirk

There [STRIKE]is[/STRIKE] are also instructions in there to prepare my evidence and witness statement.

Was there a date by which they must be submitted?

DAngel

Yes there was, it is 22nd October so have diarised and will be working on Witness Statement over the next week. Evidence is in progress too as have been collating that for some time.

I phoned the court this morning to check if a date had been allocated yet and they confirmed that it had not. He said this would probably happen in the next couple of weeks or so.

I will write up my witness statement and then post here for review if ok? I didn't get much feedback on my defence either, so really hoping that is ok

Thanks again.

DAngel

Hi all, realise i've left my WS and Evidence until the 11th hour but rest assured I will be burning the midnight oil this weekend to get everything completed and ready for Tuesday. I have been busy curating ideas from my research, and now just need to put it all together.

I have a couple of questions whilst I prep if I may:

1. I've been searching other threads for nice WS templates to use and found a couple but like this one (below) - will obviously rejig and make it my own. If there is a better one to use, could anyone point me in that direction?

2. Post vs Email - i emailed my DQ to SCS and i got a note back to say that official court docs should be sent to them via post but they would accept on this ocassion (which was fotunate as i was abroad at the time). I've seen others email their WS and Evidence - what's the official advice here?

3. Supporting docs & Evidence - I am curating a few items as follows - let me know if i need anything else:
- Correspondance between SCS and I to try and settle via dispute resolution
- Correspondance between MA and I
- SCS/UKPC's "Evidence Bundle" including poorly lit photos and a pretty void contract (not dated and no specifics)
- BPA Code of Operator Practice - Relevant points around Signage terms for 2014-2016
- my own photos of current signage as taken from my car (bear in mind this is 2019 photos, completely different!)
- A copy of the Beavis case? any other case law i should reference?
- A copy of my Lease

WS Draft (needs work to make it my own)
Need to Include points on:
- Contract
- Costs
- Signage


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 at the time of the alleged contraventions.

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. Despite my inexperience, after a lot of research I found the letter they sent to be insufficient. I requested a new Letter before Claim that was compliant with the Practice Direction and offered to enter into Alternative Dispute Resolution in the form of POPLA (Parking on Private Land Appeals), which can be progressed simply by any British Parking Association AOS member firm providing a code, one per PCN. POPLA place no time restriction on when a POPLA code can be provided, but BPA parking firms unilaterally refuse to provide one in pre-court exchanges, misleading consumers that it is 'too late'.

8. A compliant Letter before Claim was not sent to me and my request for Alternative Dispute resolution was rejected for unsatisfactory reasons.

9. The claimant subsequently sent me a pack of documents that it says it will rely on as evidence. One of the documents is a picture of the sign that it says forms the contract. 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 2014 - 2016, 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 in 2015, around the time of the first PCNs in this claim, 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………………………