County court claim on a PCN from 4 years ago

Coupon-mad

the reason we could not recognise the original charge, is that the address location of the original offence is incorrect. The address and postcode of the PCN location is not where the car is parked. Now we have seen the photos, we know where it is. The address is also incorrect on the LBC and the court claim.

So does that now give us an alternative defence?

Just an extra point to add in! Please do, and show us how the defence now looks with all the amendments done.

nosferatu1001

Indeed, you must add that as a point!
They cannot claim a breach of terms at X location if, in fact, the vehicle was never AT that location.

Matilda13

Ok, here is the final (I hope) defence draft. Any thoughts welcome....:

1. It is admitted that Defendant is the registered keeper of the vehicle in question. However the Claimant has no cause of action and has filed this claim whilst providing minimal information to the Defendant.

1.1 Neither the Defendant, nor any other possible drivers, recalls any 'parking charge notice' (PCN) from the past. Having been provided with photos of the car parked, it is clear that the photos are not of the same location as that cited on the original alleged parking offence.
1.2 Aside from the supplied photos of an alternative location, the defendant is still in possession of only very vague details of Particulars of Claim (POC). Any contractual agreement - and thus any breach - is denied.

2. The evidence presented thus far does not support the location of the alleged offence, (photographs of the parked car named by the claimant in the PCN are taken at a different location to that indicated on the PCN as being the location of the alleged parking offence) which makes any claim against the defendant in this matter invalid, not to mention a complete waste of the court’s time, and the defendant’s in preparing a defence.

3. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 Schedule 4 (the POFA) has not been complied with. The registered keeper was unaware of the PCN and does not admit to being a driver of the vehicle in question on the date in question, as such the keeper can only be held liable if the Claimant has fully complied with the strict requirements including 'adequate notice' of charge and prescribed Notice to Keeper letters in time/with mandatory wording.

3.1 By providing inaccurate detail regarding the location of the alleged offence the claimant has not complied with schedule 4 of the POFA 2012 both in relation to paragraph 7 subsection 2 A, and paragraph 8 subsection 2.

4.1. This Claimant has not complied with pre-court protocol. There was no compliant ‘Letter before County Court Claim’, under the Practice Direction and the Defendant has no idea what the claim is about - why the charge arose, what the original charge was, what the alleged contract was; nothing that could be considered a fair exchange of information.

4.2. The vague POC discloses nothing that can lead to a claim in law. The parking event was far too long ago to expect a registered keeper to recall the day or who was driving, and it is believed from the Defendant's research of similar cases, that this Claimant did not use compliant documents to hold a registered keeper liable anyway.

5. This case can be distinguished from ParkingEye v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 (the Beavis case) which was dependent upon an un-denied 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 license to park free. From research of similar cases and given the woeful POC and lack of any previous information, the Defendant doubts that any legitimate interest or clear signage applies in this case.

5. Had any contravention apparently taken place (and this is not confirmed), it can only have been that signage on and around the site in question was small, unclear and not prominent and did not meet the British Parking Association (BPA) Code of Practice (CoP).

5.1. The Claimant was a member of the BPA at the time and committed to follow its requirements, and the Defendant puts the Claimant to strict proof of compliance with the applicable Code of Practice.

6. It is denied that the Claimant has authority to bring this claim. The proper Claimant is the landowner. Strict proof is required that there is a chain of contracts leading from the landowner to Premier Parking Solutions Ltd and that this chain of contracts was valid in its entirety on the date of the alleged offence.

7. No sum payable to this Claimant was accepted nor even known about by any driver; as they were not given a fair opportunity to discover the onerous terms by which they would later be bound.

8. Prior to any court hearing the Defendant has sent the Claimant a Subject Access Request (SAR) for the following, and to date has only received a response to 8.1 (iii) below:

8.1.
(i) copies of the signs on which the Claimant relies and confirm with photographic evidence, that the signs were in situ on the date of the event.
(ii) Images of the signs that were at the entrance to the site on the date in question. Also to confirm that the signs met the BPA CoP that applied at the time of the alleged parking event.
(iii) copies of any letters sent, including the original PCN and/or Notice to Keeper.
(iv) a full breakdown of the amount of the claim and how the amount was derived.
9. The POFA does not permit the Claimant to recover a sum greater than the parking charge on the day before a Notice to Keeper was issued. That sum cannot have exceeded the BPA CoP ceiling of £100 and the Claimant cannot recover additional charges.

10. The Claimant has inexplicably added 'costs or damages' bolted onto the alleged PCN, despite using a solicitor to file the claim, who must be well aware that the CPR 27.14 does not permit such 'admin' charges to be recovered in the Small Claims Court.

10.1. In any event, the Beavis case confirmed that a parking firm not in possession cannot plead their case in damages and could only collect the already inflated parking charge (in that case, £85) which more than covered the very minimal costs of running an automated/template letter parking regime.

10.2. The Claimant is put to strict proof to show how any alleged costs/damages have been incurred and that it formed a prominent, legible part of any terms on signage, and that it was, in fact, expended. To add vague damages plus alleged 'legal costs' on top is a wholly disingenuous attempt at double recovery, and the Defendant is alarmed by this gross abuse of process.

10.3. Given the fact that BW Legal boasted in Bagri v BW Legal Ltd of processing 'millions' of claims with an admin team (and only a handful of solicitors), the Defendant avers that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste PPS robo-claims at all, on the balance of probabilities.

10.4. 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.

11. The Defendant invites the court to strike out the claim as having no prospect of success. Alternatively, the Defendant requests the court to order the Claimant to provide Further and Better Particulars of Claim and allow the Defendant to respond to those POC.

12. It is denied that the Claimant is entitled to the relief claimed or any relief at all. In summary, it is the Defendant's position that the poorly pleaded claim discloses no cause of action, is without merit, and has no real prospect of success.

I believe the facts contained in this Defence are true.

Matilda13

I thought that those of you who have guided us and those who are in search of guidance would be interested to know that, within a day of submitting this defence, BW issue a notice of discontinuance. No explanation.

We are grateful for all the help we received. See you next time?!

beamerguy

Matilda13 wrote: »

I thought that those of you who have guided us and those who are in search of guidance would be interested to know that, within a day of submitting this defence, BW issue a notice of discontinuance. No explanation.

We are grateful for all the help we received. See you next time?!

Well they won't explain. They chickened out :rotfl:

We know it's because BWLegal had no case, they knew they
would be whooped in court to add to the ever increasing whoopings they get.

WELL DONE :j

I'm sure coupon-mad would say ......
''well done'' and another one bites the dust!"

Umkomaas

See you next time?!

Please no 'next time'. Just read the signs in the car park, comply with the rules (however much you don't like them), then you don't get a ticket, we don't get any extra work, and the PPC goes bust (if everyone follows this advice).

We are not a forum advocating car park anarchy, offering anarchists huge amounts of help in an (often futile) attempt for them to avoid all the hassle in trying to dodge a penalty charge!