Claim issued over residential parking

Fruitcake

As above, but in return, ask for an unredacted copy of the scammers contract between them and you, them and the MA/HA, and them and the landowner, to prove they have the right to issue PCNs, demand money with menaces, take residents to court, and have primacy of contract over your lease/AST.

Please do also complain to your MP as already requested. It really is the only way that this will ever get stopped.

KeithP

malihat wrote: »

1. SCS Law has sent us a letter asking to see a copy of our lease. Are we meant to provide this?

Perhaps you should suggest to SCS that they ask their client for a copy.

Surely UKPC will have studied the Head Lease in great detail before entering into a contract with the landowner, if only to ensure that they had the legal right to carry out the activities they were planning.

It's called Due Diligence.

malihat

KeithP wrote: »

Perhaps you should suggest to SCS that they ask their client for a copy.

Surely UKPC will have studied the Head Lease in great detail before entering into a contract with the landowner, if only to ensure that they had the legal right to carry out the activities they were planning.

It's called Due Diligence.

That is what I was thinking about doing.

beamerguy wrote: »

So will UKPC tell them that they are fraudsters and scammers ??

I think they meant that they would tell the directors of the managing company.

I have sent an email to my MP as well now.

So should I ask SCS Law to ask UKPC for the lease and also ask them for a copy of the contract between them and me, them and the MA and them and the landowner?

Coupon-mad

also ask them for a copy of the contract between them and me

That's the sign.

You should be asking UKPC for a SAR, not asking the solicitor the same thing.

malihat

Coupon-mad wrote: »

That's the sign.

You should be asking UKPC for a SAR, not asking the solicitor the same thing.

I have done this already and am waiting for their response.

"Please find attached Memorandum and Articles of Association for xxx which should accompany and be read in association with your lease.

Please read these articles so that you may be satisfied with their content referring to the Directors of xxx having the ability to enhance, by way of contract, anything they see fit that would benefit the running of xxx."

Does this make my primacy of contract argument moot?

Coupon-mad

No, you need to read the discussion on the Deep's own thread.

Exactly the same at energy1x's place of residence discussed on that thread already (saves us having a Groundhog Day again...).

malihat

So my argument here is that a PPC like UKPC that penalises residents for not displaying a permit when parking in parking spaces meant for them cannot benefit the estate as they claim?

Coupon-mad

Yes.

Several example letters can be found where people have complained to the Managing Agents about allowing these foxes into the hen coop. Here's one:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/74113928#Comment_74113928

You can use some of those words to answer SCS Law.

And tell them their client must surely already have considered the Head Lease at the location in advance of imposing punitive and onerous terms and seeking out residents to sue, otherwise they will have failed in their duty of care to the residents and failed to consider prior leasehold/tenancy rights and easements.

Therefore you can end by saying, it is not for you to supply the Claimant with a copy of the Head Lease but do as nosferatu1001 suggested:

Share the excerpts of your lease that are relevant, and state that should they not trust you, they are welcome to buy the lease from the land registry.

malihat

Thanks for all the help so far. The hearing date is approaching and this is the witness statement I have drafted:

In the matter of

parking company (Claimant)
v
******** (Defendant)

Claim no:

Witness statement of Mr xxx, Defendant

I am the Defendant in this matter, I am unrepresented, with no experience of Court procedures. If I do not set out documents in the way that the Claimant may do, I trust the Court will excuse my inexperience. Attached to this statement is a paginated bundle of documents to which I will refer.

In this Witness statement, the facts and matters stated are true and within my own knowledge, except where indicated otherwise.

1. I purchased and moved into the property at xxxx in June 2015, and at some point after that, a parking firm was imposed on the residents.

2. The parking spaces in question are well within the estate and need no parking enforcement. Some lines are faded and some spaces where residents have always parked have no lines at all, so there was no reason to consider that any contravention had taken place.

3. There are no terms within my lease requiring lessees to display parking permits or park in a marked bay, or to pay penalties to third parties, such as the Claimant, for non-display of same, and there is a large body of case law which establishes this. The Claimant has taken over the location and runs a business as if the site were a public car park, offering terms with £100 penalty on the same basis to residents, as is on offer to the general public and trespassers. However, residents are granted a right of way in the lease and parking terms under a new and onerous 'permit' cannot be re-offered as a contract by a third party. This interferes with the terms of lease, of which this parking firm is not a party to.
LEASE APPENDED AS EVIDENCE: E.1
In Pace v Mr N [2016] C6GF14F0 [2016] it was found that the parking company could not override the tenant's right to park by requiring a permit to park.
CASE APPENDED AS EVIDENCE: E.2
In Link Parking v Ms P C7GF50J7 [2016] it was also found that the parking company could not override the tenant's right to park by requiring a permit to park.
CASE APPENDED AS EVIDENCE: E.3
3.1 I did display my permit and continue to do so as a courtesy as the Managing Agents had issued them one day and asked everyone to do so.
PERMIT APPENDED AS EVIDENCE: E.4
3.2 At no point did the Managing Agents remove the easements and rights of way already granted, and at no point did the Managing Agents seek authority to alter the lease to impose a parking regime and remove the unfettered parking rights and easements that had already passed to the me as a leaseholder.
3.3 It is my belief that the operator’s signs cannot override the existing rights enjoyed by residents. Accordingly it is denied that:
3.3.1. there was any agreement between the Defendant or driver of the vehicle and the Claimant.
3.3.2. there was any obligation (at all) to display a permit; and
3.3.3. the Claimant has suffered loss or damage or that there is a lawful basis to pursue a claim for loss.
3.4. It is further denied that the signage is clearly displayed. The signs in this car park are not prominent, clear or legible from all parking spaces and there is insufficient notice of the sum of the parking charge itself.
PHOTO OF SIGN VS BEAVIS SIGN APPENDED AS EVIDENCE: E.5
3.4.1 In addition, the largest wording present on the signage states “NO UNAUTHORISED PARKING” This signage is forbidding, and does not constitute an offer of a contract. The defendant will rely on the judgements of DDJ Ellington in UKPC v Masterson B4GF26K6[2016].
CASE APPENDED AS EVIDENCE: E.6

4. Costs on the claim-disproportionate and disingenuous
4.1 CPR 44.3 (2) states: ''Where the amount of costs is to be assessed on the standard basis, the court will –
(a) only allow costs which are proportionate to the matters in issue. Costs which are disproportionate in amount may be disallowed or reduced even if they were reasonably or necessarily incurred; and
(b) resolve any doubt which it may have as to whether costs were reasonably and proportionately incurred or were reasonable and proportionate in amount in favour of the paying party.
4.2 Whilst quantified costs can be considered on a standard basis, this Claimant's purported costs are wholly disproportionate and do not stand up to scrutiny. In fact it is averred that the Claimant has not paid or incurred such damages/costs or 'legal fees' at all. Any debt collection letters were a standard feature of a low cost business model and are already counted within the parking charge itself.
4.3 The Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis case is the authority for recovery of the parking charge itself and no more, since that sum (£85 in Beavis) was held to already incorporate the minor costs of an automated private parking business model. There are no losses or damages caused by this business model and the Supreme Court Judges held that a parking firm not in possession cannot plead any part of their case in damages. It is indisputable that the alleged 'parking charge' itself is a sum which the Supreme Court found is already inflated to more than comfortably cover the cost of all letters.
4.4 Any purported 'legal costs' are also made up out of thin air. Given the fact that robo-claim solicitors and parking firms process tens of thousands of claims handled by an admin team or paralegals, the Defendant avers that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste claims. The court is invited to note that no named Solicitor has signed the Particulars, in breach of Practice Direction 22, and rendering the statement of truth a nullity.
4.5 According to Ladak v DRC Locums UKEAT/0488/13/LA a Claimant can only recover the direct and provable costs of the time spent preparing the claim in a legal capacity, not any administration costs allegedly incurred by already remunerated administrative staff.
4.6 The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (POFA) at 4(5) makes it clear that the will of Parliament regarding parking on private land is that the only sum potentially able to be recovered is the sum in any compliant 'Notice to Keeper' (and the ceiling for a 'parking charge', as set by the Trade Bodies and the DVLA, is £100). The Claimant, or their legal representatives, has added an additional sum of £60 or £40 to each original £100 parking charge. It is submitted that this is an attempt at double recovery by the Claimant, which the Court should not uphold, even in the event that Judgment for Claimant is awarded.
4.7 Judges have disallowed all added parking firm 'costs' in County courts up and down the Country. In Claim number F0DP201T on 10th June 2019, District Judge Taylor sitting at the County Court at Southampton, echoed an earlier General Judgment or Order of DJ Grand, who on 21st February 2019 sitting at the Newport (IOW) County Court, had struck out a parking firm claim. One was a BPA member serial Claimant (Britannia, using BW Legal's robo-claim model) and one an IPC member serial Claimant (UKCPM, using Gladstones' robo-claim model) yet the Order was identical in striking out both claims without a hearing:
''IT IS ORDERED THAT The claim is struck out as an abuse of process. The claim contains a substantial charge additional to the parking charge which it is alleged the Defendant contracted to pay. This additional charge is not recoverable under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 nor with reference to the judgment in ParkingEye v Beavis. It is an abuse of process from the Claimant to issue a knowingly inflated claim for an additional sum which it is not entitled to recover. This order has been made by the court of its own initiative without a hearing pursuant to CPR Rule 3.3(4) of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998...''
SCHEDULE 4 OF POFA APPENDED AS EVIDENCE: E.7

5. I invite the Court to dismiss this claim in its entirety, and to award my costs of attendance at the hearing, such as are allowable pursuant to CPR 27.14.
COSTS SCHEDULE APPENDED ON PAGE X
I believe that the facts stated in this Witness Statement are true.


Signature of Defendant:


Name:
Date:

malihat

Do I have to include the whole lease or is it ok to just include the relevant pages?