POPLA rejected my appeal

beamerguy

DELETE your post above, what are you a kamikaze pilot

eddie77

beamerguy wrote: »

DELETE your post above, what are you a kamikaze pilot

Deleted -- a moment of weakness...

eddie77

Hi All,

So after lots of emails, phone calls, texts (which I ignored), I have now received the LBA - you can view the letter here anonfile.com/QeL9R7oabb/BWLegal2_pdf

The letter is dated 14 December but it didnt arrive until 16 December. They want full payment with all the 'extra' costs by 18 January. If payment not recieved by then they are instructed to issue a claim against me in the county court without further notice. See link for full redacted letter.

Any advice would be greatly received.

Ed

Umkomaas

You need to host the attachment on a forum-recognised hosting site like Dropbox, imgur, tinypic and the like. Regulars won't download files from sites that seem to be generally unknown - anonfile (which may be quite legit) doesn't have the kind of reference that would persuade me to download a link from it to my computer.

Sorry, not meant to be harsh, just safety first, given the number of links we are given each day to view. Hope you don't mind.

Redx

in any case, it it has 30 days notice and financial forms to be filled in (dont), then you issue an LBC rebuttal to B W LEGAL, same as in the dozens of other B W LEGAL threads

and if you have not done it yet, send a SAR to the PPC for all their data on you as well

in other words, nobody here needs to see it and we wont do it for you either

this is a well trodden path with numerous sections of jousting, this is the jousting that comes just prior to the court claim (the MCOL) - the main event

eddie77

Hi All,

Coming up to my MCOL defence deadline. Claim by Brittana was issued on 1 Feb + 5 days, I then
acknowleged service, so I have until 6 March to get my defence sent. Latest draft below:

DEFENCE
IN THE COUNTY COURT
CASE NUMBER – XXXXXXX

BRITANNIA PARKING GROUP LIMITED (CLAIMANT)

-AND-

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (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 XXXXXX, of which the Defendant is the registered keeper, was on the land for a total of 22 minutes and the driver of the vehicle did not enter into a contract to park on the land. A contract can only commence once a ticket is purchased, not when the vehicle pulls onto the land.

3. There are not clear and adequate signs visible from all parts of the car park. The defendant has photographic and video evidence proving that it is impossible to read signage in vast parts of the overall car park. No terms could be seen and therefore the driver was unaware that any payment was due, and no contract was entered.

The adjacent road next to the car park is free of charge after 6pm. Therefore it was reasonably understood by the driver, in the absence of any prominent information to the contrary, that the same applied to the space where the vehicle was parked. Due to these circumstances the driver was not given a fair opportunity to discover the onerous terms by which they would later be bound. The Defendant only learnt from research after receiving a vague letter several weeks later from Britannia Parking Group Ltd, that drivers were supposed to pay to use the car park throughout the night after 6pm. How on earth drivers can know this when no signs can be seen, beggars belief and disregards the British Parking Association's Code of Practice regarding mandatory signs.

4. The Particulars of Claim state that the Defendant was the registered keeper and/or the driver of the vehicle(s). 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.

5. 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.

6. 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 'entirely within a marked bay'. The defendant has photographic evidence highighting the lack of clear markings to indicate where all the bays are.

7. 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. Signage is woefully inadequate throughout the car park with large sections of the car park with no signage at all.

8. 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.

9. 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 being a maximum of £100 depending on the Claimant's full compliance with the POFA and establishing a breach of a 'relevant obligation' and/or 'relevant contract'.

10. This claim inflates the total to an eye-watering £235, 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.

11. 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 remunerated clerical staff working for BW Legal in issuing robo-claims.

12. Not only are such costs not permitted (CPR 27.14) but the Defendant believes that the Claimant has not incurred legal costs at all because no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste claims at all. Claims such as this have recently been struck out by County Courts for reasons of: ''substantial charge additional to the parking charge. Additional charge not recoverable under the POFA, Pre-action Protocol and CPRs. Abuse of process by claimant'' and substantial punitive costs on the indemnity basis have been claimed by Defendants, due to parking firm Claimants' unreasonable conduct in the matter of adding unrecoverable and imaginary 'damages' made up out of thin air. Debt collection agencies act on a no-win-no-fee basis for parking operators, so even if letters were sent by any third party, no such costs or damages have been incurred, in truth. Thus, there can be no 'damages' to pile on top of any parking charge claim, and the Defendant asks that the Court takes judicial notice of this industry's repeated abuse of consumers' rights and remedies.

13. It was held in the Supreme Court in Parkingeye v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 (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.

14. It is submitted that the conduct of the Claimant in pursuing this claim is wholly unreasonable and vexatious. As such, the Defendant is keeping careful note of all wasted time/costs in dealing with this matter and should the case continue to trial, the Defendant will seek further costs, pursuant to Civil Procedure Rule 27.14(2)(g).

I believe the facts contained in this Defence are true.

Name
Signature
Date

---

KeithP

eddie77 wrote: »

Coming up to my MCOL defence deadline. Claim by Brittana was issued on 1 Feb + 5 days, I then
acknowleged service, so I have until 6 March to get my defence sent.

Yes, you are right with those dates, but maybe there is something useful here...

With a Claim Issue Date of 1st February, and having done the Acknowledgement of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Wednesday 6th March 2019 to file your Defence.

Not long now, but don't leave it to the very last minute.


When you are happy with the content, your Defence should be filed via email as suggested here:

Print your Defence.
1. Sign it and date it.
   
2. Scan the signed document back in and save it as a pdf.
   
3. Send that pdf as an email attachment to CCBCAQ@Justice.gov.uk
   
4. Just put the claim number and the word Defence in the email title, and in the body of the email something like 'Please find my Defence attached'.
   
5. Log into MCOL after a few days to see if the Claim is marked "defended". If not chase the CCBC until it is.
   
6. Do not be surprised to receive a copy of the Claimant's Directions Questionnaire, they are just trying to put you under pressure.
   
7. Wait for your DQ from the CCBC, or download one from the internet, and then re-read post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread to find out exactly what to do with it.

eddie77

Hi All - so you think this is good to go? Going to submit it on Monday as per KeithP method above.

Alex

Le_Kirk

Your defence is a bit ranty: -

How on earth drivers can know this when no signs can be seen, beggars belief and disregards the British Parking Association's Code of Practice regarding mandatory signs.

It should focus on technical items or points of law. Therefore leave in the bits about the BPA Code of Practice but ditch the rest of that sentence. Use one of the concise defences posted by Bargepole in the NEWBIE section post # 2 and adapt it to suit your circumstances. You need to save the story for your witness statement which comes later.

Redx

agreed , or as coupon mad said not long ago

most people can use bargepole's concise template defence from the NEWBIES thread, and add in a point or two about the facts of the case/contravention/why they are not liable.


And a point about no landowner authority as seen in other defences.