'Without prejudice' offer letter

everyone_else

I have received a Letter Before County Court Claim, and for various reasons I would like to not take the matter to court. The LBCCC was dated 5 October, I have not been in any previous contact with ParkingEye (very stupid, I now realise!). Would it be too late to reply with a 'without prejudice' offer, since I have not officially acknowledged the receipt of the letter? I only found a template from a 2013 post on this forum but I am a bit apprehensive about using this now...

twhitehousescat

NO NO NO , you may wish to refer to your challenges and there replies in court

sending a letter with 'Without prejudice' is futile , as this cannot be shown/referred to in court

waamo

At this stage they are unlikely to negotiate as they will assume that you want to avoid a dreaded claim.

Once a claim has been submitted then taking it to court can actually be more expensive than the amount they get back. This has the perverse effect of making negotiations more attractive to them.

They have been known to settle for less than the original ticket before now. It's a bit of a game of chicken once a claim goes in.

You can negotiate right up to walking up the steps of the court room.

Fruitcake

As above, never use the term, without prejudice, in a legal document unless you really, really, and I mean REALLY understand what it means. The fact that you are proposing to use it suggest to me that you do not know what it means.

everyone_else

Right, well I do not know what 'without prejudice' means, which is why I'm on this forum asking for help. I've spent hours reading the newbies thread and trying to understand where I stand but honestly I just find it more confusing the more I read. I do not have hours more to spend on trying to figure this out which is why I do not want to take this to court. So without attempting to negotiate with them, my only other option is to just pay the fine?

Half_way

1: its not a fine.


to better understand your sitution,and to get help you need to give some more information:


Reson for issue of parking charge notice?
Who's car park was it?

Coupon-mad

everyone_else wrote: »

Right, well I do not know what 'without prejudice' means, which is why I'm on this forum asking for help. I've spent hours reading the newbies thread and trying to understand where I stand but honestly I just find it more confusing the more I read. I do not have hours more to spend on trying to figure this out which is why I do not want to take this to court.

So without attempting to negotiate with them, my only other option is to just pay the fine?

Not at all.

LBCCC stage is the time to email:

enforcement@parkingeye.co.uk

and the retailer/hotel if there was one, and get it cancelled. Or PE might settle for £60 (but you do NOT offer that high!).

When anyone gets a LBCCC from PE, they need to email them and the landowner and often these can be cancelled at this stage. PE are one of the easier PPCs to stop in their tracks at this stage, so do not miss the chance.

Or, the keeper could name the driver (if different) and PE will start again with a fresh PCN to the driver at the address you give. Takes it right back to appeal stage.

everyone_else

Thank you so much for the help and information!! The 'driver' parked at a retail car park where the stay is limited to 4 hours and overstayed by 6 hours. There are no card statements or receipts from that day however I will try to contact them/ the landowner. There really isn't a solid defense other than the driver not realising the car park was not free for unlimited time (there is however sufficient sinage in the car par though). How would I go about wording the email to PE? Should I try to explain that because there are numerous free car parks around the area the driver got confused, and perhaps try to offer a reasonable value taking into account parking charges in the surrounding areas?

waamo

Be honest and heartfelt with them. Tell them you wish to settle this amicably and would they settle for the original ticket amount (usually about £40) with no admission of liability.

Stress you do not admit liability but wish to draw a line under this matter. That way you are in a position the letter can be shown to a court. They will understand that.

Without Prejudice means that it is a private and confidential offer that a court cannot see.

Coupon-mad

I would not talk about what happened but just email either:

- to name the driver (if different) to re-start the appeal process and get the possibility of paying £60 again, or

- say you feel harassed and before complaining to the retailers about this, you wish to find out whether £30 would settle the matter, given there has been no POPLA cost incurred. I expect they might settle at £60 but do NOT offer that up front or they will want more and will see you as a mug.

Next time, stop dumping the car all day in private car parks (really naive and frankly selfish parking).

Loadsofchildren123

In normal litigation, w/p offers are a game of chicken.
They are kept "secret" from the judge until after (s)he has made a decision.

In normal (ie not small claims) litigation, costs normally follow the event (ie the loser pays the winner's costs). When you win costs, you normally only get costs "on the standard basis", but the court can award them on the "indemnity basis". If you get standard costs you can expect to recover 60-70% of your actual spend, if you get indemnity costs you'll get far closer to your actual spend.

When it comes to decide costs, the w/p offers get whipped out.

For example, if it is revealed that 6 months earlier the loser offered the winner the same, or more than, they won, then from that moment on the winner has to pay their own costs and may be liable to pay the loser's as well (because they should have accepted the offer). Or if, for example, the winner had offered to settle for less than they ended up winning, but the loser had refused, this may persuade a judge to order "indemnity" rather than "standard" costs.

In small claims, there is usually no costs order, whoever succeeds (other than a successful Claimant can expect to receive the £50 allowance to a Claimant for drafting/issuing the claim, the £25 issue fee and the £25 hearing fee and a successful Defendant can expect to receive costs of attending, including loss of pay at a capped rate). You can only claim costs if you can show one party behaved unreasonably, and the bar is set very high for that (we do occasionally see these costs orders being made and it's always worth pursuing them).

This makes w/p offers largely irrelevant as a game of chicken.

In your case it will be seen as a sign of weakness.

No harm in doing it, but it won't give you any protection on costs.

You don't seem to have much of a defence - has the parking company followed the correct procedure to make you liable as keeper? If so, you could put them to proof that you were driver and deny liability as keeper under POFA (read the forum for more on that, I won't repeat it here).