DRAFT DEFENCE against Private Parking Solutions (I have read Newbies thread)

crystalchampagne

Thanks for all of your helpful thoughts, just wanna clarify a few things.

The date of the claim is 10th December 2018, so as far as i understand, i only have a couple of days left to file my defence, unless i've understood the timings wrong.

The thing about looking for a lawyer was advice I had from another experienced member of this forum, when I reached out asking why no one was responding to me (literally, i asked 'what am i doing wrong?'), s/he mentioned that it is a lawyer's job to check the defence (i.e. the 'intelligent lay people' cannot do this), and that this is a busy time for everyone due to holiday period. I of course understand that, and that's why I wanted to explain that I will probably file the defence soon, so as to alert everyone and save everyone's time in case anyone was planning to later give me feedback on the draft. Sorry if you felt I came across entitled. I am new to this forum, and am doing my best to understand how it works, and what the etiquette is. From the Newbies thread, my understanding was that at this stage, I should be actively asking forum members for advice and feedback, so that's what I did.

Since I joined, all I've done is read people's previous posts, listened to advice, and done my best to follow it, both in terms of my case and, IMPORTANTLY, regarding this forum. In these short couple of weeks I have been repeatedly penalised for using the forum 'wrong'. Please understand that I am a new driver, new to this forum, new to the world of parking tickets, and simply trying to do my best to fight the extortionate ticket that I can't afford to pay, without stepping on anyone's toes.

If you'd rather not help me, that's okay. It's not my right to get your help. Please just bear in mind that if I'm being annoying, it's not on purpose, I promise. I welcome feedback at all times, and thanks again to everyone who has responded to this thread.

Redx

KeithP told you in one of his previous posts what your defence deadline is, and its 2 weeks away (doesnt matter what you believe, unless you know what you are talking about)

KeithP has posted these details for dozens of people on here, I dont think he has ever got one wrong, so personally I trust his dates and not yours, so I fail to see why you are querying his replies

we know its all new to you, hence why you should do more research, like we have done

generally speaking, lawyers charge a lot of money for doing what you said, but sometimes they will help out free of charge on a goodwill basis , which the rest of us do as volunteers with some knowledge

what I fail to understand is why if you have been told to do something, like pm a board guide, you dont even follow those simple instructions, because that advice wasnt about the law, or parking , or court cases

and if somebody has told you the date by when it has to be filed, why you dont trust that advice if nobody contradicts it, for example, you could telephone the CCBC and ask them, just to confirm it (although I believe they would back up what KeithP said about it being the 14th january)

carefully read what you are told, stop second guessing people and accept the help for what it is and act on it, dont keep querying every reply

the advice you are being given is tough love, to help guide you through this and prepare you for what is to come, which is a stressful time for most people, nobody said it was easy or that we would mollycoddle you

you are being given good advice so far, so act on it, dont complain about it, if you act on what you have been told and dont query it, there wouldnt be a need for the replies you are getting that are giving you the basics in no nonsense fashion

you will see the same thing happening a lot in this thread https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5916346/aos-completed-defense-required&page=1, where the OP continually misses the good advice, or fails to act on it, or misinterprets it, so we have to keep pointing out their errors and failures to get them to do what they were told or advised to do

you seem to think that every reply is condescending & complaining about you, its not, its good sound advice that you should act on because we know you have not taken that section or topic onboard. everyone gets the same treatment, where they have failed to do something or are misguided , they are pulled up about it , so that they can do what is asked and move forwards (this isnt the Samaritans, its a consumer advice forum , it is definitely NOT a legal advice forum)


and KeithP and Le_Kirk were extremely helpful and explicit in their advice to you in their replies above, you were told what to do, the dates to do it by, how it is done and who to contact about the other threads as well and I and others agree with everything you have been told so far

KeithP

crystalchampagne wrote: »

The date of the claim is 10th December 2018, so as far as i understand, i only have a couple of days left to file my defence, unless i've understood the timings wrong.

You appear to have misunderstood the timings.

I gave you facts in the first reply you received on this thread.

You can of course doubt that, or even challenge that, but you have not queried it until today.

This is fully explained in the Money Claim Online (MCOL) - User Guide.

On page 14 of that document it says:

How long does the defendant have to respond to my claim?

The court will send out a claim pack to each defendant once the claim has been issued and allows 5 calendar days from the date of issue for the service of the claim. Therefore the 'date of service' is the 5th calendar day after issue. Please note, if you have served separate particulars of claim then this may affect the deemed date of service (as above).

The defendant has 14 calendar days from the 'date of service' to file a response. If the last day for filing the response falls on a day that the court is not open (i.e. a weekend or public holiday), the court will allow the next full working day for a response. The defendant can extend the time to respond to 28 calendar days by filing an acknowledgment of service (AOS).

crystalchampagne

Thanks again for all the help and feedback. I misread and misunderstood the dates, thanks for clarifying.

I will send a private message to the relevant people to ask for my other mistake to be rectified as well, as suggested.

Redx

excellent, now read this thread about copying and pasting, so you know why errors occur in your wordings (this was posted some 18 months ago, for all members to read)
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5637311/warning-do-not-copy-and-paste-content-from-word-pdfs-etc-into-your-posts

so paste into notepad first, or something similar, then copy and paste from that document onto here, try to avoid certain characters in your draft that cause the errors as well

once your draft is completed and you are happy with it, post that completed draft from notepad onto here , to avoid the errors and avoid a possible IP ban too (which isnt your fault but you have to be careful what you post and why on here)

once you have done this, you have just under 2 weeks , so say 10 days, before signing and emailing to the CCBC email address KeithP posted, following his precise instructions in post #2 above to the letter


ps: here is another example of a newbie not reading or not taking in the excellent advice in the replies being given, so as you can see, its a common problem and is tiresome , lol
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5927444/rail-station-parking-ticket-can-i-appeal

crystalchampagne

hello to everyone who has been following, supporting, or simply came across this thread while looking for advice. i am pleased to say that the hearing went well yesterday, and i won the case, yay!

if you are currently facing a parking fine, have been summoned to court, or are going through a similar process, i can very much relate to you and to the amount of work it takes to successfully fight these things. even then, it's not guaranteed that you'll win.

what helped me was that i am actually a trainee solicitor, which means i do the job of a lawyer, and will eventually obtain the formal title of 'lawyer' in about 1 years' time. being a legal professional helped me quite a bit. i understood concepts like 'promissory estoppel' and 'balance of probabilities', i knew roughly what the documents were supposed to look like, and (even though i am not a barrister) i had been to the court on a few occasions previously for my work.

despite this, it was still a lot of hard work, writing a defence and a witness statement, gathering evidence, keeping abreast of deadlines, chasing the court for a hearing date, and trying to understand all of the communications from both the claimant and the court.

i found this forum to be full of useful information which ultimately helped me to know what to do, when to do it, and how. i highly recommend you read the Newbies thread and keep coming back to it, even when you're no longer a 'newbie', because it is basically the meat and bones of what you need to know.

having said that, i noticed that a few of the more established users of this forum roam these pages, it seems, looking for something to tell someone off about(?). i find this to be really demoralising, especially since the people being policed on 'how to use the forum' are usually first-timers, who are probably feeling terrible about their parking ticket. i think there's a certain non-judgemental tone that lawyers are expected to use when professionally giving advice, which cannot be expected of a forum where people are simply using their free, unpaid time to help.

it may be that your experience of this forum has been nothing but pleasant, in which case i encourage you to keep benefiting from this great resource. however, it is possible that you have found the forum to be a bit intimidating or rude, cutting or sarcastic to you. if you would like to contact me about anything related to this process, you are welcome to send me a private message. i am not an expert, and i have only done this process once. however, if you contact me, i promise not to make you feel small or stupid. this is a complicated process, and to expect newbies to just 'get it' and never break any of the many 'forum rules' is seriously unrealistic.

i wish you all the best with fighting your tickets, thanks to all who helped me out along the way, your advice is much appreciated!

P.S. in case you're interested in how i won, the claimant solicitors had sent the wrong witness statement to the court for their claim, so the whole thing got set aside by the judge. it helped that the judge looked at my beautifully paginated bundle and 25-paragraph witness statement. he could see and appreciate that i'd put the time in. he was keen to my accept my objection to the claimant's request to adjourn the hearing, because i wasn't willing to take another day off work to defend myself. the burden of proof is on the claimant to show that the case is worthwhile, so if they need more time because they have the wrong paperwork... then that's their bad, for which i shouldn't have to pay. nice one, judge!

Coupon-mad

Woohoo, ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST, well done! :T

Le_Kirk

Thank you OP for taking the time to feedback, so often successful posters fail to complete the process by letting everyone know how/if they won in court. Now that you have "been through the process" and, given your chosen profession, maybe you could stick around and give of your time to help others and indeed some of the regulars, who are not (all) solicitors or lawyerly types.

crystalchampagne

just to manage expectations, i probably won't cruise the forums to seek out people to help... as i explained above, this forum is not the environment for me lol! however i will certainly be happy to make myself available to anyone that reaches out to me directly. NB i receive emails alerts when someone sends me a direct message

Le_Kirk

OK, will bear that in mind.