Excel Parking County Court Claim form

Umkomaas

I'm still baffled about where Euro Car Parks come into this. @OP - please be clear on this.

Redx

I think that the OP has provided current photos, not ones from when this parking incident occurred, so has deceived us

borap69

As stated the photos were from the internet not my own as I don't live near the area @Redx.
Apologies to all involved so far I made a mistake, it appears that the car park could well have changed hands since the incident occurred. Checking historical images the car park did used to be Excel parking. Sorry for the confusion just a mistake in my rush to sort this out, have added some pictures to the google album of what it used to look like (again from google as I don't live near the car park).

Thanks

Redx

so , now that you have included previous EXCEL signs and it is clear that it has changed hands this year, ECP are not a party to this and never were

therefore, you send EXCEL DPO a SAR by email to get all they have , by using the GDPR and what they should have done under the PaP 2017 (Oct) amendments

as the AOS is done , you start to draft your DEFENCE and post the proposed draft below, for critique

one of your objections will be the additional £60 charge (in the £160) because the sign says £100 which is the usual maximum charge


you can state that the parking was paid for and a bank statement is the evidence etc

the evidence part comes nearer the court stage, a few weeks before, not included with the defence, a defence is words only, no pictures, nothing else


and your thread title was and is misleading due to mentioning ECP

I suggest you advanced edit post #1 and change it to Excel only asap

KeithP

borap69 wrote: »

The issue date for the claim form was 06 dec 2018.

With a Claim Issue Date of 6th December and having done the Acknowledgement of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Tuesday 8th January 2019 to file your Defence.

That's over two weeks away. Loads of time to produce a good Defence, 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.

borap69

Thanks for all the help and advice so far guys. This is the defence so far, am I missing anything?

1. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.

2. It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper and driver of the vehicle in question at the time of the alleged incident.

3. It is believed that it will be a matter of common ground that claim relates to a purported debt as the result of the issue of a Parking Charge Notice (PCN) in relation to an alleged breach of the terms and conditions by the driver of the vehicle XXXX XXX when it was parked at Lower Loveday P&D Carpark, Birmingham in 2018

3.1. The PCN stated the contravention as 'Parked without payment' and this contravention is denied. The Defendant denies liability for the purported parking charge (penalty), not least because it is already common ground that the correct parking charge (tariff) had already been paid.

3.2. In Jolley v Carmel Ltd [2000] 2 –EGLR -154, it was held that a party who makes reasonable endeavours to comply with contractual terms, should not be penalised for breach.

4. It is denied that:
a. A contract was formed to pay anything more than the advertised tariff;
b. There was any agreement to pay a further penalty parking charge;
c. That there were Terms and Conditions prominently displayed around the site which prominently displayed the £100 penalty, in at least as large lettering as the tariffs shown.
d. That in addition to the parking charge there was an agreement to pay additional and unspecified additional sums;
e. the claimant in fact expended the claimed additional sums;
f. The claimant company fully complied with their obligations within the International Parking Community Code of Practice.


5. The Defendant made all reasonable efforts to make payment for parking by using an approved payment channel. Payment for parking was made on the day of the alleged contravention via telephone using a cashless system, evidence of which is shown in a bank statement.

5.1. Paying by phone for parking is indisputably a 'distance contract' - a remote telephone transaction involving the exchange of more than one message/text - and under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, such a contract requires certain information to be supplied in advance.

5.2. The service makes no provision to print a ticket to display, or a receipt so that a driver could check the details in a tangible format. The Defendant reasonably expected that the payment was made appropriately.

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.

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.

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 Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4, 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 £100. The claim includes an additional £60, for which no calculation or explanation is given, and which appears to be an attempt at double recovery.

10. In summary, it is the Defendant's position that the claim discloses no cause of action, is without merit, and has no real prospect of success. Accordingly, the Court is invited to strike out the claim of its own initiative, using its case management powers pursuant to CPR 3.4.

Thanks again.

Bigmatt0811

Just a bit on Excel and ECP - I had this back end of last year where ECP had taken over the management of a site in July 2018. It may become relevant if, as Excel did with my case they sent a "Leasholder Witness Statement" claiming that they were the current managers of the site. This was completely untrue and I had ECP confirm that they were the managers of the site as of July 2018, so it made the leaseholder statement 100% lies. This didn't come up in court but something to view in case they complete the same trick and it can add to your Witness Statement (do not confuse this with your defence statement as these are 2 different things!)

The judge was also critical of the Leaseholder Witness Statement in basically stating "what is this and what does it mean" - he wasn't overly impressed with their paperwork!!!

geitungur_akureyrar

Have deleted this response and will start a new thread.

borap69

Hi all, thanks to the replies here and the help available on the forum in general I am proceeding towards the court date vs Excel Parking on 3rd May. I'm now at the stage of writing a witness statement and compiling evidence and have a few questions / things I'm thinking about. I've read examples on the newbies thread so am getting an idea but there does sometimes seem to be different styles of witness statement.

-Excel have sent their witness statement to me which is a THICK wad of paper absolutely going to town on their case and trying to take apart my defence. What I don't quite understand is that their witness statement really seems like a defence, it seems like the whole process of their case. For example, I was of the understanding that witness statements were not to be used to convey legal arguments but the Excel one does this multiple times. Which has worried me a lot. Should I take any part of this Excel witness pack into account in my witness statement or solely rely on my end of events as if I hadn't seen the Excel witness statement yet?

Here's what I have so far in terms of the statement:

I, NAME, of ADDRESS WILL SAY AS FOLLOWS:


1. I am the Defendant in this matter. Attached to this statement is a paginated bundle of documents marked AB1 [Ab = my intitals] to which I will refer.

2. On 9/03/2017 I arrived in Birmingham around 3 AM, and parked in the name of car park. I live and study in (area far away) so this is an area I am not familiar with, nor have I encountered this parking facility before. I Stayed at friends residence that night. Then on 10/3/2017 continued the day in Birmingham.
At the next available opportunity I used my phone to pay for 24 hours parking, before I had got back to the car. On arrival back at the car park I discovered the PCN; however, I believed 24 hours of parking to have been paid for so took no further action. I left shortly after, around 6pm.

(This could defintely be phrased better)

- I have evidence of a bank statement to show that I paid on the day in question. They have put in their evidence that I paid, using ringo records, but they argue that I had 10 minutes once leaving to pay and that I did not pay for the right time period.

After this I'm less sure what to say. Obviously I genuinely believe that it wasn't possible in the situation I was in to take note of everything on the signage and act appropriately, however this is clearly iffy and hard to explain. Another factor is the car park has since changed hands and the signage has changed so not technically possible to take photos of any Excel signs at night to help my case. The main points of my original defence (above) were that I had made reasonable attempt to pay; hadn't entered into a contract to pay any extra charge; the signage was not able to be read from a passing vehicle.

Sorry for the long winded post am trying to get my head around things. Any influence would be greatly appreciated and the submission date is 12th April.

Thank you

Coupon-mad

For example, I was of the understanding that witness statements were not to be used to convey legal arguments but the Excel one does this multiple times.

LOL, yes, all PPCs do this, they think if they throw it all into the mix it might work! They end up annoying Judges and using template drivel, badly edited.

Which has worried me a lot.

Why, it's hilarious once you start picking it apart.

Should I take any part of this Excel witness pack into account in my witness statement

Yes, or in a separate skeleton argument for the legal issues adn case law - see my replies and the posts by Johnersh in Lop5's thread from this week to see how easy it is to pull apart a template WS.

or solely rely on my end of events as if I hadn't seen the Excel witness statement yet?

No, you have the advantage. Use it!