Claim form received

V.Annoyedlady

Good morning everyone,
Firstly, my apologies if the content of this post has already been covered, I have trawled through as many posts as I can and cannot see anything similar. I'm writing this on behalf of my girlfriend who is extremely worried about paying a ''fine'' of what now amounts to £238.00
The driver parked in a car park in Exeter back in July last year. The car park is just a bit of waste ground with marked bays and controlled by Premier Parking Solutions. I cannot find any details of who the landowner may be.
PPS us a NPR camera to issue their PNC's.

She received her first letter from PPS and after looking at quite a few Google searches we sadly decided to ignore and throw away every letter we received thereafter, including the subsequent ones from BW Legal. It is only now that we have received a claim form from Northampton County Court Business Centre that we looked and found your forum advising not to ignore letters! Oh well. You live and learn.


Basically the driver parked and purchased a ticket. The driver was late returning to the car. As it was quite some time ago now the driver cannot remember how long overdue the ticket was but she thinks about 10 minutes. The sign asks for a £100 penalty reduced if paid within 14 days.
So we really are struggling to come up with any defence at all to what we see as an enormously huge sum for parking ten minutes over.
Is there anybody who has had a similar situation or can point me to a relevant thread for advice please?
The claim form issue date is 8th Jan 2019 so I realise I have a bit of time to respond.
Many thanks to you all in advance.

Le_Kirk

Read the NEWBIE section post # 2 and you will see exactly what you/your girlfriend needs to do and by when. KeithP will be along shortly to give you deadline dates for your defence. Your defence will certainly include signage and Grace Periods but look at some of the example defences posted by Bargepole for some inspiration. The purpose of a defence is to refute any/all of the accusations put forward by the claimant which should be detailed in the LBC (assume you received one of those before the papers from CCBC) and in the POC.

V.Annoyedlady

Thank you Le-Kirk.
Yes, we did receive an LBC but like the rest we threw it away. I will look at the posts you suggest.

The_Deep

£238 is far more than the Law allows for this sort of claim. The down market solicitors whom the PPCs engage know this, but, because they are solicitors, know that a lot of people will pay up.

It is in fact scam double charging and non claimable debt collectors' add ons. Imo, this is fraud, or, at the very least, improper conduct.

Were this to get to court and they won, the judge would be unlikely to award the claimant more than £175 - £200.

I urge you to report this grubby law firm to their regulatory body, the SRA.

https://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/handbook/code/content.page

as I am sure they do not condone this conduct.

Also, complain to your MP as it is the will of Parliament that these scammers be put out of business.

Hopefully that will take place in the near future. The Bill has passed through the HOC without hitch, and goes to the Lords soon. In the meantime involve your MP, the poor dears are buckling under the weight of complaints about these scammers.

This is an entirely unregulated industry which is scamming the public with inflated claims for minor breaches of alleged contracts for alleged parking offences, aided and abetted by a handful of low-rent solicitors. Is has been suggested by an MP that some of these companies may have connections to organised crime.

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, (especially Smart}, and others have already been named and shamed in the House of Commons as have Gladstones Solicitors, and BW Legal, (these two law firms take hundreds of these cases to court each week), hospital car parks and residential complex tickets have been especially mentioned. They lose most of them, and have been reported to the regulatory authority by an M.P. for unprofessional conduct

The problem has become so widespread that MPs have agreed to enact a Bill to regulate these scammers.

Sir Greg Knight's Private Members Bill to curb the excesses, and perhaps close down, some of these companies passed its Third Reading in late November, and, with a fair wind, will become Law next year.

All three readings are available to watch on the internet, (some 6-7 hours), and published in Hansard. MPs have an extremely low opinion of the industry. Many are complaining that they are becoming overwhelmed by complaints from members of the public. Add to their burden, complain in the most robust terms about the scammers.

KeithP

Just as Le_Kirk predicted...

V.Annoyedlady wrote: »

The claim form issue date is 8th Jan 2019...

With a Claim Issue Date of 8th January, you have until Monday 28th January to do the Acknowledgement of Service, but there is nothing to be gained by delaying it. To do the AoS, follow the guidance offered in a Dropbox link from post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread.

Having done the AoS, you have until 4pm on Monday 11th February 2019 to file your Defence.

That's four weeks away. Loads of time to produce a perfect 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.

Of course everytime I have said 'you' or 'your' I mean the Defendant.

Everything must be done in the Defendant's name.

Redx

get ther keeper (defendant) to send a free SAR by email to the DPO at PPS, to get all their data, including docs, pics etc. using the legal beagles template , within 30 days - do this asap, or sooner

also get the defendant to follow that NEWBIES post #2 and do the AOS online by logging in and using the MCOL reference, asap as well

get the complete P.O.C. details (minus the VRM) and post them below, plus a full costs breakdown from that same MCOL form, because its likely they have inflated the charges trying to get double recovery (do not post personal info)

as for the case, the case is a ticket was bought and paid for from a PDT on a pay and display car park, with an alleged overstay, that is probably covered by clause #13 of the BPA CoP

there are probably dozens of similar cases on here, so you did not look hard enough, so I will post just 3 recent cases out of the many that are on here, one of which was submitted only yesterday

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5939998/gladstones-county-court-claim

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5881944/lbc-template-letter-needed&page=2

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5949133/parking-fine-court-letter

you will find all 3 of them very informative and has the essence of any defence, especially the BARGEPOLE rewritten one and the submitted one

the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread post #2 also has loads of advice and info in it, which is why we tell people to go and look through it (on a laptop, not a phone)

Umkomaas

@s7huj. You seem to be posting on someone else's thread. Please delete your posts after copying and pasting to your own thread.

V.Annoyedlady

Thank you to all for your advice so far. I have completed the AoS. Can I still request a SaR at this late stage?

KeithP

V.Annoyedlady wrote: »

Can I still request a SaR at this late stage?

Yes, you can make a Subject Access Request at any time.

You may not get a response before you file your Defence, but any information gleaned may well be useful at Witness Statement and evidence stage.

V.Annoyedlady

Thank you Keith. I really wanted the SAR info before filing a defence so that I could look at the alleged overstay time, grace periods, photos etc. How can I file a defence when I have no evidence to look at??

Coupon-mad

Yes, a SAR will help and should arrive back quickly if you email it to their DPO email.