ParkingEye County Court Action - DW Gym Member

ateeq94

Hi all. Total newbie to the forum, I have read the newbies post and need some help.

The keeper received a 'parking charge' last year after The driver had parked the vehicle in a DW gym car park, managed by Parking Eye. The driver spoke to DW gym who sent numerous emails off to ParkingEye asking for the charge to be cancelled, and advised The Driver and Keeper to ignore ALL correspondence from ParkingEye.

They did this, as asked. Now The Keeper has received a Court Claim Form, asking for a reply with a defence.

DW gym have BCC'd me into an email they have sent to ParkingEye confirming that they have on numerous occasions sent off for the fine to be removed but to no avail. Can the fine please be removed.

I have also sent a 'strongly worded' email to [EMAIL="enforcement@parkingeye.co.uk"]enforcement@parkingeye.co.uk[/EMAIL] outlinging my case and got the following response:

Please note that the time to lodge an appeal has now passed and we would advise her to follow the instructions provided with the claim form, wherein you may make payment or submit a defence.

I now need to respond to the court to deny the entire claim, and present a defence. I do not have a legal background, and everyone's defences I read on forums seem to refer to lots of specific Acts and Guidelines and cases. Do I need my defence to be this specific, using the correct legal terminology. Or is my case pretty clear cut. The driver was a member of DW Gym and as such was allowed to park in the car park. They have therefore not breached any parking contraventions. I have evidence in the form of an email, and can get the General Manager to confirm and corroborate that ParkingEye have been made aware of this; but have continued to pursue this baseless claim to court. There is also no charge to park in the car park, so charging[FONT=&quot] £100 far exceeds the cost to the landowner of nil payment charged to park on the land.
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Can someone please offer some advice. Many thanks in advance.

KeithP

What is the Issue Date on your Claim Form?

Did it come from the County Court Business Centre in Northampton, or from somewhere else?

Le_Kirk

Before your received the claim form, did you receive a Letter Before Claim (LBC/LBA/LBCC) and did it give you 30 days to respond and include the details of the claim against you including all proof.

Coupon-mad

The driver spoke to DW gym who sent numerous emails off to ParkingEye asking for the charge to be cancelled, and advised The Driver and Keeper to ignore ALL correspondence from ParkingEye.

Get those emails and send them to:

enforcement@parkingeye.co.uk and tell them to discontinue or they will obviously lose this claim.

And email Dw Gym again and tell them PE have ignored their emails and are suing you, and can they please email (enforcement@) to call their dogs off.

nosferatu1001

First
Date of issue of claim form
THEN go online and ACKNOWLWEDGE the fclaim
THis gives you 33 days to get a defence in, meaning yo uhave time to get them to withdraw it.

ateeq94

KeithP wrote: »

What is the Issue Date on your Claim Form?

Did it come from the County Court Business Centre in Northampton, or from somewhere else?

Issue date is 07 Jan 2019, and yes it is from the County Court Business Centre in Northampton. The letters they have sent seem to only mention a reply to acknowledge by post (unless I have missed this) I cannot seem to see any mention of an option to do this online.

ateeq94

Le_Kirk wrote: »

Before your received the claim form, did you receive a Letter Before Claim (LBC/LBA/LBCC) and did it give you 30 days to respond and include the details of the claim against you including all proof.

No more than the generic mail merge parking charge letters, and threats to court they send to most. The registered Keeper and Driver are two different people. The driver is a member of DW gym, who advised to ignore and bin all letters. The keeper has been doing exactly that, and so has only taken notice of this one as it is a Court Claim. Therefore hard for me to say either way.

KeithP

ateeq94 wrote: »

Issue date is 07 Jan 2019, and yes it is from the County Court Business Centre in Northampton.

With a Claim Issue Date of 7th 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 nearly 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.

Coupon-mad

The letters they have sent seem to only mention a reply to acknowledge by post (unless I have missed this)

You said MCOL was 'down' so surely you have seen the MCOL password (bottom right of your claim, above the £sums)? Have you tried it? Have you created a Govt Gateway account and noted your unique ID it generates?

The NEWBIES thread has the simplest guide ever, in pictures, on how to do MCOL AOS.

ateeq94

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Get those emails and send them to:

[EMAIL="enforcement@parkingeye.co.uk"]enforcement@parkingeye.co.uk[/EMAIL] and tell them to discontinue or they will obviously lose this claim.

And email Dw Gym again and tell them PE have ignored their emails and are suing you, and can they please email (enforcement@) to call their dogs off.

DW Gym have said the sent box does not go that far back, however I have a photograph of the DW staff member emailing PE (which I whatsapped to the Keeper for proof) This is date stamped so I have the exact date and time they would have received the email from DW. DW have however, as mentioned in opening post, given me a copy of the recent email sent to PE - confirming that they have sent on numerous occasions emails asking for this fine to be removed. But PE just ignore emails from DW and have replied to me telling me to proceed with the Claim form.

ateeq94

Coupon-mad wrote: »

You said MCOL was 'down' so surely you have seen the MCOL password (bottom right of your claim, above the £sums)? Have you tried it? Have you created a Govt Gateway account and noted your unique ID it generates?

The NEWBIES thread has the simplest guide ever, in pictures, on how to do MCOL AOS.

Would just like to say thank you for jumping in on this thread. I was secretly hoping for your help and advice on this. I have seen the guide on the NEWBIES thread, will defnitely follow that and create a government gateway account and follow steps when I get a chance. Have spent the entire day so far reading threads on this forum deciding whether I should fight back, and if it will be 'simple' or a long drawn out stressful process and just give up. I sent them a strongly worded letter explaining that the keeper of the vehicle is a mother of two children under 5 and is extremely distressed at the thought of her credit score being affected, or a CCJ being issued as she has a mortgage. They seem to be sticking to their guns on this one.