Without Prejudice Offer Rejected. What Now?

judrop500

Last week I received a letter before action from SIP parking demanding £960 for six unpaid parking fines. Wanting to avoid court I sent them a without prejudice offer of £120 (the cost of a day’s parking + £2.50 DVLA search + £10.50 admin charge x 6). SIP has rejected this but offered to reduce the charge to £600. Where do I stand? I feel like I don’t have a case in court because it’s six parking charges. But I also can’t afford £600. Can I change the terms of my offer? Could I for example offer to pay £50 a month for six months (£300)? Any constructive advice appreciated.

Umkomaas

Try a further WP offer. They look to be open to a degree of negotiation.

How come you've racked up that number of parking tickets with one PPC?

onlyfoolsandparking

WP offers are like a game of Poker, how good are at playing?


You really need to read (A LOT) about the game you are now involved in, find out more about the scammers that call themselves SIP parking, its unlikely you would pay £960 if it went to Court, there's good reason for this, again find out on here, all the info you need is in and amongst these many threads.


Do you have their rejection letter, if so keep it because if it did go to Court you could certainly show the Judge that you made a decent effort in trying to resolve this issue, that potentially wouldn't look good for SIP.


There are just too many options open to you to list them all here which is why as I said look around the forum, plenty of SIP threads to choose from.

Half_way

Whos car park was this?
Was this in the Manchester area/North West ( ie a piece of scrappy land turned into a car park )
Was this a car park attached to a retail park/store/shop/pub etc?


As for Without prejudice, you must be very careful when using this, even using it as you have done may cause issues if it goes to court, as you can no longer show that you have made a reasonable offer to the parking company to resolve this

judrop500

Yes it was a scrap of land just off Oxford Road in Manchester. They also slashed my tyres (but that’s another issue). I was a student single mum. Couldn’t afford to pay but couldn’t take the train as I’d be fined £20 by nursery for picking up my daughter late.

onlyfoolsandparking

I know technically you cant show a WP offer in Court but as we all know there's no consistency with the Judges, I think the OP could 'slip in' the WP offer as a 'rookie not legally qualified mistake' in Court what would they really have to lose?


How many times have we seen on here that Defendant does everything right and Claimant does everything wrong and Claimant still wins??????

onlyfoolsandparking

judrop500 wrote: »

Yes it was a scrap of land just off Oxford Road in Manchester. They also slashed my tyres (but that’s another issue). I was a student single mum. Couldn’t afford to pay but couldn’t take the train as I’d be fined £20 by nursery for picking up my daughter late.

Do you have any proof that they ( I presume you mean SIP) slashed your tyres, if you have this puts a completely different slant on things, it then becomes a criminal matter and you should involve the Police.

Umkomaas

Half_way wrote: »

As for Without prejudice, you must be very careful when using this, even using it as you have done may cause issues if it goes to court, as you can no longer show that you have made a reasonable offer to the parking company to resolve this

WP is a two-edged sword.

As Half_way says, you might want to show the court that you've attempted to resolve this before it got to that stage (you can't if you've marked it just WP).

On the other hand, if you are to fight the entirety of the court claim against you, not marking the offer WP, opens up the suggestion of culpability - and the distant possibility of 'unreasonableness', potentially exposing you to much greater costs.

judrop500

I defo marked it WP.

I have no proof that SIP slashed my tyres. It just happened in their car park when I hadn’t paid and couldn’t have been anyone else (no one who knows me knew I was at Uni that day).

The_Deep

I would have no hesitation in disclosing a WP offer I had made to a judge.
I would not however tell the judge about a WP offer made to me. My reasoning for this would be that it was my offer and I could use it how I pleased. The use of the WP words would be merely to prevent the other side from using it in court. Have I misunderstood?

judrop500

I guess my question is, if I go back with an offer of £300 can SIP reject it, not offer anything, and continue with the original claim of £960? And if so, what are my chances in court?