Premier Parking Solutions - Court Date

RobbieThe

Good morning all,
I've read through the threads but am now looking for a little advice. back in 2015 I received a private parking fine from Premier Parking Solutions. At the time, I believed the advice to be 'ignore' so i stupidly did.

Fast forward and we now have a court date for the claim. I sent a 'copy and paste' defense as I couldn't even remember the ticket and panicked. On looking closer, it seems that I paid £2.60 for 6 hours (when the actual cost was £2.50) and the ticket was issued 8 minutes after the expiry of my ticket. I forgot to mention this in my defense because as I said, i panicked and used the copy paste approach.

I now have a court date set and BW legal have sent me a letter refuting all points and saying I should pay now to avoid action - can I still add to my defense at this stage with the 'grace period' argument? The letter they wrote back criticised the 'copy and paste' defense and said that I had 'no legal knowledge'.

Any advice would be much appreciated as I'm not sure what I do now!

BrownTrout

You have an actual date for a hearing or you have had a claim.......

The_Deep

Smart Parking are scammers, read what an MP said about them recently in the House of Commons.

Pete Wishart (SNP, Perth):

"I am sick and tired of receiving emails from people complaining about the behaviour of parking companies, telling me that they will never again visit Perth city centre because of the negative experience they had when they had the misfortune to end up in a car park operated by one of these companies. I have received more complaints about one car park in the city of Perth than about any other issue. That car park is operated by the lone ranger of the parking cowboys: the hated and appalling Smart Parking—I see that many other Members are unfortunate enough to have Smart Parking operating in their constituencies. It has reached the stage where one member of my staff now spends a good part of each day just helping my constituents and visitors to my constituency to navigate the appeals process.
…
The BPA does not have the ability to regulate these companies and has shown no sign whatsoever that it is trying to get on top of some of the sharper practices. The BPA gives a veneer of legitimacy to some of the more outlandish rogue operators by including them in their membership, allowing them to continue to operate. The Bill will oblige operators such as Smart Parking to amend their practices."

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 become so widespread that MPs agreed to enact a Bill to regulate these scammers. Hopefully, this will become law by Easter .

Le_Kirk

If you have submitted a defence, you cannot add to it (at least not without it costing you a fee) BUT you might be able to jiggle it Granville when you write your Witness Statement by slanting it in a particular way. Everybody gets the "your defence is rubbish, you are going to lose so just pay up" letter. The court will decide if it is a good defence.

RobbieThe

To clarify, I've double checked and it's 'Premier Parking Solutions' - not smart.

I have received a court date - I'm just not sure what to do now, do i reply to BW Legals letter? Do I need to send further particulars to court?

BrownTrout

No you don't reply to BW legal . People can't guess unless you give them all the facts....

beamerguy

RobbieThe wrote: »

To clarify, I've double checked and it's 'Premier Parking Solutions' - not smart.

I have received a court date - I'm just not sure what to do now, do i reply to BW Legals letter? Do I need to send further particulars to court?

I have deleted my post that was above because you now say it is a different PPC. We cannot work on false information

Fruitcake

Follow the guide to court written by bargepole that you will find in post 2 of the NEWBIES.

Work out where you are along that process and carry on from there.

Please take us through the events. We need to know what happened and in what order to stand any chance of helping you.

Umkomaas

@OP - you need to amend your thread title.

I couldn't believe that Smart were taking anyone to court, especially when their only previous dalliance was via SCS Law, and that is now a distant memory.

waamo

What did you put as your defence? It might have been brilliant or might have been a complete admission. It would help to see it.

RobbieThe

This was the defense. As mentioned above it was a copy and paste with a few amendments made without realising I had a good case with grace periods, not sure if I can add that in now:

1. It is admitted that Defendant is the registered keeper of the vehicle in question. However, the Claimant has
no cause of action and has filed this claim without providing any information to the Defendant whatsoever.
The defendant asserts that she was the registered keeper but was not the driver. As the defendant was not the
driver, the registered keeper cannot say whether the driver did breach the terms at the car park.
1.1Neither the Defendant, nor any other possible drivers, recall any 'parking charge notice' (PCN) from the
past, nor does the Defendant even know where the car park was, having only the vague Particulars of Claim
(POC). Any contractual agreement - and thus any breach - is denied.
2. The POC alleges that the Defendant was 'the registered keeper and/or the driver' of the vehicle, thereby
vaguely offering a menu of choices copied from BW Legal's latest batch of robo-claims issued in September
2018. The Claimant has and failed to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4, or with Civil Practice Direction 16,
paras. 7.3 to 7.5. Further, the POC do not meet the requirements of Practice Direction 16 7.5 as there is
nothing which specifies how the terms were breached.
2.1. This Claimant has not complied with pre-court protocol. There was no compliant ‘Letter before County
Court Claim’, under the Practice Direction and the Defendant has no idea what the claim is about - why the
charge arose, what the original charge was, what the alleged contract was; nothing that could be considered a
fair exchange of information.
2.2. The vague POC discloses nothing that can lead to a claim in law. The parking event was far too long ago to
expect a registered keeper to recall the day or who was driving, and it is believed from the Defendant's
research of similar cases, that this Claimant did not use compliant documents to hold a registered keeper liable
anyway.
3. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 Schedule 4 (the POFA) has not been complied with. The registered
keeper was unaware of the PCN and does not admit to being the driver of the vehicle in question on the date
in question, as such the keeper can only be held liable if the Claimant has fully complied with the strict
requirements including 'adequate notice' of charge and prescribed Notice to Keeper letters in time/with
mandatory wording.
4. This case can be distinguished from ParkingEye v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 (the Beavis case) which was
dependent upon an un-denied contract, formed by unusually prominent signage forming a clear offer and
which turned on unique facts regarding the location and the interests of the landowner. Strict compliance with
the BPA Code of Practice (CoP) was paramount and Mr Beavis was the driver who saw the signs and entered
into a contract to pay £85 after exceeding a licence to park free. From research of similar cases and given the
woeful POC and lack of any previous information, the Defendant doubts that any legitimate interest or clear
signage applies in this case.
5. Had any contravention apparently taken place (and this is not confirmed), it can only have been that signage
on and around the site in question was small, unclear and not prominent and did not meet the British Parking
Association (BPA) Code of Practice(CoP).
5.1. The Claimant was a member of the BPA at the time and committed to follow its requirements, and the
Defendant puts the Claimant to strict proof of compliance with the applicable Code of Practice.
6. It is denied that the Claimant has authority to bring this claim. The proper Claimant is the landowner. Strict
proof is required that there is a chain of contracts leading from the landowner to Premier Parking Solutions Ltd
and that this chain of contracts was valid in its entirety on the date of the alleged offence.
7. No sum payable to this Claimant was accepted nor even known about by any driver; as they were not given
a fair opportunity to discover the onerous terms by which they would later be bound.
8. Prior to any court hearing the Defendant has sent a Subject Access Request (SAR) twice to BW Legal and
once to PPS for the following:
8.1.(i) copies of the signs on which the Claimant relies and confirm with photographic evidence, that the signs
were in situ on the date of the event.
(ii) Images of the signs that were at the entrance to the site on the date in question and confirmation that the
signs met the BPA CoP that applied at the time of the alleged parking event.
(iii) copies of any letters sent, including the original PCN and/or Notice to Keeper.
(iv) a full breakdown of the amount of the claim and how the amount was derived.
(v) the Claimant's reasons why they believe the keeper has liability.
9. The POFA does not permit the Claimant to recover a sum greater than the parking charge on the day before
a Notice to Keeper was issued. That sum cannot have exceeded the BPA CoP ceiling of £100 and the Claimant
cannot recover additional charges.
10. The Claimant has inexplicably added 'costs or damages' bolted onto the alleged PCN, despite using a
solicitor to file the claim, who must be well aware that the CPR 27.14 does not permit such 'admin' charges to
be recovered in the Small Claims Court.
10.1. In any event, the Beavis case confirmed that a parking firm not in possession cannot plead their case in
damages and could only collect the already inflated parking charge (in that case, £85) which more than
covered the very minimal costs of running an automated/template letter parking regime.
10.2. The Claimant is put to strict proof to show how any alleged costs/damages have been incurred and that it
formed a prominent, legible part of any terms on signage, and that it was, in fact, expended. To add vague
damages plus alleged 'legal costs' on top is a wholly disingenuous attempt at double recovery, and the
Defendant is alarmed by this gross abuse of process.
10.3. Given the fact that BW Legal boasted in Bagri v BW Legal Ltd of processing 'millions' of claims with an
admin team (and only a handful of solicitors), the Defendant avers that no solicitor is likely to have supervised
this current batch of cut & paste PPS robo-claims at all, on the balance of probabilities.
10.4. According to Ladak v DRC Locums UKEAT/0488/13/LA the claimant can only recover the direct and
provable costs of the time spent on preparing the claim in a legal capacity, not any administration cost.
11. The Defendant invites the court to strike out the claim as having no prospect of success. Alternatively, the
Defendant requests the court to order the Claimant to provide Further and Better Particulars of Claim and
allow the Defendant to respond to those POC.
12. The Defendant has sent a SAR to the Claimant, for response during October 2018, and will expand upon
the denial of breach in the witness statement and evidence, once the Defendant has seen the details from the
SAR and/or in the event that the Court orders the Claimant to file & serve better particulars.
13. It is denied that the Claimant is entitled to the relief claimed or any relief at all. In summary, it is the
Defendant's position that the poorly pleaded claim discloses no cause of action, is without merit, and has no
real prospect of success.
I believe the facts contained in this Defence are true