Excel Parking Services County Court Claim - Help With Defence Please

Coupon-mad

Looks good to go, and no need to mention a SAR response that is not late.

Magpie2121

Many thanks all for your help in creating my defence.

Here's a final copy which has now been submitted. I'll keep you updated with its progress and thanks again.

IN THE COUNTY COURT

CLAIM No: *******

BETWEEN:

Excel Parking Services Ltd (Claimant)

-and-

******** (Defendant)

________________________________________
DEFENCE
________________________________________

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

2. The facts are that the vehicle, registration ****, of which
the Defendant is the registered keeper, was parked on the material
date in a bay at Quorum Business Park and had a valid permit to be
parked in the car park.

3. The vehicle was parked with the permission of *****, the
company at which the defendant was contracting for at the time.

The permit itself was valid as it was issued by the receptionist
working at ***** and was clearly on display. The permit did not
indicate any restrictions on which bay(s) to park.

4. Further or 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.
They merely state that vehicles must be parked correctly within
their allocated parking bay, giving no definition of the term
'correctly parked', nor indicating which bays are allocated to
whom.

5. Due to the sparseness of the particulars, it is unclear as to
what legal basis the claim is brought, whether for breach of
contract, contractual liability or trespass. However, it is denied
that the Defendant, or any driver of the vehicle, entered into any
contractual agreement with the Claimant, whether express, implied
or by conduct.

6. The Defendant does not know on what basis the Claimant is
operating at the site in question and 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 / or to pursue
payment by means of litigation.

7. In addition, the terms on the Claimant's signage are 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 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
£60. The claim includes an additional £60, for which no
calculation or explanation is given and which appears to be an
attempt at double recovery.

I believe the facts contained in this Defence are true.

Signed and dated

KeithP

You would be wise to edit your latest post to remove your Claim Number and of course your full name.

The parking companies trawl this forum just waiting for people to trip themselves up and can try to use your posts against you.

Magpie2121

Hi All,

I've now received a Witness Statement request and am requesting help to tackle this. Please can someone advise further?

The claimant has also sent a 70 pages document witness statement which they'll rely on court. Please can someone help with how I should tackle this issue based on the claimants points below? I'll be forever grateful. Thank you

Coupon-mad

Same as all the other VCS and Excel Witness statement templates on other threads, already torn apart on other posts loads of times. You were expecting this, I hope.

Rather than post here first, search the forum first. Pick a word from that WS such as a case surname (e.g. just the word 'Kumari') and search for that keyword here using ADVANCED SEARCH (show results as POSTS).

Job done!

You need to use the forum as intended (searching it to find what's here already) and not just appear on this little thread every few months to ask a question as if it's all new. People who do that sometimes lose or forget to do each stage they are required to do.

Now, what about YOUR task, to show us YOUR Witness Statement and evidence, and tell us the date by which you were meant to file & serve that?

On the letter that gave you the court date, it told both parties what they had to do and by when...and Excel have done it.

Have you?

Magpie2121

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Same as all the other VCS and Excel Witness statement templates on other threads, already torn apart on other posts loads of times. You were expecting this, I hope.

Rather than post here first, search the forum first. Pick a word from that WS such as a case surname (e.g. just the word 'Kumari') and search for that keyword here using ADVANCED SEARCH (show results as POSTS).

Job done!

You need to use the forum as intended (searching it to find what's here already) and not just appear on this little thread every few months to ask a question as if it's all new. People who do that sometimes lose or forget to do each stage they are required to do.

Now, what about YOUR task, to show us YOUR Witness Statement and evidence, and tell us the date by which you were meant to file & serve that?

On the letter that gave you the court date, it told both parties what they had to do and by when...and Excel have done it.

Have you?

Thanks for your prompt response and for the search function tips.

My witness statement has a deadline of 11th of July, 2019.

I'll work on my witness statement and post it here ASAP.

Thanks again

Magpie2121

I have now drafted a WS. I can't think of any other pointers which may work in my favour so any additional pointers or input will be welcomed greatly.

In the County Court at XXXXX
Claim No. XXXXXXXX
Between
Excel Parking Services (Claimant)
and
XXXX (Defendant)

---

Witness Statement

---

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

On [date], the Defendant was working as a contractor for a company called Engie, based at Quorum Business Park.

Having been issued with a parking permit to demonstrate it had permission to park at Quorum Business Park, the Defendant parked its car in one of the bays in the car park.

After work on that day, the Defendant noticed its car had been issued with a parking charge despite having permission to park in the car park.

The parking charge stated that the vehicle did not display a "Valid TDR Permit".
However, the parking permit issued by Engie was clearly on display and photographs of the permit were also taken by the warden.

Despite having a valid permit displayed, the Defendant checked the various signage displayed in all areas of the car park. It became apparent that all signage in the Business Park was exactly the same as per the attached photos

None of the signs stipulated that a particular area is designated to Engie permit holders or any other client, including TDR.

It is therefore unclear to determine which area or parking bay(s) is designated to whom.

The claimant also suggests that Engie were not authorised to permit the Defendant to park its vehicle in what they claim to be a TDR permit space, even though no sign states that particular area belongs to TDR.

In this case, the claimant should pursue its baseless claim with Engie themselves and not the Defendant as they issued the permit in its current state.

However, the claimant still cannot deter from the fact that it’s impossible to determine which area permits Engie staff and which permits any other client.

It is my position that no contract was entered into with Excel Parking Services Ltd, no breach of contract occurred, there has been no loss to Excel Parking Services Ltd and that the Claimant has no standing or cause of action to litigate in this matter.

I invite the court to dismiss this claim in this entirety, and it award my costs of attendance at a hearing, such as are allowable pursuant to CPR 27.14.

Magpie2121

Anyone able to provide some input please?

Many thanks

Quentin

Your defence used pofa

Are you defending as keeper?! If so the WS doesn't reflect this

Redx

agreed , as mentioned above, the WS also needs to address any legal issues by expanding on them , not just a story of what happened on the day, because its also the EXHIBITS (evidence) stage and so the WS should expand on what the witness knows or has learned about the matter and expand on the brief points raised in the defence, like POFA , SIGNAGE , LAWS , CoP , etc