Received a Letter Before Claim from Vehicle Control Services - help

Chucky1234

Apologies, I sent a cost schedule to the court ahead of the initial hearing and also to the Claimant, I just completely omitted it above! Thank you for your response.

Coupon-mad

The taxi case may mean I cannot successfully it should be held in the Mag's, however, I am pretty confident that this does not mean that the land is NOT under statutory control for POFA purposes, so I am going to try and push this as much as possible.

I'd go more for the sparsely placed signs & lines and lack of clear contract and whatever else reason the driver had to stopping...

If you put all your eggs in the POFA basket, what will you do if the stern Judge turns to you and says 'Mr Chucky1234, let's just clear this up before we start looking at 'keeper liability' - were you driving?'

Snakes_Belly

Good luck for your hearing today.

The judge is likely to give the rep a hard time and if the rep is anything like the one in my case (local to this area) they will not be very well prepared. It won't necessarily be the same one that you had before as they work on a taxi rank basis.

This case will be very expensive for them. Three hours at around £125.00 per hour plus VAT.

Chucky1234

Short version: We both walked away with nothing, the judge gave their rep a very hard time and she agreed to walk away with nothing.


Long version - Court Report

So it was DJ Sehdev again who I had last time. I walked into court and their solicitor asked if I wanted to have a chat, which I accepted. She explained that she was self-employed acting on behalf of Elms Legal. I asked whether she had rights of audience being self employed and she said that she did, so I left it at that.

She complimented me on my defence, said it was a very good read and thought that she was coming up against a lawyer today (credit to you, Couponmad). She said they would be chasing the full amount of £210 but they would accept £125 and she said I think I know what you are going to say, and I said I think you do, no thank you. I then reiterated I would be willing for us to both walk away with nothing, which she refused.

So we go into the courtroom and the judge is surprised we weren't able to sort it out between ourselves, and that's when we both repeated our stances regarding settling. The judge remembered me from last time and said I have maintained that stance all of the way through.

The judge then tore into the the solicitor and said how can they get over the issue of the driver not being identified? He said the POFA doesn't apply on this land and the driver hasn't been identified so why are they here today? He then said we could spend hours going over contracts, signage and whether they have a right to operate on the land, but there is no point unless they can address this issue. He said if we continue on today I have a hefty costs schedule (around £600) that I would be pursuing and he then asked her what her response to that was.

She said she doesn't have a response to the POFA side of it, but asked whether she could have a 5 minute adjournment to see if she could get instructions to accept a deal.

The judge then asked me whether I was still willing to offer that deal, and I said with what he has said, I would be willing to let it run its course. The judge then reprimanded me and said I shouldn't be guided by him, and all he has done is present my argument. He said something else that was basically urging me to offer the deal, so I said yeah I would be happy to walk away with nothing.

The case was adjourned for around 15 minutes but the solicitor couldn't get through to the parking company, so she said she is not able to accept the settlement on behalf of them, so we must go through with it. Whilst we were waiting to go back in, I asked her how she thought it was going to go and she said 'I think the judge has already made his ruling. He has me over a barrel, there's not a lot I can really say' so she knew I was going to win.

Just as we were getting called in, she had a phone call where they said they had decided to accept a drop hands deal. We went in, the judge went through the formalities.

He then said to me that I have had a good outcome, and that I had prepared very well so he wasn't surprised that I had a good outcome.

Outside of the courtroom I had a little chat with the solicitor, we had a laugh at how one-sided the case was and how there was absolutely nothing she could've done or said to change it. She seemed annoyed with VCS aswell. She again complimented me on my defence and asked if I had ever thought about becoming a lawyer? I explained I was an accountant and we then just had a general chat for a few minutes. Their solicitor was actually really friendly.

All in all, I am happy with the result and that it hasn't cost me anything material, and I am also delighted with how much it would've cost them. Part of me wishes I stood firmer with the judge and insisted the case runs its course, but the judge is rather stern and I was just happy it was over and done with!

Massive thank you to everyone on this forum for your help, and I am happy to answer any and all questions about today!

Le_Kirk

Absolutely well done and a nice court report as well.

Snakes_Belly

Well done Chucky you have got the better of them.

I thought that the rep would get a hard time.

My case was similar in outcome and the judge also thought that it should have been sorted out before coming to court. They do not realise how difficult these companies are to deal with.

You have cost them a lot as there would have been costs for the first hearing and costs (which included three hours of rep's fees) for today's hearing. Must be at least £700-£800 in costs. They are having a very costly time at the moment.

beamerguy

Well done ....... you won, VCS lost again.

Not only does this make VCS look incredibly stupid, they now impose their incompetence on to Elms Law who are now tarred with the same brush

Elms Legal should be very careful in future who their bed fellows are

Has the time come to crowdfund the costs of a much bigger pram for SRS

Snakes_Belly

All in all, I am happy with the result and that it hasn't cost me anything material, and I am also delighted with how much it would've cost them. Part of me wishes I stood firmer with the judge and insisted the case runs its course, but the judge is rather stern and I was just happy it was over and done with!

I can understand that perfectly. You think to yourself, " I can live with this". I look back now and think that I could have made a better fist of my hearing but we don't do this regularly and should not do ourselves down.

Castle

Snakes_Belly wrote: »

Well done Chucky you have got the better of them.

I thought that the rep would get a hard time.

My case was similar in outcome and the judge also thought that it should have been sorted out before coming to court. They do not realise how difficult these companies are to deal with.

The problem is only a court can rule if there was a contract and then whether the PCN is a penalty or not; and since you can't reduce a penalty, it's all or nothing.

nosferatu1001

Welld oen, its just a real shame you didnt get your costs of the hearing attendance.
They knew they werent going to win so cut out early. The Elms Legal rep will have told them theyve got no chance.