Assistance in filing defence at court given PoC

anonymous.matey14

Ok so....

On Dec 2016 I parked outside restaurant which is within a arena complex.
I parked in a bay outside the restaurant which showed a board stating 'reserved for paying customers'. I went in to the restaurant, sat down, ordered, and after an amount of time I cannot recall I confirmed with the waiter whether my car was ok parked in the bay. He confirmed it was, however informed me I should've been given a parking permit to display. He then provided one, but as I went out to display it, a parking warden had already issued a ticket and remained stubborn stating a permit had to be visible and that any dispute should be raised with the parking company.

So I emailed the parking patrol company (UK Parking Patrol) explaining the situation, however they also remained stubborn in that a valid permit should have been visible. I therefore decided to wait for the case to be taken to court so that I may appeal.

In Sep 18 (almost 2 years later). I received a letter from the court regarding the ticket and was given 30 days to appeal. I missed the letter and was not able to appeal in time. A CCJ was set against me and case forwarded to debt collection agencies. I filed for 'judgement to be set aside', provided my statement/evidence and was given a court hearing in March. The claimant's solicitors did not attend the hearing, the judgement was set aside and the judge ordered the claimant to file PoC. I received the PoC a week ago and now have until 09/05/2019 to file my defence for which I require assistance.

In terms of evidence I have scans for my receipt from the day, parking permit issued by the restaurant on the day and an email from one of the employees (from their personal email) stating the parking bay was available to paying customers at the time of the offence. (To get an official statement issued by the restaurant is proving difficult as the Director is hard to get hold of and no staff is willing to do it on behalf of the business).

Unfortunately, I do not have any photographs from the day.

I will post what is written in the PoC shortly, however in the meantime if some guidance it can be provided it would be much appreciated.

IMAGE OF SIGNAGE PROVIDED IN PoC: (Dropbox link)
/s/7be09hmp5objtwm/IMG_2292.JPG?dl=0

Thanks

Umkomaas

The NEWBIES FAQ sticky, post #2 provides an example defence produced by legally qualified and regular contributor here ‘bargepole’. Use that as your base and add relevant aspects of your case to it. You need to address every element of the PoC produced by the PPC.

Can’t open that link. Please just copy the whole url, then change http to hxxp, paste it here and we can then do the conversion.

KeithP

That's much better. Here's your link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7be09hmp5objtwm/IMG_2292.JPG?dl=0

Umkomaas

That is basically a ‘forbidding’ sign.

There’s no contract offered by that sign, it’s simply a notice of a penalty charge for anyone failing to comply with the terms. They offer nothing, no consideration and nothing to accept - it fails the fundamentals of a contract.

At best, it’s a trespass case, and that can only be pursued by the landowner for a peppercorn sum.

You’ll need to make this point in your defence.

Some reading:

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.com/2016/04/pcm-uk-signage-does-not-create-contract.html

anonymous.matey14

Ok, I have contacted PPC regarding SAR and am in the process of compiling information across forum/web to draft an initial defence which I will share shortly. However I just thought i'd share what the PoC states.

Additionally in the Directions Questionnaire under section D1 they have requested the case be dealt with without an oral hearing.

A few questions...

1) I should reject the request for no oral hearing and ask for a hearing at my local court...correct?

2) Given the signage, my defence against 'the Contract' should be in accordance with the guidance provided for 'forbidding' signs?

3) Is it worthwhile arguing that no 'grace period' is set in the signage and given the nature of the situation a permit had to be sought from inside the restaurant before it could be displayed.

4) My defence for CLAIM FOR INTEREST and CLAIM FOR COSTS should be in accordance with the guidance provided for each of these respectively across the FORUM?

5) At what point can I request to claim back the costs incurred for setting Judgement aside?

PoC

THE CONTRACT

1. The Claimaint is a Parking Operator managing the land at XXX

2. The Claimant installed signs (i.e. the contract) on the Land that set out terms of parking.
(Link above).

3. The Claimant entered into a Contract with the driver of the vehicle.

4. Through the act of parking as described above, pursuant to the Contract, the driver accepted the Claimant's terms and was issued with a parking charge notice for the sum set out in contract ('the Relevant Charge').

5. A parking notice was fixed to the windscreen of the vehicle. The driver failed to pay the relevant charge within 28 days ('the Relevant Period') or indeed at all. The Relevant CHarge now forms the substantive element of this claim.

6. In addition to the relevant charge the claimant claims £60 in general damages as a pre determined and nominal contribution to its actual losses suffered as a result of the relevant charge not being paid within the relevant period.

REGISTERED KEEPER

7. The Defendant is the registered keeper of the vehicle.

8. The Driver of the vehicle failed to pay the relevant charge or respond to the notice affixed to the windscreen and accordingly the Registered Keeper's details were obtained from the DVLA.

9. Pursuant to Schedule 4 of the protection of Freedoms Act 2012, the Claimant has the right to recover any unpaid parking charges from the keeper of the Vehicle and the 'keeper' of the vehicle is presumed to be the Registered Keeper, unless the contrary is proven.

10. Notwithstanding the above, the Defendant was driving the Vehicle and has confirmed as such in his application to set Judgement aside.

CLAIM FOR INTEREST

11. The Claimant claims interest under s.69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at a rate of 8% from the date of 28 days after the charge until the date of issue of this claim and continuing at a rate of £0.03 per day until judgement or earlier payment or alternatively at such rate that the Court thinks fit.

CLAIM FOR COSTS

12. The Claimant claims costs on contractual (indemnity) basis, pursuant to CPR 44.5, as the contract contains an expressed indemnity clause permitting them to do so.

AND THE CLAIMANT CLAIMS:

(1) The Relevant Charge as a debt;
(2) Damages for the Defendant's breach of contract in the sum of £60, as set out above;
(3) Statuary interest, as set out above; and
(4) Costs on a contractual (indemnity) basis pursuant to CPR 44.5, together with the fixed fees and costs of issuing.

STATEMENT OF TRUTH

KeithP

Are you sure you haven't filed a Defence already?

I ask because it is unusual to receive the Claimant's DQ before you have even filed a Defence.

Upon receipt of the Claim Form, did you file an Acknowledgement of Service?

When doing the AoS, I hope you didn't put anything in the Defence box, did you?


When it comes to completing your Directions Questionnaire, the answers to every single question can be found in Bargepole's 'what happens when' post linked fro post #2 of the NEWBIES thread.

anonymous.matey14

The alleged offence was in Dec 2016.

Claim form (I think or may have been a court order as it said if didn't respond within 30 days a judgement will be made against me by default) was sent Sep 2018, I failed to respond within 30 days because I saw this very late.

A CCJ was made against me.

I went through a Judgement set aside process and after the hearing IT WAS ORDERED THAT

1. The judgement is set aside.

2. Claimant must by X time on X date file and serve Defendant amended PoC setting out basis on which Defendant liable.

3. Defendant must by X time on X date file at court and serve on Claimant a Defence to the amended particular of claim.

4. The parties must file Direction Questionnaires (there was no date specified for this).

5. Costs in the case. (I'm not quiet sure what this means).

Therefore I have now received the PoC and completed DQ and must file my defence in roughly 2.5 weeks.

KeithP

Ah, ok. I had missed that this is following a set aside. Sorry.

Please ignore everything but the last sentence in my previous post.

Coupon-mad

I have now received the PoC and completed DQ and must file my defence in roughly 2.5 weeks.

Any chance you can go there to get pics of what the signs say?

What I am thinking is that you complied with the sign and obtained a permit - and I am hoping the sign said nothing about how to get that permit and whether it had to be displayed on the dash within xx minutes?

anonymous.matey14

Unfortunately the incident took place 2 and half years ago and I didnt take photos on the day.

Another issue is that the restaurant no longer has rights to use that space as parking, but I do have a correspondence from an employee stating it was available to customers at time of offence.

I will pay a visit sometime this week and take some snaps, but Im pretty certain the only signage il find is the one provided in the PoC (link provided).

The_Deep

You should complain to your MP. On 15th March 2019 a Bill was enacted to curb the excesses of these private parking companies. Codes of Practice are being drawn up, an independent appeals service will be set up, and access to the DVLA's date base more rigorously policed, and persistent offenders denied access. Hopefully life will become impossible for the worst of these scammers.

Until this is done you should still complain to your MP, citing the new legislation.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/8/contents/enacted

Just as the clampers were finally closed down, so hopefully will many of these Private Parking Companies.