Gladstones/HX Car Park Management Ltd

Beaglemum91

I've read through the various forum posts, including the newbies post which I have used to get this far, but am now looking for more specific advice.

I received a letter before claim from Gladstones in February for an incident in July 2018 which is being pursued by HX Car Park Management ltd. I received no correspondence prior to this, potentially due to me moving house and DVLA having not updated my details until after the event. I responded to them before the end of the 28 day period, as they had no e-mail I attempted to use their online PAP. I could not use this system as it doesn't recognise my address. I called and they sent me an e-mail which gave me a further 30 days to reply to the PAP for that they e-mailed to me.
I filled out the main section (no financials) of the PAP and requested further details as I had no evidence and in my opinion no compliant correspondence to date about the alleged incident. I sent my reply with the PAP on 13/04/19 and requested all further correspondence by post.
I have today 25/6/19 received a reply from Gladstones, via e-mail, not post, with details of previous correspondence to my old address and pictures from an ANPR and generic pictured (not on location) of the requirement to pay and display. Along with this there is follow up "letter to defendant" stating I have to pay £160 in the next 30 days. I never agreed that I either owed or was contesting this charge, I stated that I didn't have sufficient evidence to determine this.

My questions are:
1. Can they take this long to reply to the PAP and still pursue the claim?
2. The reason for charge is stated as overstaying the pre-paid time. It was a long time ago (almost a year), but the car park where the car was had signs stating a set fee all day (confirmed by recent google images from around the time of the incident). They have not stated at any time or provided any evidence to say what they believe was paid and therefore how long they believed the car overstayed. Can I appeal based on the fact that they have not disclosed these details and therefore have provided insufficient detail about the reason for the charge? Is it possible they have this information but have not disclosed it to me?
3. Does the "letter to defendant" mean they have started court proceedings, or if this a scare tactic? I'm assuming the latter.
4. Would the next step to be to request a POPLA number to appeal?

Thank you all in advance.

Quentin

POPLA out of the question with this IPC member company


The LBC was the start of the legal proceedings


Throughout here you are advised never to reveal who was driving


Edit your post to remove details of who was driving


See #2 in the FAQ for all advice in defending a court claim right through to the hearing

beamerguy

You know, Gladstones are such a wet rag who set up the IPC/IAS scam.

THE FAKE £60 added on ??

Gladstones knows that this a scam charge and your job is to point the court to this recent case where another of these dodgy legals, BWLegal were zapped for ABUSE OF PROCESS

That's what Gladstones are doing ..... ABUSE OF PROCESS

READ IT
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6014081/abuse-of-process-district-judge-tells-bwlegal

Beaglemum91

Quentin wrote: »

POPLA out of the question with this IPC member company


The LBC was the start of the legal proceedings


See #2 in the FAQ for all advice in defending a court claim right through to the hearing

HX Car Park Management Ltd are a BPA member so I believe I should be able to appeal through POPLA? Is this incorrect?

KeithP

HX Car Park Management Ltd is not a member of the BPA's Approved Operators Scheme.

They are however a member of the IPC's Accredited Operator Scheme.

As said, PoPLA is not available to you.

Beaglemum91

So an update. I've been following up on advice on the forum and have requested a variety of information from Gladstones, some of which they have provided, some still seems lacking.

I'm not at the point where I'm not sure whether to reply to their latest letter to request further information that they still haven't sent that I believe is required, or to just wait for them to proceed to court action. They have still not provided information about the signage or an image to show that signage in situ, they have just sent a copy of s standard sign as in the bundle in the link below. They have also not provided evidence of how much money was entered into the pay and display machine, just the time period a ticket was issued for. I'm not sure if they can provide this information, but I'd have thought they should.

I'd also like to know if I would have grounds to defend this. So far I have abuse of process (additional £60) and unclear signage. I believe their notice letters were also invalid, but I'm after some help on that one to confirm. In my opinion they didn't supply the required evidence with the notices (this had to be requested by me several times) and I'm not sure if their working around keeper liability is incorrect. Is there anyone who could take a look and give me their opinion?

https /pdfhost.io/v/nFqmD4Qjm_PDF_file.pdf

Thank you very much everyone!

Le_Kirk

Your link made live: -
https://pdfhost.io/v/nFqmD4Qjm_PDF_file.pdf

Beaglemum91

Any help with the above?

Le_Kirk, thank you for making the link live, it wouldn't let me post it

Coupon-mad

I believe their notice letters were also invalid, but I'm after some help on that one to confirm.

Looks like a fairly POFA compliant NTK to me. What will your defence to an overstay be?

If this is still pre-court then I'd be pressuring the landowner to cancel it = easy route.

Beaglemum91

Thanks, I believed it wasn't compliant as they didn't send any of the evidence with it which I believe they should have done for me to understand if it was a valid claim. In regards to the overstay, it was over a year ago and no letters about it were received about it until this year so by then, memories are fairly lost unfortunately. I do know that there was a group event so several cars in the same party arrived at the same time, I was told they payed the same into the machine as they were all taking part in the same activity and my car was the only one to receive this notice. This is why I have been trying to find out what money was entered into the machine in case it was an error.

How do I find out who the landowner is? All I can find is that it's managed by HX Car Park Management Ltd and they've refused to provide the contract stating "we will not provide you with any copy of an agreement the Landowner and our Client as it holds no relevance to this charge and is commercially sensitive information". If I can find out another way I will happy complain to them.

My defence would be that it is abuse of process as they are trying to charge me £160 for the £100 fine and also for poor signage as even on the odd PDF signs they have failed to provide evidence of any actual signs being in place. To be honest, I don't mind paying the charge to get this out of the way (I know I shouldn't really say that, it's just added stress at the moment), but I disagree with the extra £60 they are trying to charge.

Thanks,

Redx

They don't have to evidence their claim until perhaps 2 weeks prior to the court hearing

If their NTK complied with POFA then they can hold the keeper liable and they don't have to add evidence, this is an unregulated industry , they issued an invoice , same as companies send out daily for various goods and services

A SAR obtains all your data that they hold , nothing more

Paying the Land Registry will obtain landowner details , that was obvious because it's their job to hold those details, just as the DVLA hold RK details for vehicles , and licence holder details , it's what governments do

A defence will mention no landowner authority , no contract , CRA 2015 issues , IPC Cop failures , poor and inadequate signage , pdt issues , abortive spurious costs , etc

A SAR that includes redacted let records should get the details for you to check payment and VRM details around the time a ticket was issued

This is all basic stuff plus applied common sense