Civil Enforcement LTD Claim Form

mudsy

Hi there,

I've spent the last couple of days reading through the newbie guide, just wanted to confirm things here.

I've received a claim form dated 21/6 - I've completed the acknowledgement of service today.

In terms of the defence does this mean i have 28 days from the 21/6 to submit it?

The SAR will they respond in time, or should I have received a letter before the claim form? For CEL is it better to just email them the SAR?

Circumstances around the case
Driver parked on a Sunday in a location where there was no coin operated ticket machine, notices a sign which states to buy parking ticket from the desk, desk is closed. And states if using at times when it isn't open to use the app? Great except there is no mobile service around this parking land to actually download said app to actually complete the purchase.

Unfortunately, I have also had many issues with the mail at my address and I do not receive all mail that is claimed to have been sent to me - so I am certain I've not received some stuff in the post. Equally, I may have binned some much earlier correspondence.

The total claimed is £268.05 including £75 court and solicitor fees plus interest of which damages are £182. The particular of the claims state the breach subject to their t&c's and this breach is subject to APNR and/or manual patrols. I do not have any pictures of the signage.

All help is gladly appreciated.

KeithP

mudsy wrote: »

I've received a claim form dated 21/6 - I've completed the acknowledgement of service today.

In terms of the defence does this mean i have 28 days from the 21/6 to submit it?

With a Claim Issue Date of 21st June, and having done the Acknowledgement of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Wednesday 24th July 2019 to file your Defence.

That's over three weeks away. Loads of time to produce a perfect Defence, but please don't leave it to the last minute.


When you are happy with the content, your Defence should be filed via email as suggested here:

Print your Defence.
1. Sign it and date it.
   
2. Scan the signed document back in and save it as a pdf.
   
3. Send that pdf as an email attachment to CCBCAQ@Justice.gov.uk
   
4. Just put the claim number and the word Defence in the email title, and in the body of the email something like 'Please find my Defence attached'.
   
5. Log into MCOL after a few days to see if the Claim is marked "defence received". If not chase the CCBC until it is.
   
6. Do not be surprised to receive an early copy of the Claimant's Directions Questionnaire, they are just trying to keep you under pressure.
   
7. Wait for your DQ from the CCBC, or download one from the internet, and then re-read post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread to find out exactly what to do with it.

mudsy wrote: »

The SAR will they respond in time, or should I have received a letter before the claim form? For CEL is it better to just email them the SAR?

As suggested in the NEWBIES thread, email the SAR to CEL's Data Protection Officer.

You will probably not get a response before your Defence is due, but most of the information will be more useful at Witness Statement time.

The_Slithy_Tove

CEL typically overinflating their claim. They have NO justification for that much, so your defence will challenge every single "add-on" they have incorporated, as well as challenging the entire basis of the charge in the first place obviously.

The_Deep

£250 is far more than the Law allows for this sort of claim. The down market solicitors whom the PPCs engage know this, but, because they are solicitors, know that a lot of people will pay up.

It is in fact double charging and non claimable debt collectors' add ons. Imo, this is fraud, or, at the very least, improper conduct.

Were this to get to court and they won, the judge would be unlikely to award the claimant more than £175 - £200.

I urge you to report this grubby law firm to their regulatory body, the SRA.

https://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/handbook/code/content.page

as I am sure they do not condone this conduct.

Add this to your defence

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

and get your MP on board.

Nine times out of ten these tickets are scams so complain to your MP.

Parliament is well aware of the MO of these private parking companies, and on 15th March 2019 a Bill was enacted to curb the excesses of these shysters. 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, persistent offenders denied access to the DVLA database and unable to operate.

Hopefully life will become impossible for the worst of these scammers, but 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.

beamerguy

The total claimed is £268.05 including £75 court and solicitor fees plus interest of which damages are £182. The particular of the claims state the breach subject to their t&c's and this breach is subject to APNR and/or manual patrols. I do not have any pictures of the signage.

The £75 is in order but NOT £182.

CEL added a fake amount which is abuse of process
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/75929156#Comment_75929156

PLUS CEL will be signing off the claim saying it's a statement of truth ?

A fake £60 added ? .... is that the truth ????

mudsy

Hi All,

Thank you for your responses, I am due to submit my defence by this Wednesday and wanted to check it off to ensure i've not missed anything. I have done some searches on the forums and adapted a template

I have sent off the SAR - they have asked for the vehicle registration; i am assuming this is ok to do so?

mudsy

The defence:

1. The Claim Form issued on the 21st June 2019 by Civil Enforcement Ltd was not correctly filed under The Practice Direction as it was not signed by a legal person but signed by “Civil Enforcement Limited (Claimant’s Legal Representative).” Practice Direction 22 requires that a statement of case and truth on behalf of a company must be signed by a person holding a senior position and that person must state the office or position held. A legal representative who signs a statement of truth must sign in his own name and not that of his firm or employer.

2. Due to the length of time, the Defendant has little to no recollection of the day in question. It would not be reasonable to expect a registered keeper to be able to recall the potential driver(s) of the car 9 months later. The burden rests with the Claimant to identify the driver, who is the only party potentially liable in cases where a parking firm is unable to rely upon the POFA. However, my knowledge of the stated car park is it has very limited signage and newspaper articles corroborate difficulty of actually utilising a parking machine. Additionally, signage refers to use a mobile app, in an area where there is very limited mobile network coverage.

3. The Claimant has not complied with pre-court protocol (as outlined in the new Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims, 1 October 2017) and as an example as to why this prevents a full defence being filed at this time, a parking charge can be for trespass, breach of contract or a contractual charge. All these are treated differently in law and require a different defence. The wording of any contract will naturally be a key element in this matter, and a copy of the alleged contract has never been provided to the Defendant.

4. The Particulars of Claim does not state whether they believe the Defendant was the registered keeper and the driver of the vehicle. This indicates that the Claimant has failed to identify the driver and thus a Cause of Action; and is simply offering a menu of choices. As such, the Claim fails to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4, or with Civil Practice Direction 16, paragraphs 7.3 to 7.5. Further, the particulars of the claim do not meet the requirements of Practice Direction 16 7.5 as there is nothing which specifies how the terms were breached.

5. The defendant denies that he can be liable as Registered Keeper of the vehicle because the Claimant failed to meet the Notice to Keeper obligations of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. The defendant did not receive a Notice to Keeper and absent such a notice served for the parking event and with fully compliant statutory wording, this Claimant is unable to hold the Defendant liable as Registered Keeper under the strict ‘keeper liability’ provisions.

6. 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.

7. The Claimant is known to be a speculative serial litigant, issuing a large number of identical claims with Particulars of Claim so sparse as to be incoherent (as in this case). The Claimant is in fundamental breach of CPR 16.4 and paragraph 3.6 of Practice Direction 16 in failing to provide adequate particulars of the Claim. If the claim is for a breach of contract, no details have been provided about how the driver is alleged to have entered into a contract, or what its terms were (CPR Rule 16.4 and Practice Direction 16, paragraph 7).

8. Henry Greenslade, lead adjudicator of POPLA in 2015 and an eminent barrister and parking law expert, stated that “However keeper information is obtained, there is no reasonable presumption in law that the registered keeper of a vehicle is the driver. Operators should never suggest anything of the sort.”



9. The Defence therefore asks the Court to strike out the claim pursuant to CPR Rule 3.4 by exercising its inherent powers under CPR Rule 1.4(2)(c) and Practice Direction 26, paragraph 5.1 as disclosing no Cause of Action and having no reasonable prospect of success as currently drafted.

10. Alternatively, the Defendant asks that the Court orders a stay of these proceedings until the Claimant has complied properly with its pre-action obligations (pursuant to paragraph 15(b) of the Practice Direction - Pre-Action Conduct) and providing for the Defendant to file an Amended Defence once it has done so.

11. The Claimant is put to strict proof of full compliance that it has sufficient proprietary interest in the land under the correct address, or that it has the necessary authorisation from the landowner to issue parking charge notices, and to pursue payment by means of litigation.

12. The Claimants costs on the claim are disproportionate and disingenuous. CPR 44.3 (2) states: Where the amount of costs is to be assessed on the standard basis, the court will:
(a) only allow costs which are proportionate to the matters in issue. Costs which are disproportionate in amount may be disallowed or reduced even if they were reasonably or necessarily incurred; and
(b) resolve any doubt which it may have as to whether costs were reasonably and proportionately incurred or were reasonable and proportionate in amount in favour of the paying party.

13. Whilst quantified costs can be considered on a standard basis, this Claimant's purported costs are wholly disproportionate and do not stand up to scrutiny. In fact it is averred that the Claimant has not paid or incurred such damages/costs or 'legal fees' at all. Any debt collection letters were a standard feature of a low cost business model and are already counted within the parking charge itself.

14. The Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis case is the authority for recovery of the parking charge itself and no more, since that sum (£85 in Beavis) was held to already incorporate the minor costs of an automated private parking business model. There are no losses or damages caused by this business model and the Supreme Court Judges held that a parking firm not in possession cannot plead any part of their case in damages. It is indisputable that the alleged 'parking charge' itself is a sum which the Supreme Court found is already inflated to more than comfortably cover the cost of all letters.

15. Any purported 'legal costs' are also made up out of thin air. Given the fact that robo-claim solicitors and parking firms process tens of thousands of claims handled by an admin team or paralegals, the Defendant avers that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste claims. The court is invited to note that no named Solicitor has signed the Particulars, in breach of Practice Direction 22, and rendering the statement of truth a nullity.

16. According to Ladak v DRC Locums UKEAT/0488/13/LA a Claimant can only recover the direct and provable costs of the time spent preparing the claim in a legal capacity, not any administration costs allegedly incurred by already remunerated administrative staff.

17. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (POFA) makes it clear that the will of Parliament regarding parking on private land is that the only sum potentially able to be recovered is the sum in any compliant 'Notice to Keeper' (and the ceiling for a 'parking charge', as set by the Trade Bodies and the DVLA, is £100). This also depends upon the Claimant fully complying with the statute, including 'adequate notice' of the parking charge and prescribed documents served in time/with mandatory wording. It is submitted the claimant has failed on all counts and the Claimant is well aware their artificially inflated claim, as pleaded, constitutes double recovery.

18. Judges have disallowed all added parking firm 'costs' in County courts up and down the Country. In Claim number F0DP201T on 10th June 2019, District Judge Taylor sitting at the County Court at Southampton, echoed an earlier General Judgment or Order of DJ Grand, who on 21st February 2019 sitting at the Newport (IOW) County Court, had struck out a parking firm claim. One was a BPA member serial Claimant (Britannia, using BW Legal's robo-claim model) and one an IPC member serial Claimant (UKCPM, using Gladstones' robo-claim model) yet the Order was identical in striking out both claims without a hearing: ''IT IS ORDERED THAT The claim is struck out as an abuse of process. The claim contains a substantial charge additional to the parking charge which it is alleged the Defendant contracted to pay. This additional charge is not recoverable under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 nor with reference to the judgment in ParkingEye v Beavis. It is an abuse of process from the Claimant to issue a knowingly inflated claim for an additional sum which it is not entitled to recover. This order has been made by the court of its own initiative without a hearing pursuant to CPR Rule 3.3(4) of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998...''

19. In summary, the Claimant's particulars disclose no legal basis for the sum claimed and it is the Defendant's position that the poorly pleaded claim discloses no cause of action and no liability in law for any sum at all. The Claimant's vexatious conduct from the outset has been intimidating, misleading and indeed mendacious in terms of the added costs alleged.

20. There are several options available within the Courts' case management powers to prevent vexatious litigants pursuing a wide range of individuals for matters which are near-identical, with meritless claims and artificially inflated costs. The Defendant is of the view that private parking firms operate as vexatious litigants and that relief from sanctions should be refused.

21. The Court is invited to make an Order of its own initiative, dismissing this claim in its entirety and to allow such Defendant's costs as are permissible under Civil Procedure Rule 27.14 on the indemnity basis, taking judicial note of the wholly unreasonable conduct of this Claimant, not least due to the abuse of process in repeatedly attempting to claim fanciful costs which they are not entitled to recover.


Statement of Truth:

I confirm that the contents of this Defence are true to the best of my knowledge and recollection.

mudsy

Hi All,

Just wondering if there are any comments to the defence, I am hoping to submit before tomorrow’s deadline.

Coupon-mad

I have sent off the SAR - they have asked for the vehicle registration; i am assuming this is ok to do so?

Of course, so they can search for data relating to it. Show them a copy of your V5C as well, to stop them delaying the SAR by pretending they don't know that you are the rightful keeper/data subject.

Re the defence, I would make this #3 (removing your #3 entirely which adds nothing that's not repeated further down anyway!). You want this, below, to have more clout as a point, because at the moment it's buried in #2:

However, my knowledge of the stated car park is it has very limited signage and newspaper articles corroborate difficulty of actually utilising a parking machine. Additionally, signage refers to use a mobile app, in an area where there is very limited mobile network coverage.

And remove #9 and #10 as you ask later in that draft for the claim to be struck out and you don't want to push it twice.

This one needs a couple of adjustments to make sense for a no-solicitor claim:

15. Any purported 'legal costs' are also made up out of thin air. Given the fact that [STRIKE]robo-claim solicitors and[/STRIKE] parking firms process tens of thousands of claims handled by an admin team or paralegals, the Defendant avers that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste claims. The court is invited to note that no named [STRIKE]Solicitor[/STRIKE] individual has signed the Particulars, in breach of Practice Direction 22, and rendering the statement of truth a nullity.

mudsy

Thank you for your feedback, I did amend and submit the claim form within time. I’ve received a letter from the court stating they are going to send it to the claimant. CEL have also sent via post the SAR.

I’m guessing now I am just waiting for CEL to respond and, if they choose to continue, then await a date from the court?

KeithP

mudsy wrote: »

I’m guessing now I am just waiting for CEL to respond and, if they choose to continue, then await a date from the court?

There's a little bit more to it than that.

Have another read of post #2 of the NEWBIES thread. In particular, read Bargepole's 'what happens when' post to understand all the steps.

Whilst waiting for things to happen, perhaps you should be gathering evidence.