VCS parking in restricted area & claim from from CCBC

upstanding

Thank you CM and SB- off to work now, so back to the drawing board this evening - will update gain then.

Snakes_Belly

I would question why they have taken so long to bring this claim to court.

Beamer has a post stating the relevant cases regarding inflating the costs with fake charges. Cases have been struck out on this.

There is also the question of de minimis because it must have been something pretty trivial and not worth wasting court time. They would have been off the mark much quicker than this.

As I have said I am not a regular and not legally trained but I think that you should include de minimis if you want to refer to it again in your WS. By that time you will have seen their WS and may have had your SAR back.

upstanding

OK will take a look at Beamer cases re inflated costs and will include the question of de minimis as well
( i had marked it down in notes along with Egbert info re mixed signage and saved them in original draft and managed to omit them when I thought I had typed everything up - need to do more proof reading.

Thanks CM have read up about
"Kent complaint Local Ombudsman and read the report and links where we've explained why Councils can't operate their land as if it were private land." - not sure that totally applicable here - Council weren't implementing anything - it was, as far as we can ascertain, 'an over zealous agent of VCS putting tickets on any car within any vicinity". At the time of the 'alleged' transgression, we spoke with a Business Unit on that site and they informed us that VCS had no clue as they were 'ticketing' employee vehicles legitimately parked within their own work space car park and the VCS rep actually admitted that he didn't know 'what the boundaries were' and 'where he could/should be issuing charge notices on behalf of VCS". It was from this source of information that we were led to believe it wasn't enforceable and therefore to ignore it - perhaps we should have challenged it as soon after but we didn't.
I have read somewhere that if the 'fine' has been passed to a debt collection agency and no payment is made it should be referred back to PPC but in our case we have had threatening letters from 3 different agencies before VCS decided to rear their ugly head. Is their any merit in putting all of this in the defence or is that something that would be better addressed in witness statement??
Also going to certainly raise the question as to why they have taken so long to bring this claim as advised by SB - perhaps that should be something we highlight early on in the defence statement perhaps.

Coupon-mad

Put it all in the defence, and submit a formal complaint to the IPC and DVLA about this:

Council weren't implementing anything - it was, as far as we can ascertain, 'an over zealous agent of VCS putting tickets on any car within any vicinity".

At the time of the 'alleged' transgression, we spoke with a Business Unit on that site and they informed us that VCS had no clue as they were 'ticketing' employee vehicles legitimately parked within their own work space car park and the VCS rep actually admitted that he didn't know 'what the boundaries were' and 'where he could/should be issuing charge notices on behalf of VCS".

Attach proof of the Council land boundary and demand that the IPC investigate this one. Ticketing on council land is a crime:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/man-who-handed-out-fake-parking-tickets-just-wanted-a-job-a6688136.html

Report VCS to Trading Standards as well. The more pressure the better.

Egbert_Nobacon

Check your defence numbering point 8 is duplicated.
In the second point 8 take out the last sentence - don’t mention the connection between VCS and Excel as far as you are concerned they are 2 different companies.
Replace this sentence with the paragraph mentioned in post 49 making it clear to the court that VCS have no standing to bring this claim.

Move the present point 11 higher up and have the following as your final point instead of using point 10:-



Costs on the claim - 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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:
The DJ stated:-
''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...''

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

Egbert_Nobacon

As VCS have accessed your data from the DVLA without just cause it might be worth issuing a counterclaim for £500.
Also perhaps a costs schedule for their unreasonable behaviour.

Snakes_Belly

I do think that digging up all these old claims is vexatious and unreasonable. As is adding on fake charges and interest from 2015.

If you look on Courtserve (you have to register but don't have to pay a subscription just to view the County Court lists) you will see how many cases that the judges have to hear in a day. Some of them involve the removal of children from their parents. It makes a nonsense of these parking claims. The PPC's are wasting public money in chasing spurious claims that have no merit whatsoever.

Snakes_Belly

My guess is that Keep Calm was also on the road. Keep Calm did pretty well with costs in Derby if that is where your hearing will take place.

Snakes_Belly

With regard to the multiple debt collection agencies I did look at this and complained to Trading Standards. Problem is that they are unregulated.

I took the view that if you disputed the debt that the debt collection agent should stop the process and refer back to the PPC. Tried this but it did not work. They are a law unto themselves.

keep_calm_and_carry_on

Hello,


Looks like you're onto a surefire winner on this one, Upstanding. The photos clearly show you're on the road. Google streetview will make this super-obvious to the Judge, so make sure you tell them you're going to take a laptop in with you (mind you, photos will do the trick).


I think Excel might have given me a plan of the car park in their witness statement. I will have a look for you.


My Excel-thrashing case was different - I was parked in the pay and display car park but in a bay that excel decided wasn't a bay.


My current case with VCS is related to the car park opposite there by the business units as far as I can tell from the scant details I have.

I sent in a SAR 29 days ago, so today I will be prepping a nice email and letter to send to VCS and the regulatory body to send off tomorrow. I will report back