Help with Defence for CC claim from Parking Eye who haven’t allowed grace period.

Redx

Not_a_pushover. wrote: »

Many thanks Coupon-m.I’ll revisit the NEWBIES FAQ and revise my Defence thread from there.I’ll publish a copyof it on this thread for appraisal if that’s OK prior to sending it to the County Court?

there is no County Court involved yet, so you wont be doing that

its the CCBC email address where you will be emailing it as an attachment to your email, its a government office, like the DVLA etc

YES , post your DRAFT defence below for critique, no personal info though, so blank out any references and VRM and PCN details etc

Not_a_pushover.

In the County Court Claim No xxxxx

Between

ParkingEye Ltd (Claimant)

-and-

xxxxx. (Defendant)


—————
DEFENCE
—————


Background
——————-

1.The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed.

2.That the Defendant was the registered keeper and driver of the vehicle in question at the time of the alleged incident.

3.The allegation appears to be based on images by the Claimant’s ANPR cameras at the entrance and exit to the site.These are merely images of the vehicle in transit,entering and leaving the car park in question and is not evidence of the registered keeper not purchasing the appropriate parking time.

4.The facts are that the vehicle,reg xxxxxxxx ,of which the Defendant is the registered keeper,was parked at xxxxxxxx xxxxxx and did purchase a valid ticket for x hrs parking.To the best of the Defendant’s knowledge,they fully complied with the car park’s rules by entering the VRN and purchasing a ticket within the initial ‘observation period’ allowed by the British Parking Association’s (BPA)Code of Practice (CoP) and left within the minimum ten minutes ‘grace period’ allowed by the BPA CoP at the end of the parking period.

5.Upon receipt of PCN from the Claimant,the Defendant supplied them with evidence that a ticket for x hrs was in fact purchased,however,they have selected to pursue this matter through ligation.

6.The Claimant is claiming that the Defendant has overstayed for 10 minutes as they had paid for x hrs only.The Claimant has failed to allow sufficient grace period and observation period for the Defendant for both in entry and exit based on the BPA Code of Practice.

7.Due to the conditions at the car park at time,the Defendant was unable to purchase a ticket straightaway.Time stamp between Entry ANPR camera and ticket purchased show a 10 minute time difference.

8.The Claimant has ignored both the initial (arrival)’observation period’ as well as the final ‘grace period’ after the expiry of paid up time.The latter ‘grace period’ is stated in the BPA Code of Practice,as a mandatory period of at least ten minutes after a ticket has expired,and this in fact is the industry standard.

9. A BPA article by Kelvin Reynolds,BPA Director of Corporate Affairs who this Claimant is well aware,is on record as saying “there is a difference between ‘grace periods’ and ‘observation periods’ in parking and that good practice allows for this.An observation period is when an enforcement officer should be able to determine what a motorist intends to do once in the car park.Our guidance specifically says there must be sufficient time for the motorist to park their car,observe the signs,decide whether they want to comply with the operator’s conditions and either drive away or pay for a ticket.No time limit is specified.This is because it might take one person five minutes,but another ten minutes,depending on various factors not limited to disability.The BPA’s guidance on the ‘grace period’ as the time allowed after permitted or paid for parking.The Claimant has ignored this guidance and therefore not abided by it’s own BPA’s code of practice.

10.Furthermore,there was no overstay nor any misuse of valuable parking space by the Defendant,whose car was parked in good faith,not in contravention nor causing an obstruction,and certainly not ‘unauthorised’.



Denial of contract and of any breach,or liability.
——————————————————————

11.Due to sparseness of the POC 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 breached any contractual agreement with the Claimant,whether express,implied or by conduct.

12.Further and in the alternative,it is denied that the claimant’s signage sets out the terms in a sufficiently clear manner which would be capable of binding any reasonable person reading them.

13.The terms on the Claimant’s signage are also displayed in a font which is too small to be read from a passing vehicle and is in such a position that anyone attempting to read said font would be unable to do so easily.


No standing or authority to form contracts and/or litigate.
———————————————————————————

14.The claimant is put to strict proof that it has sufficient proprietary interest in the land,or that it has the necessary authorisation from the landowner re issuing parking tickets and to pursue payments by means of litigation.


Excess charges
———————-
15.In addition to the original parking charge,for which liability is denied,the Claimant has artificially inflated the value of the claim by adding purported Solicitor’s costs of £50:00 which have not been actually incurred by the Claimant.

15.1 Whilst £50:00may be recoverable in an instance where a Claimant has used a legal firm to prepare a claim,ParkingEye Ltd have not expended any such sum in this case.This Claimant has a Legal Team with salaried in-house solicitors and it does hundreds of similar ‘cut and paste’ robo-claims per month,not incurring any legal cost per case.The Defendant puts the Claimant to strict proof to the contrary.

15.2 According to Ladak V DRC Locums UKEAR/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 administrative costs allegedly incurred by already renumerated clerical staff.

In summary.
——————
16.The Claimant’s particulars disclose no legal basis for the sum claimed,and the court is invited to dismiss the claim in it’s entirety and to allow such Defendant’s costs as are permissible under Civil Procedure Rule.27.14

Statement of Truth:
—————————
I believe that the facts stated in this Defence are true.

Name

Signature

Date

Coupon-mad

Looks good, now add in the words I wrote for people to use in defences, on the NCP Tax thread. It's a persuasive case to mention!

Not_a_pushover.

Many thanks Coupon-mad,will study it over the weekend and amend said Defence draft.

Not_a_pushover.

HI again Coupon-Mad,have had some unexpected time off today so have done some further reading and amended said draft.I would be grateful if you could have a quick look over it again.Many thanks.
In the County Court Claim No xxxxx

Between

ParkingEye Ltd (Claimant)

-and-

xxxxx. (Defendant)


—————
DEFENCE
—————


Background
——————-

1.The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed.

2.That the Defendant was the registered keeper and driver of the vehicle in question at the time of the alleged parking contravention.

3.The allegation appears to be based on images by the Claimant’s ANPR cameras at the entrance and exit to the site.These are merely images of the vehicle in transit,entering and leaving the car park in question and is not evidence of the registered keeper not purchasing the appropriate parking time.

4.The facts are that the vehicle,reg xxxxxxxx ,of which the Defendant is the registered keeper,was parked at xxxxxxxx xxxxxx and did purchase a valid ticket for x hrs parking.To the best of the Defendant’s knowledge,they fully complied with the car park’s rules by entering the VRN and purchasing a ticket within the initial ‘observation period’ allowed by the British Parking Association’s (BPA)Code of Practice (CoP) and left within the minimum ten minutes ‘grace period’ allowed by the BPA CoP at the end of the parking period.
4.1 The Defendant denies the contravention due to the alleged overstay being within a reasonable period of time allowed for observation,locating a parking space,parking,obtaining a ticket and leaving the car park.Furthermore there was no misuse of valuable parking space by the Defendant whose car was parked in good faith,not in contravention nor causing an obstruction ,and certainly not unauthorised.

5.Upon receipt of PCN from the Claimant,the Defendant supplied them with evidence that a ticket for x hrs was in fact purchased,however,they have selected to pursue this matter through ligation.

6.The Claimant is claiming that the Defendant has overstayed for 10 minutes as they had paid for x hrs only.The Claimant has failed to allow sufficient grace period and observation period for the Defendant for both in entry and exit based on the BPA Code of Practice.

7.Due to the conditions at the car park at time,the Defendant was unable to purchase a ticket straightaway.Time stamp between Entry ANPR camera and ticket purchased show a 10 minute time difference.

8.The Claimant has ignored both the initial (arrival)’observation period’ as well as the final ‘grace period’ after the expiry of paid up time.The latter ‘grace period’ is stated in the BPA Code of Practice,as a mandatory period of at least ten minutes after a ticket has expired,and this in fact is the industry standard.

9. A BPA article by Kelvin Reynolds,BPA Director of Corporate Affairs who this Claimant is well aware,is on record as saying “there is a difference between ‘grace periods’ and ‘observation periods’ in parking and that good practice allows for this.An observation period is when an enforcement officer should be able to determine what a motorist intends to do once in the car park.Our guidance specifically says there must be sufficient time for the motorist to park their car,observe the signs,decide whether they want to comply with the operator’s conditions and either drive away or pay for a ticket.No time limit is specified.This is because it might take one person five minutes,but another ten minutes,depending on various factors not limited to disability.The BPA’s guidance on the ‘grace period’ as the time allowed after permitted or paid for parking.The Claimant has ignored this guidance and therefore not abided by it’s own BPA’s code of practice.

10.Notwithstanding the BPA rules,relevant contract law also dictates that consumers must be given the opportunity to consider terms and conditions before entering a consumer contract.POPLA Assessors have stated in recent decisions that a reasonable time period for this would be up to about ten minutes.
10.1 In a recent (02/05/2019) Court of Appeal decision in the case between NCP(Appellant) and HMRC(Respondent) it was made clear that the offer and acceptance of a parking contract can only take place once the payer has inserted payment into the machine and pressed the green button to obtain a ticket.
.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2019/854
10.2 It is clear from this decision that a contract cannot possibly begin upon driving into the car park,not least because at that point the driver has not had the opportunity to read the terms and conditions of the contract that may or may not be entered into.
10.3 Timestamps from the Claimant’s ANPR camera images indicate that the vehicle entered the car park at xxxx and exited at xxxx.The Claimant’s PDT machine indicates that the driver paid for x hours of parking.The Defendant submits that the vehicle was not a parked for longer than this x hours of paid for parking.
10.4 Given that the time periods specified by the BPA’s own Code of Practice,the Defendant submits that the vehicle was not parked for longer than the time paid for’ and that no parking contravention took place.Therefore the Defendant invites the court to dismiss the claim being without basis.

Denial of contract and of any breach,or liability.
——————————————————————

11.Due to sparseness of the POC 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 breached any contractual agreement with the Claimant,whether express,implied or by conduct.

12.Further and in the alternative,it is denied that the claimant’s signage sets out the terms in a sufficiently clear manner which would be capable of binding any reasonable person reading them.

13.The terms on the Claimant’s signage are also displayed in a font which is too small to be read from a passing vehicle and is in such a position that anyone attempting to read said font would be unable to do so easily.


No standing or authority to form contracts and/or litigate.
———————————————————————————

14.The claimant is put to strict proof that it has sufficient proprietary interest in the land,or that it has the necessary authorisation from the landowner re issuing parking tickets and to pursue payments by means of litigation.


Excess charges
———————-
15.In addition to the original parking charge,for which liability is denied,the Claimant has artificially inflated the value of the claim by adding purported Solicitor’s costs of £50:00 which have not been actually incurred by the Claimant.

15.1 Whilst £50:00may be recoverable in an instance where a Claimant has used a legal firm to prepare a claim,ParkingEye Ltd have not expended any such sum in this case.This Claimant has a Legal Team with salaried in-house solicitors and it does hundreds of similar ‘cut and paste’ robo-claims per month,not incurring any legal cost per case.The Defendant puts the Claimant to strict proof to the contrary.

15.2 According to Ladak V DRC Locums UKEAR/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 administrative costs allegedly incurred by already renumerated clerical staff.

In summary.
——————
16.The Claimant’s particulars disclose no legal basis for the sum claimed,and the court is invited to dismiss the claim in it’s entirety and to allow such Defendant’s costs as are permissible under Civil Procedure Rule.27.14

Statement of Truth:
—————————
I believe that the facts stated in this Defence are true.

Name

Signature

Date

Coupon-mad

Nice.

Remove this from 10.3 as it is stated again in more detail in the next para:

The Defendant submits that the vehicle was not a parked for longer than this x hours of paid for parking.

Not_a_pushover.

Many thanks for taking the time again to read through my amended draft Coupon-mad.Will now follow earlier instructions and send it off.

Not_a_pushover.

Update.Just received a poorly printed photocopy of Parking Eye’s undated N180 form with undated one sentence covering letter.
Do I need to contact CCBC to see where mine and has got to or just wait a while longer?
Many thanks

Le_Kirk

Re-read KeithP's post (post # 2) on this thread, in particular items 7 & 8 on that post, should answer your question and gives a link.

Not_a_pushover.

Many thanks Le_Kirk.I’ll wait until I receive my copy from CCBC as I presume there is no point jumping the gun and printing it off from the link in said post before I am contacted by CCBC?