Claim Form received!

Shredder90

Hi all - hoping for some advice following receipt of a claim form issued by BW Legal in the Northampton County Court Business Centre relating to a PCN issued in September 2015. I will shortly send off the AoS and will then have until 20 August 2019 to lodge my defence. They are claiming for £260.

I have read through all the Newbies sections and many threads of users successful court cases. However, I have been unable to find one similar to my circumstances, hence the post!

Background: The PCN was issued in the car park of my block of flats. There's signage all over and permits issued to each resident. On the occasion in 2015, someone was parked in my space and therefore i parked in the space behind as I knew the owners were away and I wouldn't be depriving anyone of using their space. At the time, I did appeal and believe I would have accepted I was the driver as the car was registered to my mother-in-law at the time and needed to keep her out of it. I ignored all debt recovery letters over the past 4 years.

My question for the MSE forum experts is whether anyone has examples of/experience of a successful defence of a claim in the circumstances described above. Or am I wasting my time by going down the court process and should look to settle with them?

Redx

name the PPC

post the ISSUE DATE from the top right of the claim form

email a SAR to the DPO at your PPC to get all the data, adding proof of ID like a scan of the N180 form

its always worth fighting even if it only brings down the total due to objecting to the charges they added on


yur defence is your legal challenges and so may not be about the circumstances , but based on no landowner contract , POFA etc


this means you may not be looking for exact matches, but starting with the generic defences by bargepole

Coupon-mad

Yes we've seen cases won like this before. Much depends on the words in your lease, and the words on the sign. Can you take a photo of the sign?

You CAN'T post working links yet to an image, so obviously post a non-working URL!

The_Deep

They are claiming for £260.

No doubt they have added several years interest, read this

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

and complain to the SRA.

http://www.sra.org.uk/home/home.page

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.

Shredder90

Hi all - thanks for the responses.

Redx - PPC is Premier Park Limited. Issue date is 18 Jul 2019 and yes, have drafted the SAR to post tomorrow. Will look at the bargepole defences and amend accordingly. Thank you.

Coupon-Made - Words of the sign as per the below:

This land is private property, entry & parking is only allowed under the following contractual terms and conditions as indicated below.
Vehicles parking with a valid permit, ticket or written authority fully on display in the windscreen area. No exceptions. Park in a marked bay only where present.
If you enter or park on this land contravening the above terms and conditions you are agreeing to pay:
Parking Charge Notice (PCN) £100.00

In my simple mind, I wasn't parking in breach of the sign as I had a valid permit on display...

KeithP

Shredder90 wrote:

Issue date is 18 Jul 2019...

I will shortly send off the AoS and will then have until 20 August 2019 to lodge my defence.

You are right with your target date but there might be something useful here...


With a Claim Issue Date of 18th July, you have until Tuesday 6th August to do the Acknowledgement of Service, but there is nothing to be gained by delaying it. To do the AoS, follow the guidance offered in a Dropbox file linked from post #2 of the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread. About ten minutes work - no thinking required.

Having done the AoS, you have until 4pm on Tuesday 20th August 2019 to file your Defence.

That's over four 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.

Coupon-mad

Shredder90 wrote: »

Words of the sign as per the below:

This land is private property, entry & parking is only allowed under the following contractual terms and conditions as indicated below.
Vehicles parking with a valid permit, ticket or written authority fully on display in the windscreen area. No exceptions. Park in a marked bay only where present.
If you enter or park on this land contravening the above terms and conditions you are agreeing to pay:
Parking Charge Notice (PCN) £100.00

In my simple mind, I wasn't parking in breach of the sign as I had a valid permit on display...

I agree, nothing there about an obligation for permit holders to park in their allocated bay?!

That's a fault with the signage drafting and gives you a silver bullet, alongside your primacy of contract argument, like this one:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/76062926#Comment_76062926

A lot depends on the wording of your lease or tenancy agreement and please no posting (as sooo many do, with a sad face) that it says nothing about parking, as if that's a bad thing (think about it!).

Shredder90

Hi all,

Thanks for your help so far. I've set out below my draft defence to be filed in the next 10 days or so. Grateful for any comments/suggestions based on your experiences.


1. The Defendant asserts that she is not liable to the Claimant for the sum claimed or any amount as alleged or at all.

Preliminary Issues

2. The Particulars of Claim on the N1 Claim Form refer to a Parking Charge Notice issued on XX/XX/XXX. However, they do not state the basis of any purported liability for these charges, in that they do not state what the terms of parking were, or in what way they are alleged to have been breached.

3. Therefore, the Defendant contends that the claim should be struck out in accordance with Civil Procedure Rule 3.4(2)(a) on the basis that the statement of case discloses no reasonable grounds for bringing the claim.

4. Alternatively, the Defendant contends that the claim should be struck out in accordance with Civil Procedure Rule 3.4(2)(c) on the basis that the Claimant has failed to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4 or with Practice Direction 16 paragraphs 7.3 to 7.5.

5. If the claim is not struck out for the reasons set out above, the Defendant pleads as follows.

Defence

No legally binding contract

6. The Particulars of Claim refer to “XYZ PLACE” as the location the Parking Charge Notice (PCN) was issued. XYZ is a block of residential flats (the Estate) assigned to individual residents under leasehold agreements entered into between the Landlord, Leaseholder and a Management Company (the Leasehold).

7. There are no terms within the Leasehold requiring lessees to display valid parking permits, or to pay penalties to third parties, such as the Claimant, for non-display of same.

8. At some point the Management Company contracted the services of a third-party Management Agent to, amongst other things, maintain the common parts of the Estate. The Management Agent, who are not party to the Leasehold, subsequently contracted the services of the Claimant company to enforce parking conditions on the Estate.

9. Accordingly, the Defendant contends that the erection of the Claimant's signage, and the purported contractual terms conveyed therein, are incapable of binding the Defendant in any way, and their existence does not constitute a legally valid variation of the terms of the Leasehold. Accordingly, the Defendant denies having breached any contractual terms whether express, implied, or by conduct as no contract existed. The Claimant is therefore put to strict proof that it has sufficient proprietary interest in the land, or that it has the necessary authorisation from the Landlord or Leaseholder to issue parking charge notices, and to pursue payment by means of litigation.

10. 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. They merely state that vehicles must be parked “with a valid permit, ticket or written authority fully on display in the windscreen area” giving no definition of what constitutes a “valid permit”. Indeed, when the permits were issued to residents by the Management Agent the following fields were left blank on the permit; ‘authorised by’, ‘valid from’ and ‘valid to’. It is, therefore, denied that the Claimant's signage is capable of creating a legally binding contract.

No breach of contract

11. If, which is denied, it is held that the Claimant was able to place restrictions on Leaseholders' use of their parking space and that the Claimant’s signage were capable of binding the Defendant, the Defendant contends that there was no breach of contract in any event as the Defendant was parked in accordance with the wording of the signage.

12. The said signage requires drivers to park with a valid permit on display as set out above. The Defendant contends that a valid permit was on display and therefore no contravention to the terms of the parking signage occurred as alleged or at all.

Sums claimed
13. The Claimant, or their legal representatives, has added additional sums to the original £100 parking charge, for which no explanation or justification has been provided. Schedule 4 of the Protection Of Freedoms Act, at 4(5), states that the maximum sum which can be recovered is that specified in the Notice to Keeper, which is £100 in this instance. It is submitted that this is an attempt at double recovery by the Claimant, which the Court should not uphold, even in the event that Judgment for Claimant is awarded.

14. For all or any of the reasons stated above, the Court is invited to dismiss the Claim in its entirety. Given that the claim is based on an alleged contractual parking charge of £100 - already significantly inflated and mostly representing profit - but the amount claimed on the claim form is inexplicably £XXXX, the Defendant avers that this inflation of the considered amount is a gross abuse of process.

I believe the facts contained in this Defence Statement are true.

Shredder90

Any advise, greatly appreciated :beer:

Le_Kirk

You might want to have a look at this post from earlier today and follow up the link (and go to post # 101 of that thread) in the quote as it seems to apply to your situation and you might like to add it to your defence.

The_Deep

Nine times out of ten these tickets are scams so consider complaining 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.