After hours of reading still need help, sorry!! With defence to MCOL

nanaholly

ALL NAMES, DATES, TIMES AND LOCATIONS ARE FAKE.

So my brother Mark was park in residential car park in 2016. The car park belonged to a block of flats but was no in a gated area. Access is easy as it is part of a road. The vehicle is registered to Mark and he was the driver at the time.

Stupidly Mark did not read the signs that said the parking was for residents only etc etc.
Now he did received a letter saying he had to pay the fine back in 2016. However he used a template from moneysavingexpert.com and refuse to pay.

As time has gone on, he gets a letter every 6 months or so from different solicitors asking for payment.
Again he ignored them.

However he has now had a letter from Money Claims Online, with the claimant being Vehicle Control Services Limited. Following advice from the forums on here he has sent his AOS. He now has 6 days to put together a defence.

Should he ask for all the evidence they have on him including letters they have sent in the past etc, or is it to late.

At the time of the incident he was the registered keeper, but the car was not insured in his name although he was named as a driver.

Could he use that in his defence and say that it was so long ago neither him or the other person can remember who was driving? (would he have to name who insured the car at that time, or would it be up to them to find out. Also would this put them under threat of getting the fine)

Could he use the ‘grace period’ as a defence without admitting to being the driver.
The reason he thought the grace period could work in his favour is because the ‘particulars of claim’ states ‘namely parking without a display a valid ticket/permit’ and does not mention the time frame in which the car was park..

Within that time he could have been reading the sign or entered the flat to see if the person he was visiting had a valid permit for him to display.

Other than the above I really don't know what to say for his defence as he admits he was at fault.

Thanks in advance.
:money:

The_Deep

There are no grace periods in residential car parks. If you are not authorised to park there park elsewhere.

Redx

Post deleted due to timewaster

nanaholly

Redx wrote: »

The time for evidence submissions are a couple of weeks before the hearing date

A SAR will help to flush out some (not all) of the evidence

I suspect that if he was named as Driver it's almost a slam dunk for VCS

The insurance aspect is irrelevant

If he was named as driver the Keeper issues are irrelevant

He should not lie to the court, the punishments are worse

His main defence is poor and inadequate signage that he did not see, plus no Landowner authority

It's hard to defend the indefensible, but he was trespassing without authorisation on private land, so forbidding signage becomes an issue, no offer of Parking

He was the registered keeper at the time. They do not know who was driving.

nanaholly

KeithP wrote: »

What is the Issue Date on the Claim Form?

Did it come from the County Court Business Centre in Northampton, or from somewhere else?

The issue date was July 17th. Yes the letter came from County Court Business Centre in Northampton.

nanaholly

Quentin wrote: »

He should do the SAR, but not delay getting the defence in waiting for a reply (which is unlikely to be before the defence deadline)


Post #2 in the newbies faq thread covers defending a court claim in depth with links to near template defences to crib from

Thank you I must have over looked this.

Redx

Post deleted

nanaholly

Redx wrote: »

they may do now because of your first post above ^^^^^^^^^

or do you think that parking companies dont trawl this forum looking for information , plus do you not think they know how to take screenshots of posts ?

one of the biggest issues on the internet is that people post far too much information on forums and on social media, like the names of people , who the registered keeper is and who was driving , plus they throw around legal words like "fine" when nowhere in the paperwork does it say that legal word at all


blabbing costs money

You are right and I understand that which is why I said ALL NAMES, DATES, TIMES AND LOCATIONS ARE FAKE.

nanaholly

KeithP wrote: »

You are mistaken with your Defence filing deadline.

With a Claim Issue Date of 17th July, you had until Monday 5th August - two days ago - to do the Acknowledgement of Service. Please confirm you did the AoS by then.


With a Claim Issue Date of 17th July, and having done the Acknowledgement of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 19th August 2019 to file your Defence. A few more days than you thought.



That's nearly two weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a good 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.
   
   
   Of course everywhere I have written 'you' or 'your' I mean the Defendant.

Thank you I really appreciate that. Yes the Aos was done before Aug 5th.
What is the actually title of post #2, because what I am seeing does not seem to be the right thing?

Redx

nanaholly wrote: »

You are right and I understand that which is why I said ALL NAMES, DATES, TIMES AND LOCATIONS ARE FAKE.

trouble was , you posted that much irrelevant info my tablet cut off the top of your post in opera for android , less irrelevant info would have made it visible in one single post

now I am on my laptop I can see what it says, but my warning stands in case others read this thread in the future

on a side note , if I worked for VCS I would trawl my recent MCOL claims submitted around the middle of july and could probably find the case quite easily based on the fake info you supplied, hence why post #6 gives it away

nanaholly

Redx wrote: »

trouble was , you posted that much irrelevant info my tablet cut off the top of your post in opera for android , less irrelevant info would have made it visible in one single post

now I am on my laptop I can see what it says, but my warning stands in case others read this thread in the future

on a side note , if I worked for VCS I would trawl my recent MCOL claims submitted around the middle of july and could probably find the case quite easily based on the fake info you supplied, hence why post #6 gives it away

They could try, but the date I gave was not correct! So they would have to try many dates, I could have two days left or two weeks left. My brother could be really called Bob , Rita or Sue.

Maybe this is for my sister, maybe it was me and my name is Kelly and I parked my car in the wrong place last month. The possibility are endless, am I in Cardiff right now or Newquay.

If they could use this as evidence against me , then they deserve to for all the hard work they put in to crack the case!!!

Thanks for the advance though!