Residential PCN help please - ***I WON***

Redx

My argument would be the opposite question

Why do people frequently publish their personal details online ? , On social media ? , On public internet forums like MSE etc ???

Why do the same people then complain if their private and personal data is used against them or to defraud them or to hack them ?

Pointless having DPA under the GDPR if people publish their details for all to see

So any document may as well be from Jane Doe of 1 Downing Street , London , telephone number 01 234 5678 , date of birth 15 March 1857 , VRM = AB123XYZ , email amateurgirl@gmail.com etc , nobody here of any noteworthiness needs your real details

amateurgirl

Hello all
finally had the Notice of Hearing - it's not for another 10 months! The claimant has to pay a 'trial fee' and if they don't the case will be struck out. Hopefully with the delay and the fee they'll discontinue (well, one can but hope).
Thanks all.

Le_Kirk

Good to see the justice system is well on top of everything. Let's hope the claimant forgets to pay the fee.

Umkomaas

amateurgirl wrote: »

Hello all
finally had the Notice of Hearing - it's not for another 10 months! The claimant has to pay a 'trial fee' and if they don't the case will be struck out. Hopefully with the delay and the fee they'll discontinue (well, one can but hope).
Thanks all.

Wow - to which court has it been allocated?

As that's such a long way off, it might be prudent while things are relatively fresh in your mind, to start slowly researching and then drafting your Witness Statement.

amateurgirl

Thanks, Umkomaas. Yes, it's a long time isn't it. Its a London court, so I guess they've got a rather large workload...
I've been doing my WS for ages off and on, helped in no small part by the Forumites. I wouldn't have known what to do without them. I'm on version 3 or 4 now! I must have spent hundreds of hours on this issue so far - writing the Defence, the WS, doing research. If I could charge the Claimant a £ for every hour, they'd have to write me a very large cheque. And if I could charge them for the stress and worry it would bankrupt them.

amateurgirl

Hello all, my hearing is coming up soon so I'd appreciate it if you could comment on my WS below. Thdee's a second half which I'll post separately. Thanks!

In the County Court at XXXXX

Claim No. XXXXXXXX

Between

UK Parking Control Ltd (Claimant)

and

XXXXXX (Defendant)

-------------------------

Witness Statement

-------------------------

1. PRELIMINARY

1.1 I, XXXXX, of XXXXX am the Defendant in this case. I am unrepresented, with no experience of Court procedures. If I do not set out documents in the correct way, I trust the Court will excuse my inexperience.

1.2 Attached to this statement is a paginated bundle of documents marked 2A to 2W and 3A to which I will refer.  

1.3 The facts in this statement are true to the best of my knowledge and belief.

1.4 I deny every allegation set out in the Particulars of Claim.

2. STATEMENT – SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
2.1 In 2001 I purchased a leasehold flat with an allocated parking space demised to me under the lease. My lease gave me “The right to exclusive use of the Parking Space for the purpose of parking a private motor vehicle not exceeding three tonnes gross laden weight” and as such I had the right to park in that location at all times. The space was clearly indicated on the parking plan which formed part of the lease document, a copy of which is attached (exhibit 2A). The Lease contained no clause requiring a permit to park nor did it contain any reference to parking controls of any kind.

2.2 In 2012, without any consultation with me or any other resident, the Managing Agents unilaterally decided to engage UK Parking Control Ltd (or UKPC), a Private Parking Company (or PPC), to ‘control’ parking on the estate. The residents knew nothing about this until the day that UKPC’s signs appeared on the estate.

2.3 In a letter they later sent out, the Managing Agents said the scheme was to prevent trespassers parking on the estate and enclosed permits which they said residents should display in their vehicles (exhibit 2B). I had no inkling that this scheme, to which I, as a leaseholder, had not in any way been a party, would later be used to penalise me for parking my own vehicle in my own demised parking space and to ensnare me in legal proceedings in court.

2.4 As a courtesy to the Managing Agents I affixed the permit to my windscreen. It would periodically begin to peel off so I had to keep sticking it back down. Then in September 2014 it fell off the windscreen. When I came home, the permit was lying on the dashboard and a PCN was stuck on my windscreen (PCN dated xx S 2014). The Claimant’s Operative must have seen the permit lying on the dashboard, but s/he still issued the PCN.

2.5 When it fell off the windscreen, some of the print was left behind. I tried to stick it back on over this, but there was no adhesive left on it and it wouldn’t stay on. So now I was left without a permit. I was worried I would get another PCN, so I made what I thought would be a temporary substitute, by sticking a piece of white paper behind what remained of the imprint on the windscreen.

2.6 I appealed the PCN via the Claimant’s online appeals process and requested a replacement permit (exhibit 2C). I thought they would realise their mistake and cancel the charge. To my alarm and dismay, they rejected my appeal, saying I had to pay or be taken to court, and refused to send a new permit saying I had to get one from the Managing Agent (exhibit 2E).  They’d taken 6 weeks to reply, during which time they knew I had no permit and was therefore vulnerable to receiving more PCN’s. I assert that this was intentional, a deliberate tactic cynically designed to exploit this vulnerability and generate more ‘fines’.  I further assert that UKPC acted unreasonably by delaying their reply and knowingly leaving me in this situation. The Claimant has proceeded to court in full knowledge of the circumstances and I aver that this represents an Abuse of Process as defined by The Dictionary of Law as ‘a tort where damage is caused by using a legal process for an ulterior collateral purpose’.

2.7 Knowing now that PCN’s were not ‘fines’ or ‘parking tickets’ but actually ‘invoices’ which should be contested if they were issued unfairly, it was clear to me that the PCN had been issued unfairly so I disputed it and refused to pay (exhibit 2G). 

2.8 I contacted the Managing Agents to request a new permit, first with phone calls and then, when nothing arrived, by email (exhibit 2F). I heard nothing from either party until December, when I received a letter from a company called Debt Recovery Plus Ltd (or DRP) demanding £160 and threatening legal action if I didn’t pay (exhibit 2H). This letter, couched in quasi-legal language, was frightening and intimidating, as was its intention - its sole aim was to scare me into paying up. Despite this, I continued to refuse to pay what was an unfair charge (exhibit 2I). Over the next 8 months DRP would continue pursuing me for this ‘debt’ and I would continue to refuse to pay (exhibit 2J).

2.9 Prior to taking action against me with the likes of DRP, the Claimant should have sent me a Notice to Keeper (or NTK) as required by the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (or POFA). I had received no such Notice. Instead, in a clear contravention of POFA, the Claimant had passed my details straight to DLP who, moreover, had written to me using threatening language. The DVLA supplied my data to the Claimant for the purpose of determining the keeper of my vehicle, and not for the purpose of using it to exhort money from me through threats and intimidation, a distinct misuse of my data and a contravention of Data Protection legislation. In addition, in a further contravention of POFA, the original ‘charge’ had been inflated by £60, for supposed ‘legal costs’ in bringing the claim. Courts around the country have disallowed Parking Companies claims for such ‘costs’ as an Abuse of Process.

2.10 By early January 2015, I still hadn’t received the new permit and my ‘temporary’ permit was still on display. It was then I received a second PCN (PCN dated xx S 2015). As usual, my vehicle was parked in my own parking space. The photos the UKPC Operative took show my ‘temporary’ permit clearly (exhibit 2K). He realised what he was seeing because he input into his device that “The vehicle has no permit or photocopy permit. What you see in the photos is white paper stuck behind the area where the ink from the permit transferred onto the windscreen” (exhibit 2L).

2.11 This time the Claimant complied with POFA and sent me a Notice to Keeper. However, it didn’t comply with Schedule 4 paragraphs 8 and 9 of the POFA, as it didn’t state how the PCN had been issued and it didn’t offer a 14-day payment discount. Under POFA, if this information is missing, the registered keeper cannot be held to account for the alleged debt of the driver and I again refused to pay. In February 2015 this resulted in a final reminder from UKPC, followed over the next 4 months, by threatening letters from Debt Recovery Plus, Zenith Collections and Small Claims Solicitors (exhibit 2M).  As before, and in contravention of POFA, the original ‘charge’ had been inflated by £60, for supposed ‘legal costs’ in bringing the claim. And, as before, in contravention of Data Protection legislation, the Claimant had passed my details to these various companies without my knowledge or consent and, in a clear misuse of my data, they were now using it to exhort money from me through threats and intimidation. I continued declining to pay.

2.12 The new permit finally arrived later in January 2015. It had been delivered while I’d been away and I emailed the Managing Agents to say I’d received it (exhibit 2N). However, when I later went out to put it in my car, I found it had been targeted with the third PCN (PCN dated xx S 2015). As usual, my car had been parked in my own parking space. The ‘temporary’ permit was still on display, as confirmed by the photo’s the Operative took (exhibit 2O). Again, he has put into his device that “The vehicle has no permit or photocopy permit. What you see in the photos is white paper stuck behind the area where the ink from the permit transferred onto the windscreen” (exhibit 2P). The previous PCN had been issued just a week before and the circumstances are identical. Any reasonable procedure would allow time for new permits to be received, particularly over the Christmas and New Year period with its inherent delays. I aver that the Claimant has proceeded to court in full knowledge of the circumstances and that this represents a further Abuse of Process.

2.13 In February 2015, I received a Notice to Keeper from UKPC, followed two weeks later by the final reminder.  As before, these were non-POFA compliant.  I received no further correspondence relating to this PCN. I had no idea why this was, but I was not so naïve to think the issue had gone away. Like a dog with a bone someone’s trying to take away, UKPC clings on savagely.

2.14 In October 2016, the new permit was on display but my vehicle was targeted with a fourth PCN (PCN dated xx O 2016). As usual it was parked in my own parking space. The reason given for issuing this PCN was that the permit was, quote, a “non-valid photocopy”. The real reason was that PPC’s make their money by targeting residents, and to this end their Operatives are given financial targets to meet and clearly this particular Operative still had his target to achieve so he issued the PCN. The photos he took of the permit (exhibit 2Q) look the same as the photo I took of the same permit in June this year (allowing for it having faded over time) (exhibit 2R).  Furthermore, when I moved home, I removed the permit from my windscreen and now exhibit it here (exhibit 2S).

2.15 Following the issue of this last PCN, I heard no more about it – no Notice to Keeper and no debt collection letters. Then, in September 2018, I received a ‘Letter before Claim Pursuant to the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims’ from SCS Law, saying the Claimant had instructed them to recover charges which had been, quote, “incurred by you in relation to the parking of your vehicle” (exhibit 2T). However, in contravention of the Practice Direction for the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims, they had failed to provide any supporting evidence for the claim, and I was obliged to request this from them. I also asked that they confirm they were fully conversant with the terms of my lease in respect of my parking rights granted under that lease (exhibit 2U). In response, I received various copy photographs and documents and confirmation that neither SCS Law, nor the Claimant, had a copy of my lease (exhibit 2V).  As neither had a copy of my lease, neither was aware of the terms of my lease in respect of my parking rights.

2.16 There then ensued 9 months of argument and counter-argument between myself and SCS Law (exhibit 2W). In one letter, SCS attempted to blame me for getting one of the PCN’s, by referring to a vehicle ‘exemption’ procedure, which they said I should have followed, but of which I’d never even heard. Another letter was dated several weeks before the date of the letter they were responding to (proving that these letters are just mail-merged templates, which no solicitor will have drafted), and another contained the outright lies that (a) their client was unaware of a delay in providing a new permit and (b) that the Managing Agents had no record of my requesting a new one, lies which I was able to refute with copies of the relevant correspondence.

2.17 Finally, in June 2019, SCS Law wrote to me advising that they had been instructed to issue County Court proceedings to recover the unpaid parking charges. 

amateurgirl

Hello all, below is part 2 of my WS.It wouldn't all fit in one post. Thanks!

3. STATEMENT – CLAIMANT’S CONTRACT  

3.1 I assert that the Claimant undertook a contract with the Managing Agents without carrying out the due diligence by which they would have ascertained that they had no authority over my, the Leaseholder’s, property. In correspondence with me in relation to these proceedings (exhibit 3A), it is clear that the Claimant (a) did not have a copy of my Lease and (b) had no knowledge of its contents in relation to my parking rights. The Claimant was subsequently obliged to obtain a copy from the Land Registry to ascertain its contents.  The modus operandi of PPC’s is to offer Managing Agents their service ‘free’, and then make their money by targeting residents with PCN’s, without any regard to the prevailing rights and easements granted under residents Leases and Tenancy Agreements. I therefore assert that the Claimant undertook a contract without due regard to the legality of its performance.

3.2 The contract document the Claimant provided to me in relation to these proceedings, and on which they rely for their authority to operate on the Estate, allows only for the issuing of charges and pursuit of outstanding charges, it does not give permission to issue court claims.  Furthermore, there is only one signature from each company, which fails the strict requirements of Section 44 of the Companies Act 2006, which requires two authorised signatures, or a director and witness, from each company to sign, in order for a contract to be valid. The Act defines an authorised signatory as a director or a company secretary. However, the signatory for the Managing Agents, John McCarthy, was, at the time of signing, a Customer Service Co-ordinator. There is nothing to show that Mr McCarthy had any standing to sign on behalf of the Managing Agents and I therefore assert he was not acting for or on behalf of the Managing Agents. Since no landowner agent is mentioned in the alleged contract I aver that he could not have been acting in that capacity either. Furthermore the document evidences no reference to, or involvement of, the Landowner in the contract and to date neither the Claimant nor its legal representatives have evidenced any such involvement.

3.3 In addition, the contract document states that the contract is for an initial period of ‘3 months beginning on the start date’, the start date being given as xxxx. I assert that therefore this contract document, on which the Claimant relies for their authority to operate on the Estate, expired on xxxx. No evidence has been provided by the Claimant that this contract was formally renewed or extended beyond the xxxx, and I therefore further assert that the Claimant had no contractual authority to operate on the Estate beyond the xxxxx and that ergo, the PCN’s issued against my vehicle in 2014 and after had no contractual basis and were therefore invalid.

3.4 I therefore assert that all the foregoing renders the document invalid and that ergo the Claimant has no contract to operate on the Estate. 

3.5 I assert that the Claimant has proceeded to Court in the knowledge that they have no authority over my, the Leaseholder’s, property, no authority to bring a claim and under an invalid contract which moreover had expired. I assert that this is a further Abuse of Process.

4. SUMMARY

4.1 In summary, I assert that the Claimant’s Particulars disclose no legal basis for the sums claimed, and that the claim discloses no cause of action and no liability in law for any sum at all. From the outset, the Claimant’s conduct has been aggressive and intimidating in pursuit of monies to which the Claimant is not entitled. I assert that the Claimant is a vexatious litigant who abuses the law and the legal system by issuing and prosecuting bogus claims, with artificially inflated costs, for near-identical matters, which clutter up the Courts and waste Court time up and down the land.

4.2. There are several options available within the Courts’ case management powers to prevent vexatious litigants from pursuing individuals with meritless claims. I assert that Private Parking Companies act as vexatious litigants and that relief from sanctions should be refused to the Claimant who is clearly abusing the civil litigation process in order to attempt to gain a pecuniary advantage to which they have no entitlement. The Court may wish to consider the Judgement of the Court of Appeal in AXA Insurance PLC v Financial Claims Solutions Ltd & Ors [2018] EWCA Civ 1330, and express its disapproval of the Claimant’s conduct by making an award of exemplary damages in favour of the Defendant.

4.3 The Court is invited to make an order of its own initiative, dismissing this claim in its entirety and to allow me, the Defendant, such costs as are permissible under CPR 27.14, taking judicial note of the wholly unreasonable conduct of this Claimant.

I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true. I understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought against anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest belief in its truth.

 Signature of Defendant: 

Name: XXXXX

Coupon-mad

Very good so far.

'exhort' needs to read extort

If they knew you were driving they don't need to issue any NTK, so remove/edit this:

2.9 Prior to taking action against me with the likes of DRP, the Claimant should have sent me a Notice to Keeper (or NTK) as required by the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (or POFA). I had received no such Notice. Instead, in a clear contravention of POFA, the Claimant had passed my details straight to DLP 

2.11 This time the Claimant complied with POFA and sent me a Notice to Keeper. However, it didn’t comply with Schedule 4 paragraphs 8 and 9 of the POFA, as it didn’t state how the PCN had been issued and it didn’t offer a 14-day payment discount. Under POFA, if this information is missing, the registered keeper cannot be held to account for the alleged debt of the driver and I again refused to pay.

 Don't use the forum acronym PPC’s in a legal document!

And you will need the usual SUPPLEMENTARY WS (about the falsely added £60 per PCN) and a summary costs assessment signed & dated, as you see in threads by others ahead of you, like @keypulse and @Chefdave

Le_Kirk

2.9 Prior to taking action against me with the likes of DRP, the Claimant should have sent me a Notice to Keeper (or NTK) as required by the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (or POFA). I had received no such Notice. Instead, in a clear contravention of POFA, the Claimant had passed my details straight to DLP who ........

Is DLP a different debt crawler or a typo?  If a different company, you should use the full name the first time your refer to them (as you have with DRP and then you can use the abbreviation/acronym.  If you need any more ammunition you could refer to the fact that the parking company are there illegally, as they did not carry out a consultation of all the residents/leaseholders/tenants and secure the minimum 75% agreement before proceeding with putting restrictions in place - unless of course they did!

amateurgirl

Thankyou both. I've made all the corrections, thanks for pointing them out. There was indeed no consultation with residents and the worse was yet to come - UKPC carried out the classic 'feeding frenzy' overnight, and issued PCN's to all the residents vehicles, all parked in their own demised parking spaces. It was the subsequent protests that elicited the letter from the managing agents!
Can I just clarify something about the NTK's please? When they issued the first PCN, I'm not sure they did know I was the driver and I'm not sure why they might have thought I was? And if they thought/knew I was, why did they send me a NTK on subsequent occasions?
I do have a supplementary Abuse of Process WS and I've posted it below. 

IN THE COUNTY COURT AT XXXXX

CLAIM No. XXXXX
Between:
UKPC (Claimant)
- and -
XXXXX (Defendant)
SUPPLEMENTARY WITNESS STATEMENT

COSTS OF THE CLAIM - THE CONSIDERED SUM HAS BEEN INFLATED - ABUSE OF PROCESS

To Whom It May Concern
1. In contravention of the Protection of Freedoms Act schedule 4, (5) (exhibit SWS 1) which states that “the maximum sum which may be recovered from the keeper by virtue of the right conferred by this paragraph is the amount specified in the notice to keeper….”, the Claimant has inflated the original amount of each PCN by £60 for their alleged ‘legal costs’ in bringing the claim.

1.2 Judges around the land have disallowed Parking Companies claims for such ‘costs’ as an Abuse of Process. On 10th June 2019, in case number F0DP201T, District Judge Taylor echoed the judgement of District Judge Grand who struck out claims by Britannia Parking and UKCPM without a Hearing stating: ''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 Parking Eye 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” (exhibit SWS 2).

Similarly, in the Caernarfon Court, on 4th September 2019, case number FTQZ4W28 was struck out by District Judge Jones-Evans stating: “it being recorded that District Judge Jones-Evans has over a very significant period of time warned advocates [...] in many cases of this nature before this Court that their claim for £60 is unenforceable in law and is an Abuse of Process and is nothing more than a poor attempt to go behind the decision of the Supreme Court v Beavis which inter alia decided that a figure of £160 as a global sum claimed in this case would be a penalty and not a genuine pre-estimate of loss and therefore unenforceable in law […] it is hereby declared [...] the claim is struck out and declared to be wholly without merit and an Abuse of Process'' (exhibit SWS 3).

1.3 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.

Parking Companies ‘law firms’ send out hundreds of identikit claims such as this every week, which are likely to be handled by paralegals or administrative staff, and not by real - expensive - solicitors. I submit that no solicitor is likely to have supervised the batch of identikit claim letters of which mine is one, and I ask the Court to note that no named solicitor has signed the claim letter.  I also submit that the Claimant is well aware that their claim is artificially inflated and that as such constitutes an attempt at double recovery.

2. In summary, I submit that the Claimant’s Particulars disclose no legal basis for the sums claimed, and that the claim discloses no cause of action and no liability in law for any sum at all. From the outset, the Claimant’s conduct has been aggressive and intimidating in pursuit of monies to which the Claimant is not entitled. I submit that the Claimant is a vexatious litigant who abuses the law and the legal system by issuing and prosecuting bogus claims, with artificially inflated costs, for near-identical matters, which clutter up the Courts and waste Court time up and down the land.

3. There are several options available within the Courts’ case management powers to prevent vexatious litigants from pursuing individuals with meritless claims. I submit that Private Parking Companies act as vexatious litigants and that relief from sanctions should be refused to the Claimant who is clearly abusing the civil litigation process in order to attempt to gain a pecuniary advantage to which they have no entitlement. The Court may wish to consider the Judgement of the Court of Appeal in AXA Insurance PLC v Financial Claims Solutions Ltd & Ors [2018] EWCA Civ 1330, and express its disapproval of the Claimant’s conduct by making an award of exemplary damages in favour of the Defendant.

4. The Court is invited to make an order of its own initiative, dismissing this claim in its entirety and to allow me, the Defendant, such costs as are permissible under CPR 27.14, taking judicial note of the wholly unreasonable conduct of this Claimant.

I believe that the facts stated in this Supplementary Witness Statement are true.

Signature of Defendant: 

Name: XXXXX