Civil Enforcement Limited Parking fine - at county court stage

smurfett1

Hi all

I have had a brief look at the previous threads, which I found very helpful. Thank you very much for all the words of wisdom and great advice!

My issue is slightly more complicated so I decided to create my own thread and I hope that is ok. Please let me know if not.

Background:

The land parked on concerns a car park of a pub in a small town. People have always used this land to park their cars particularly because the pub has been closed for a while and the car park has been made readily available to be used. No one has ever mentioned that there is a problem with people using the car park or that there will be action taken. I have used this car park a few times in the past. The last time I parked there was when I received the parking notice from CEL. Long story short, the new owners of the pub (when i parked the pub was yet to be refurbished and opened), have entered into a contract with CEL. I am ashamed to admit that there were signs up on the land (albeit fairly small!) and as a result I have received a letter in the post from CEL demanding £60 fine. Quite frankly, I was very stressed with other things in life at this stage and I have ignored every single letter I have received from them and their debt collecting company, which I know was stupid. I have now been served a claim form (date of service is today, 25 August 2019).

I would like to point a number of things out at this stage:

1. Their signs on the land are yet to be approved by the local authority so they do not have the appropriate planning permission to have those signs up.
2. On the same date and at exactly the same time, my friend parked right next to my car and left exactly at the same time. She did not receive any communication at all from CEL.
3. It was a pay and display setting and I did not buy a ticket because quite frankly, I did not notice their signs or the pay and display machine - neither did my friend. It did not occur to me that the new owners would do something as such especially when the pub was not even open. I appreciate that they do not want people to park on their land when they are not customers of their business, but this is a very small town we are talking about. I did not expect this action.
4. There are no other factors that I can use to my advantage, except i know that a number of residents have also been affected by this. Not sure if any of them decided to take it further but I know some have paid as soon as they received the first letter from CEL to save themselves the trouble.


My options are limited at this stage in my career as I am a paralegal (due to start my training contract next year) and I know that a CCJ will affect my career as a lawyer due to SRA regulations. I am tempted to pay up the £300 requested (although it is a disgusting amount of money, which I will struggle to pay!). Alternatively, I will need to draft an awesome defence and see how far I can get. My only worry is that I cannot get a CCJ on my record! Given the circumstances, how likely am I to succeed? Even if it means that the monies requested will be reduced, I am happy to give it a go but I am very worried because of my career.

Any advice is greatly appreciated as I am very unsure on how to handle this issue.

Many thanks

KeithP

Hi and welcome.

What is the Issue Date on your Claim Form?

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

Half_way

I only have time for a quick reply....


1: irrelevant as far as operations of PPCVs is concerned, however if you want to fight the PPC ( not the parking charge itself) you can complain to the local authority/put in an objectoion


2: irrelevant


3:- didn't notice the signs, not relevant, however if this is a new regime, form my understanding there is supposed to be a grace period to allow for the introduction of new rules/regulations, a further reply from someone else will confirm this



4: this is not a fine, and if it gets that far a CCJ will only be on your record if you continue to ignore/do nothing although i'm sure you should already know all about that if you are having legal training, although you should know that its not a fine, and you should know not to identify or attempt to guess as to who was driving

smurfett1

Hi there

Sorry I should have made it more clear. The issue date is today (i.e. 25 August 2019) so I have 14 days from today.

It came from the County Court Business Centre in Northampton.

Many thanks

smurfett1

Half_way wrote: »

I only have time for a quick reply....


1: irrelevant as far as operations of PPCVs is concerned, however if you want to fight the PPC ( not the parking charge itself) you can complain to the local authority/put in an objectoion


2: irrelevant


3:- didn't notice the signs, not relevant, however if this is a new regime, form my understanding there is supposed to be a grace period to allow for the introduction of new rules/regulations, a further reply from someone else will confirm this



4: this is not a fine, and if it gets that far a CCJ will only be on your record if you continue to ignore/do nothing although i'm sure you should already know all about that if you are having legal training, although you should know that its not a fine, and you should know not to identify or attempt to guess as to who was driving

Thank you for your response. I specialise in real estate but have some very limited knowledge on civil litigation/ dispute resolution (mainly from my masters!). By the sounds of things, the only defence I would have really is the "grace period". I think the signs had been up for around 10 days at this stage so I don't know if I would be able to defend my actions based on this.

Thanks again.

KeithP

smurfett1 wrote: »

Sorry I should have made it more clear. The issue date is today (i.e. 25 August 2019) so I have 14 days from today.

No, the Issue Date is not today.

The Issue Date will have been some days ago, possibly around Monday/Tuesday last week.

What exactly is written in the box labelled Issue Date on your Claim Form?

Redx

If you lose , then object to all the spurious costs , pay the judgment that the judge sets within the time frame , in full, usually within 30 days to get it expunged

It's not a fine, it's an invoice

I hope you learn from this because a para legal should not need the basics explaining to them , plus you have gone about this incorrectly from start to finish

You should know that ignorance is no defence , your defence will be based on

No landowner authority
Poor and inadequate signage
BPA Cop failures
Grace periods
Abuse of process

Etc

I have no legal training at all but know those basics

The issue date is not today

smurfett1

Redx wrote: »

If you lose , then object to all the spurious costs , pay the judgment that the judge sets within the time frame , in full, usually within 30 days to get it expunged

It's not a fine, it's an invoice

I hope you learn from this because a para legal should not need the basics explaining to them , plus you have gone about this incorrectly from start to finish

You should know that ignorance is no defence , your defence will be based on

No landowner authority
Poor and inadequate signage
BPA Cop failures
Grace periods
Abuse of process

Etc

I have no legal training at all but know those basics

My legal training is mostly based on real estate and unfortunately, there is very little real estate element involved in this. Litigation has not been my strongest point and I am almost certain I will qualify into real estate. I will have some litigation experience when I am doing my litigation seat next year but by then it will be too late to do anything about my issue!

Thank you for the advice. I do appreciate it. Your legal knowledge is based on experience. Like I have mentioned, I do not have experience in this area (at work or in life) hence the reason why I have asked for help. Quite frankly, I am struggling to understand how they can justify their fines and the way these private parking companies operate.

Redx

Plenty of info on it , plus the small claims court has been in operation since 1973 and the CRA 2015 is 4 years old , POFA is 7 years old , check the parking prankster blogsite as well, some good info there

As I said , these are not fines , a legal word that has no relevance here and isn't on your paperwork

The point is to gain a contract with anyone and hope they break a rule such that an inflated sum can be charged , out of all proportion to the original transgression

Then add various spurious charges to inflate the total despite it being an abuse of process , then to threaten court and a CCJ as if it's the end of the world

Check the government Hansard about the debates in parliament , watch the BBC parliament videos , you will soon get an idea of the extent of the various sc@ms that abound in this rotten to the core industry

Read a few completed court cases on here from this year to see how it all starts and then snowballs

Use the forum Search box with keywords that are the title to a song by Queen

AOBTD (hint)

Lastly , read every post by bargepole (CILEX) , Johnnersh and Loadsofchildren123 , who do have legal training

What you learn will be useful in any form of civil dispute you get involved with including civil court cases, plus you will learn how to avoid CCJ issues and so will avoid having to tell the SRA about any transgressions to avoid being struck off , so learning now same as another paralegal I know currently halfway through their training contract and trying to avoid the same issues in their future

Good luck

The_Deep

Cause them more work, get your MP on board as nine times out of ten these tickets are scams.

Parliament is well aware of the MO of these private parking companies, many of whom are former clampers, 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.

smurfett1

Thanks all. Really helpful information. I just wanted to know whether I had an argument that is likely to succeed.

It is ridiculous and unreasonable how they think they have the power to charge £60 for a short period of parking which did not even exceed an hour. I know I should have paid more attention but like I said, I didn't expect that they would be operating on a small town pub car park that was not even open for business at the time! I will draft my defence and ask one of my litigation friends to look over it before I post it on here for further guidance and advice. It may also help others in the future, which I would be happy with!