Gladstones and old address - 1 unknown CCJ, 1 unknown Claim

Coupon-mad

I can't see that you have told the Judge here that the claim was posted to an old address that the Claimant was not reasonably entitled to believe was your last known address, given that they had managed to trace you and sent LBC to your current address. It is important to tell the Judge this because it demonstrates sharp practice and no attempt to ensure that the Claim was properly served, and abuse of old address data in an attempt to get a default CCJ from a person they knew lived at a different address.

12. The Claimant has failed to provide the Defendant in a 'letter before claim',

But you said they did, to your new address?

I would remove #15 entirely as it adds nothing useful.

You have a point numbered #12, between #16 and #17!

1505grandad

Re Abuse of Process paras - the latest Caernarfon Court case is not mentioned.

Also have you copied and pasted the actual paras of post #14 in the Abuse of Process thread as the following do not "compute" (i.e. Court Court):-

"27. Many informed Court Court Judges have disallowed all added parking firm 'costs' in County courts, such as these cases, struck out in recent months without a hearing, due solely to the pretence of adding 'damages' blatantly made up out of thin air.

(a) In Claim number F0DP163T on 11th July 2019, District Judge Grand sitting at the County Court at Southampton, struck out a overly inflated (over the £100 maximum Trade Body and POFA 2012 ceiling) parking firm claim without a hearing for that reason.

(b) In Claim number F0DP201T on 10th June 2019, District Judge Taylor echoed an earlier General Judgment or Order of DJ Grand, who on 21st February 2019 sitting at the Newport (IOW) County Court, had struck out a parking firm claim. These include a BPA member serial Claimant (Britannia, using BW Legal's robo-claim model) and an IPC member serial Claimant (UKCPM, using Gladstones' robo-claim model) where the abuse is inherent in the business model.

Redx

The recent Caenarfon case is shown in this one
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6046610/bw-legal-ccj-please-help

duckieb

Coupon-mad wrote: »

I can't see that you have told the Judge here that the claim was posted to an old address that the Claimant was not reasonably entitled to believe was your last known address, given that they had managed to trace you and sent LBC to your current address. It is important to tell the Judge this because it demonstrates sharp practice and no attempt to ensure that the Claim was properly served, and abuse of old address data in an attempt to get a default CCJ from a person they knew lived at a different address.

How could I....phrase that in legal speak? I've added a point about the first section but how can I say they were abusing old address data to try and get a default CCJ in a more polished way?

Coupon-mad wrote: »

But you said they did, to your new address?

They did according to their records. However it was one of their brief letters, and in that point it says that letter before claim should have 'essential information including details of what the alleged breach was, any photographs taken, what time it occurred and for how long, and proof that a breach actually occurred.' I left the point in on that basis, but if they sent one to my new address (even if it was a crap and not very informative letter) am I better off just taking that whole point out?

Thank you and all for the other suggestions, I have amended accordingly.

Coupon-mad

am I better off just taking that whole point out?

No, it's vital to talk about them knowingly using a wrong/old address for the claim when they'd recently traced and used the new address for the LBC.

You can use the words I gave you and adapt them.

nosferatu1001

Dont say they didnt send a LBC
State they sent a letter purporting to be a LBC but it did not include... was deficient in... and so did not meet the requirements of ther PAP for debt claims...

duckieb

Thank you all. Latest draft below - if all is well, I shall look to submit by end of next week. Coupon, I put your point into point 9 and used your words but fear it is clumsily worded so apologies if so. Thank you again for your help - I can't believe this forum exists and there is so much help out there.


IN THE COUNTY COURT

CLAIM No: XXXXXXXXX

BETWEEN:

Parking Control Management (UK) Ltd (Claimant)

-and-

XXXXXXXXXXX (Defendant)

________________________________________
DEFENCE

1. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.

2. It is admitted that the Defendant is the registered keeper of the vehicle in question.

3. The Defendant was at work elsewhere on the day in question and as such cannot have been the driver of the vehicle.

4. The defendant has no liability as they are the Keeper of the vehicle, and the Private Parking Company has failed to comply with the strict provisions of PoFA 2012 to hold anyone other than the driver liable for the charges.

5. The driver has not been evidenced on any occasion.

6. There is no presumption in law that the keeper was the driver and nor is a keeper obliged to name the driver to a private parking firm. This was confirmed in the POPLA Annual Report 2015 by the POPLA Lead Adjudicator and barrister, Henry Greenslade, when explaining the POFA 2012 principles of 'keeper liability' as set out in Schedule 4.

7. This claim form has not been served at the Defendant’s current address and the Defendant became aware of the claim incidentally. The Defendant understands that this Claim was served at an OLD ADDRESS (XXXXXXX). However, the Defendant moved to a new address in January 2017. In support of this, the Defendant can provide confirmation from XXXXXXX County Council showing the updated details for the purposes of paying Council tax.

8. The Defendant has also not seen any previous documentation from the Claimant in this matter and thus was never able to properly challenge the Claimant’s claim.

9. The claim form has not been served at the Defendant’s current address despite the Claimant having become aware of the Defendant’s new address. This demonstrates sharp practice and no attempt to ensure the Claim was properly served, as well as an abuse of old address in an attempt to obtain a default CCJ.

10. The court papers refer to three alleged PCNs but contain no details of the alleged incident(s), two of which apparently occurred on the same day. The Defendant denies all alleged contraventions. The Claimant is put to strict proof of two incidents on the same day.

11. If the Claimant can evidence that the alleged incident relates to a vehicle for which the Defendant is the Registered Keeper, any Notice to Keeper served by the Claimant would have needed to comply with the requirements of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. Otherwise, the Claimant is required to prove the driver of the vehicle they claim was involved in the alleged incident. The Defendant submits that the Claimant cannot provide such evidence and further submit that the Claimant does not include ‘Protection of Freedoms Act 2012’ wording on the Parking Charge Notices they issue and therefore cannot hold the Defendant automatically liable for the alleged incident merely for being the Registered Keeper of a vehicle.

12. A requirement of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 is that this any Notice to Keeper served by the Claimant must be served within 14 days of the date of the alleged incident. Since I have not received any documentation from the Claimant prior to finding out about the claim, I submit the Claimant will not have complied with the requirements of the Act and thus cannot claim this charge against me as the Registered Keeper in any case.

13. The Claimant allegedly sent the Defendant a letter purporting to be a 'letter before claim' but it did not include essential information including details of what the alleged breach was, any photographs taken, what time it occurred and for how long, and proof that a breach actually occurred. This amounts to a failure to comply with Practice Direction 6 (a). This claim is being made over 2 years after the alleged breach took place, and after all this time without adherence to Practice Direction 6. The expectations of the court outlined in Practice Direction 3 have not been met.

14. The Particulars of Claim (PoC) do not specify what are the terms breached by the driver of the vehicle. As such, the Claim fails to meet the requirements of Practice Direction 16 7.5 as there is nothing which specifies what the terms were and how they were breached.

15. It is denied that the Defendant, or any driver of the vehicle, entered into any contractual agreement with the Claimant, whether express, implied, or by conduct.

16. In addition, the Claimant has failed to provide evidence of the alleged contravention. The Particulars of Claim lists the location as ‘Clement Danes & Holborn House -W12’ with no road name, which returns no clear results when searched on Google. The Defendant has made attempts to identify this location however with the lack of specific information, the Defendant has been unable to ascertain where the parking event was.

17. Should Parking Control Management (UK) Ltd provide evidence to substantiate their claim then it is denied that the driver was properly informed about any parking charge, either by signage or by a CN. Therefore, 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.

18. Alternatively, even if there was a contract, the provision requiring payment of £689.22 is an unenforceable penalty clause.


19. 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 to issue parking charge notices, and to pursue payment by means of litigation.

20. The claim includes interest charge but does not include dates used for calculation. As such, this is in breach of Civil Procedure Rule 16.4 (2).

21. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4, at Section 4(5) states that the maximum sum that may be recovered from the keeper is the charge stated on the Notice to Keeper, in this case £100. This claim includes an additional £417.66 total, for 'contractual costs pursuant to the Contract and PCN terms and conditions, together with statutory interest' which appears to be an attempt at double recovery.

22. Overall the costs on the claim are disproportionate and are an abuse of process. CPR 44.3 (2) states: ''Where the amount of costs is to be assessed on the standard basis, the court will –
(a) only allow costs which are proportionate to the matters in issue. Costs which are disproportionate in amount may be disallowed or reduced even if they were reasonably or necessarily incurred; and
(b) resolve any doubt which it may have as to whether costs were reasonably and proportionately incurred or were reasonable and proportionate in amount in favour of the paying party.

23. Whilst quantified costs can be considered on a standard basis, this Claimant's purported costs are wholly disproportionate and do not stand up to scrutiny. In fact it is averred that the Claimant has not paid or incurred such damages/costs or 'legal fees' at all. Any debt collection letters were a standard feature of a low cost business model and are already counted within the parking charge itself.

24. The Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis case is the authority for recovery of the parking charge itself and no more, since that sum (£85 in Beavis) was held to already incorporate the minor costs of an automated private parking business model. There are no losses or damages caused by this business model and the Supreme Court Judges held that a parking firm not in possession cannot plead any part of their case in damages. It is indisputable that the alleged 'parking charge' itself is a sum which the Supreme Court found is already inflated to more than comfortably cover the cost of all letters.

25. It is trite law that non-existent and untrue 'legal costs' are also unrecoverable. Given the fact that robo-claim solicitors and parking firms process tens of thousands of claims handled by an admin team or paralegals, the Defendant avers that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste claims. The court is invited to note that no named Solicitor has signed the Particulars, in breach of Practice Direction 22, and rendering the statement of truth a nullity.

26. 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.

27. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (POFA) makes it clear that the will of Parliament regarding parking on private land is that the only sum potentially able to be recovered is the sum in any compliant 'Notice to Keeper' (and the ceiling for a 'parking charge', as set by the Trade Bodies and the DVLA, is £100). This also depends upon the Claimant fully complying with the statute, including 'adequate notice' of the parking charge and prescribed documents served in time/with mandatory wording. It is submitted the claimant has failed on all counts and the Claimant is well aware their artificially inflated claim, as pleaded, constitutes double recovery.

28. Judges have disallowed all added parking firm 'costs' in County courts up and down the Country. In Claim number F0DP201T on 10th June 2019, District Judge Taylor sitting at the County Court at Southampton, echoed earlier General Judgment or Orders of DJ Grand, who (when sitting at the Newport (IOW) County Court in 2018 and 2019) has struck out several parking firms claims. These include a BPA member serial Claimant (Britannia, using BW Legal's robo-claim model) and an IPC member serial Claimant (UKCPM, using Gladstones' robo-claim model) yet the Orders have been identical in striking out both claims without a hearing, with the Judge 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 ParkingEye 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. This order has been made by the court of its own initiative without a hearing pursuant to CPR Rule 3.3(4) of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998...''

29. That is not an isolated judgment striking out a parking claim out for repeatedly adding sums they are not entitled to recover. In the Caernarfon Court in Case number FTQZ4W28 (Vehicle Control Services Ltd v Davies) on 4th September 2019, District Judge Jones-Evans stated:

''Upon 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 and if the practice continued he would treat all cases as a claim for £160 and therefore a penalty and unenforceable in law it is hereby declared [...] the claim is struck out and declared to be wholly without merit and an abuse of process.''

30. In summary, the Claimant's particulars disclose no legal basis for the sum claimed and it is the Defendant's position that the poorly pleaded claim discloses no cause of action and no liability in law for any sum at all. The Claimant's vexatious conduct from the outset has been intimidating, misleading and indeed mendacious in terms of the added costs alleged.

31. There are several options available within the Courts' case management powers to prevent vexatious litigants pursuing a wide range of individuals for matters which are near-identical, with meritless claims and artificially inflated costs. The Defendant is of the view that private parking firms operate as vexatious litigants and that relief from sanctions should be refused.

32. The Court is invited to make an Order of its own initiative, dismissing this claim in its entirety and to allow such Defendant's costs as are permissible under Civil Procedure Rule 27.14 on the indemnity basis, taking judicial note of the wholly unreasonable conduct of this Claimant, not least due to the abuse of process in attempting to claim fanciful costs which they are not entitled to recover.

In summary, the Claimant's particulars disclose no legal basis for the sum claimed and it is the Defendant's position that the poorly pleaded claim discloses no cause of action and no liability in law for any sum at all. The Claimant's vexatious conduct has been intimidating, misleading and indeed mendacious in terms of the added costs alleged. Accordingly, the Court is invited to strike out the claim of its own initiative, using its case management powers pursuant to CPR 3.4.


Statement of Truth:
I confirm that the contents of this statement are true to the best of my knowledge and belief


Name
Signature
Date

1505grandad

Noticed several "I"'s instead of Defendant - particularly para 12.

Last para is the same as para 30

Coupon-mad

Looks fine apart from that.

duckieb

1505grandad wrote: »

Noticed several "I"'s instead of Defendant - particularly para 12.

Last para is the same as para 30

Oh god, I don't know I keep missing these. I have gone through with a fine-tooth comb and amended all. One last stupid question - Defendant, Claimant and Keeper should always be capitalised? Or not necessarily? Just to keep consistency in the defence.

Thank you all so so much, I am so grateful for all the time and help you gave me. I think it is ready, with the last amendments from 1505grandad. I will submit this coming week, and will keep you all updated regarding court both for this and the CCJ.