County court claim UKPC

Le_Kirk

No one on here has a crystal ball, therefore impossible to say, however, treat it as if it will and be prepared for every eventuality by reading the defences in the NEWBIE sticky as advised by KeithP and also read the posts by Bargepole about What Happens and When to give you an idea of the whole court process because after defence comes DQ, Witness Statement and evidence.

Y333moe

I have two defence I dont know which is more effective

DEFENCE


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

2. The facts are that the vehicle, registration!XXXX, of which the Defendant is the registered keeper, appears!from the sparse evidence supplied by this Claimant,!to be parked on the material date on a public road, not on any yellow lines nor causing an obstruction.

2.1. It is denied that a 'charge notice' ('CN') was affixed to the car on the material date given in the Particulars. This Claimant is known to routinely affix misleading pieces of paper in a yellow/black envelope impersonating authority, bearing the legend 'this is NOT a Parking Charge Notice'. It is reasonable to conclude, from the date of the premature Notice to Keeper ('NTK') that was posted, that the hybrid note that the Claimant asserts was a 'CN' was no such thing, and therefore the driver was not served with a document that created any liability for any charge whatsoever. The Claimant is put to strict proof.!

2.2. Accordingly, it is denied that any contravention or breach of clearly signed/lined terms occurred, and it is denied that the driver was properly informed about any parking charge, either by signage or by a CN.!

3. The Particulars of Claim does not state whether they believe the Defendant was the registered keeper and/or the driver of the vehicle. These assertions indicate that the Claimant has failed to identify a Cause of Action, and is simply offering a menu of choices. As such, the Claim fails to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4, or with Civil Practice Direction 16, paras. 7.3 to 7.5. Further, the particulars of the claim do not meet the requirements of Practice Direction 16 7.5 as there is nothing which specifies how the terms were breached.!

4. Due to the sparseness of the particulars, it is unclear as to what legal basis the claim is brought, whether for breach of contract, contractual liability, or trespass. However, 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.

5. 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. The signage is attached to a gate and reads: 'By entering this private land you are entering into a contract with Vehicle Control Services'.!

5.1. Vehicle registration!XXXX!has not entered past the gate and therefore is not entered into a contract with Vehicle Control Services.

5.2. Even if the Court is minded to consider that the car did pass that sign, the terms of the sparse signage make no offer available; there is no licence to park.!

5.3. At best, parking without authorisation could be a matter for the landowner to pursue, in the event that damages were caused by a trespass. A parking charge cannot be dressed up by a non-landowner parking firm, as a fee, or a sum in damages owed to that firm for positively inviting and allowing a car to trespass. Not only is this a nonsense, but the Supreme Court decision in!ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis![2015] UKSC 67, confirmed that ParkingEye could not have pursued a sum in damages or for trespass.!

5.4. County Court transcripts supporting the Defendant's position will be adduced, and in all respects, the!Beavis!case is distinguished.

6. The Claimant is put to strict proof that it has sufficient!propietary!proprietary!interest in the land, or that it has the necessary authorisation from the landowner to issue pieces of paper that are not 'charge notices', and to pursue payment by means of litigation.!

6.1. It is suggested that this novel twist (unsupported by the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 - the 'POFA') of placing hybrid notes stating 'this is NOT a Parking Charge Notice' on cars, then ambushing the registered keeper with a premature postal NTK, well before the timeline set out in paragraph 8 of the POFA, is unlikely to have been in the contemplation of the Claimant's principal.!

6.2. It is averred that the landowner contract, if there is one that was in existence at the material time, is likely to define and provide that the Claimant can issue 'parking charge notices' (or CNs) to cars - following the procedure set out in paragraph 8 of the POFA - or alternatively, postal PCNs where there was no opportunity to serve a CN (e.g. in non-manned ANPR camera car parks, and as set out in paragraph 9 of the POFA). The Claimant is put to strict proof of its authority to issue hybrid non-CNs, which are neither one thing nor the other, and create no certainty of contract or charge whatsoever.

7. The!POFA,!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. The claim includes an additional £60, for which no calculation or explanation is given, and which appears to be an attempt at double recovery.

8. In summary, it is the Defendant's position that the claim discloses no cause of action, is without merit, and has no real prospect of success. 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 and signature and date go here)

Y333moe

Or this

n the County Court
Claim Number:
Between
xxxx (Claimant)
and
xxxx (Defendant)


Defence Statement


Preliminary Matters.

(1). The claimant failed to include a copy of their written contract as per Practice Direction!
16 7.3(1) and Practice Direction 7C 1.4(3A). No indication is given as to the
Claimants contractual authority to operate there as required by the Claimants Trade
Association's Code of Practice B1.1 which says
1.1 If you operate parking management activities on land which is not owned by you, you
must supply us with written authority from the land owner sufficient to establish you!
as the ‘Creditor’ within the meaning of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (where
applicable) and in any event to establish you as a person who is able to recover
parking charges. There is no prescribed form for such agreement and it need not
necessarily be as part of a contract but it must include the express ability for an
operator to recover parking charges on the landowner’s behalf or provide sufficient
right to occupy the land in question so that charges can be recovered by the operator
directly. This applies whether or not you intend to use the keeper liability provisions.

(2). The particulars of claim do not meet the requirements of Practice Direction 16 7.5 as!
there is nothing which specifies how the terms were breached. Indeed the particulars
of claim are not clear and concise as is required by CPR 16.4 1(a). The Claimants are
known to be serial issuers of generic claims similar to this one. HM Courts Service!
have identified over 1000 similar sparse claims. I believe the term for such behaviour
is roboclaims and as such is against the public interest.


Practice Direction 3A which references Civil Procedure Rule 3.4 illustrates this point:

1.4 The following are examples of cases where the court may conclude that particulars of!
claim (whether contained in a claim form or filed separately) fall within rule 3.4(2)(a):
1. those which set out no facts indicating what the claim is about, for example ‘Money!
owed £1000’,
2. those which are incoherent and make no sense,
3. those which contain a coherent set of facts but those facts, even if true, do not
disclose any legally recognisable claim against the defendant

(3). The Claimant has not complied with the pre-court protocol.

1. I'd refer the court to Para 4 on non-compliance and sanction, and I'd also point out!
that there can be no reasonable excuse for the Claimant's failure to follow the!
Pre-action Conduct process, especially bearing in mind that the Claim was issued by
their own Solicitors so they clearly had legal advice before issuing proceedings.

On the basis of the above, we request the court strike out the claim for want of a
cause of action.!

Statement of Defence

I am XXXXX, defendant in this matter. It is admitted that the Defendant was the!
authorised registered keeper of the vehicle in question at the time of the alleged
incident.!
The Defendant denies liability for the entirety of the claim for the following reasons.!

(1). The identity of the driver of the vehicle on the date in question has not been
ascertained.
1. The Claimant did not identify the driver
2. The Defendant has no liability, as they are the Keeper of the vehicle and the Claimant
must rely upon the strict provisions of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 in order to
hold the defendant responsible for the driver’s alleged breach.
3. The Claimant's increasingly demanding letters failed to evidence any contravention or
clear/prominent signage. Further, the Notice to Keeper (postal 'PCN') failed to give
the statutory warning to the registered keeper about the '28 day period' which is!
mandatory wording as prescribed in paragraph 9(2)(f) of Schedule 4 of the Protection
of Freedoms Act 2012. Consequently, the Claimant is unable to rely on the 'keeper
liability' provisions of the POFA.!

(3) The claimant has not provided enough details in the particulars of claim to file a full
defence. In particular, the full details of the contract which it is alleged was broken
have not been provided.
1. The Claimant has disclosed no cause of action to give rise to any debt.
2. The Claimant has stated that a parking charge was incurred.
3. The Claimant has given no indication of the nature of the alleged charge in the!
Particulars of Claim.!
The Claimant has therefore disclosed no cause of action.
4. The Particulars of Claim contains no details and fails to establish a cause of action
which would enable the Defendant to prepare a specific defence.
It just states “parking charges” which does not give any indication of on what basis
the claim is brought.
There is no information regarding why the charge arose, what the original charge
was, what the alleged contract was nor anything which could be considered a fair
exchange of information.
The Particulars of Claim are incompetent in disclosing no cause of action.
5. On the 20th September 2016 another relevant poorly pleaded private parking!
charge claim by Gladstones was struck out by District Judge Cross of St!
Albans County Court without a hearing due to their ‘roboclaim’ particulars being
incoherent, failing to comply with CPR. 16.4 and ‘providing no facts that could
give rise to any apparent claim in law.’
f) On the 27th July 2016 DJ Anson sitting at Preston County Court ruled that the very
similar parking charge particulars of claim were eficient and failing to meet CPR 16.4
and PD 16 paragraphs 7.3 – 7.6. He ordered the Claimant in that case to file new
particulars which they failed to do and so the court confirmed that the claim be
struck out.


(4) The Claimant has not complied with the pre-court protocol.
1. I'd refer the court to Para 4 on non-compliance and sanction, and I'd also point out
that there can be no reasonable excuse for the Claimant's failure to follow the Pre-
action Conduct process, especially bearing in mind that the Claim was issued by their
own Solicitors so they clearly had legal advice before issuing proceedings.

(5) The defendant wrote to the claimant on xxxxx asking for:
a) Full particulars of the parking charges
b) Who the party was that contracted with UK Car Park Management.
c) The full legal identity of the landowner
d) A full copy of the contract with the landholder that demonstrated that UK Car Park Management had
their authority.
e) If the charges were based on damages for breach of contract and if so to provide
justification of this sum

KeithP

That second Defence doesn't even mention what the alleged transgression is.

Le_Kirk

The first one is better but does need some work. First, you need to remove all those spurious and superfluous exclamation marks.
In 2.1 you finish with "The claimant is put to strict proof" Of what?? In 2.2, not sure you need "Accordingly" but you might persuade me otherwise. In your point 3 you might add 16.1 to your 16.3 (have a look at the CPR - it's easily found by asking Auntie Google).

is unlikely to have been in the contemplation of the Claimant's principal

Not saying you shouldn't use this but do you know what it means?

6.2. It is averred that the landowner contract, if there is one that was in existence at the material time, is likely to define and provide that the Claimant can issue 'parking charge notices' (or CNs) to cars

Here you seem to be on the claimant's side by "asserting or confirming with confidence" that the contract CAN issue PCNs etc. Did you mean: -

6.2. It is averred that the landowner contract, if there is one that was in existence at the material time, is unlikely to define and provide that the Claimant can issue 'parking charge notices' (or CNs) to cars

If the claim has had a spurious charge of £60 added, then, in support of your point 7 you should search the forum for beamerguy's thread about abuse of process and add the comment at post # 14 of that thread by Coupon-mad into your defence (not forgetting to number EVERY paragraph). Alternatively you can allude to it and then add it in full along with the case references at your Witness Statement and evidence stage.

Y333moe

Thank you. I don't have any evidence what would I do at that stage?

1505grandad

If you are going with the first D then para 2.1. is not appropriate - the "this is not a parking charge" notice is the M.O.of an entirely different ppc.

Y333moe

What does that mean?

I didn't write the first defence I copied it from one of the other forums

KeithP

Your first Defence cites Vehicle Control Services Ltd.
You thread title mentions UKPC - later corrected to UKCPM.

VCS'S M.O. (modus operandi - google it) includes the 'this is not a parking charge' notices.

UKCPM's MO does not.

Both those defence examples are quite old.

Have you looked at the seventeen Defence examples linked from post #2 of the NEWBIES thread?

Y333moe

I will have a look at it now. Thank you. I appreciate your guys help but honestly I cant see anything fit to me. Reason being I have not responded to any letter nor did I appeal to anything. I didn't expect a county court claim. This is why I start a forum to get help from someone with previous experience and knowledge. I apolgies for my lack of knowledge.