Court papers received for an unpaid PCN-Please help

Coupon-mad

Not sure what the map tells you! Ask Tower Hamlets again, in writing.

Silverocks

I have tried to call today but failed again. So I raised an online question to their website. Fingers crossed.

Silverocks

Please check my defence and help me amend accordingly. Thanks.

The particulars of the claim are:

The Driver of the vehicle with registration ****** parked in breach of the terms of parking stipulated on the signage (the contract) at ........on 16/06/2018 thus incurring the parking charge (PCN). The PCN was not paid within 28 days of issue. The claimant claims the unpaid PCN from the defendant as the driver/keeper of the vehicle. Despite the demands being made, the defendant has failed to settle their outstanding liability. The claimant claims £100 for the PCN, £60 contractual costs pursuant to the contract and the PCN terms and conditions, together with the statutory interest of £16.92 pursuant to the s69 of the county courts act 1984 at 8.00% per annum, continuing at £0.04 per day.

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In the [Northampton County Court Business Centre]
Claim No: [XXXXX]
[Claimants Name]
Claimant
And
[Defendants Name]
Defendant
DEFENCE
1.The Defendant received the claim [Claim Number] from Northampton County Business Centre on [Date you received the claim]
2.Each and every allegation in the Claimants statement of case is not admitted. unless specifically admitted in this Defence.
3.This claim is for an alleged parking contravention.
4.It is denied that the Defendant had entered into any contract with the Claimant. The site signage is in a poor state of disrepair, is non-compliant with the Claimant’s Approved Trade Association Code of Practice, & the wording fails to offer a meaningful contractual arrangement.
5.The Claimants statement of case fails to give adequate information to enable the Defendant to properly assess the legal position with regards the claim.
6.The Claimant’s Particulars of Claim are vague, & fail to narrow the issues. Instead they appear to offer a menu of choices, putting the Defendant at significant disadvantage.
7. I have the reasonable belief that the Claimant does not have the authority to issue charges on this land in
their own name and that they have no rights to bring action regarding this claim.
a) The Claimant is not the landowner and is merely an agent acting on behalf of the
landowner and has failed to demonstrate their legal standing to form a contract.
b) The Claimant is not the landowner and suffers no loss whatsoever as a result of a
vehicle parking at the location in question
c) The Claimant is put to proof that it has sufficient interest in the land or that there are
specific terms in its contract to bring an action on its own behalf. As a third party
agent, the Claimant may not pursue any charge
8.On [Date] The Defendant sent a Data Protection Subject Access Request to the Claimant for inspection of documents implied by the claimant’s statement of case. The Defendant requested the Claimant provide early disclosure of copies of all the Defendant’s personal data.
9.Despite it not being an onerous request, the Claimant has failed to date to send any disclosure evidence to the Defendant.
10.Under Civil Procedure Rule 16.5 (4), where the claim includes a money claim, a defendant shall be taken to require that any allegation relating to the amount of money claimed be proved unless he expressly admits the allegation. Therefore it is expected that the Claimant be required to prove the allegation that the money is owed as claimed.
11.The Defendant respectfully requests the court orders the Claimants to provide the necessary documentation in order for The Defendant to fully plead his case, else the Claim should stand struck out.
12.In the event that the relevant documents are received from the Claimant, the Defendant will then be in a position to amend his defence, and would ask that the Claimants bear the costs of the amendment.
13.It is denied that the Claimant is entitled to the relief as claimed or at all.

14. Costs on the claim - disproportionate and disingenuous

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- The Order was identical in striking out all such claims without a hearing. - The judgment for these three example cases stated:
''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...''

- 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.

- 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.

- 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 repeatedly attempting to claim fanciful costs which they are not entitled to recover.
Data Protection Act breach
For the reasons set out above, the parking charge which is the subject of these proceedings is invalid. The Claimant therefore had no right to request the keeper’s details from the DVLA and to use them, and has breached the Defendant’s rights under the Data Protection Act by doing both. Vidal-Hall v Google Inc [2014] EWHC 13 (QB) is authority that misuse of personal data is a tort. Halliday v Creation Consumer Finance Ltd [2013] All ER (D) 199 is authority that a reasonable sum of compensation would be £750. The Defendant reserves his rights in respect of these matters.
Statement of Truth
The Defendant believes that the facts stated in this Defence are true.
Signed ________________________________
Dated ________________________________

Silverocks

Please could you check my defence above. Thanks.

Le_Kirk

Your paragraph 7 starts with "I" and it should be "the Defendant" might be worth checking through the rest of it for similar errors. ALL paragraphs require a number.

1505grandad

Also the Abuse of Process etc paras have a lot more points now (from para 14 onward) - the Ladak case is not now included so check the AoP thread by Beamerguy para 14 for the latest.

Silverocks

1505grandad wrote: »

Also the Abuse of Process etc paras have a lot more points now (from para 14 onward) - the Ladak case is not now included so check the AoP thread by Beamerguy para 14 for the latest.

Can you please share the link. I added that 14 para from Coupon_mad post.

Coupon-mad

Check again, I edited it recently (post #14 of beamerguy's ABUSE OF PROCESS thread).

Silverocks

Thanks a lot Coupon-mad..I added your defence, Please could you check for any amendments. I can' thank enough for this forum . Bless you guys.

The particulars of the claim are:

The Driver of the vehicle with registration ****** parked in breach of the terms of parking stipulated on the signage (the contract) at ........on xx/06/2018 thus incurring the parking charge (PCN). The PCN was not paid within 28 days of issue. The claimant claims the unpaid PCN from the defendant as the driver/keeper of the vehicle. Despite the demands being made, the defendant has failed to settle their outstanding liability. The claimant claims £100 for the PCN, £60 contractual costs pursuant to the contract and the PCN terms and conditions, together with the statutory interest of £16.92 pursuant to the s69 of the county courts act 1984 at 8.00% per annum, continuing at £0.04 per day.

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In the [Northampton County Court Business Centre]
Claim No: [XXXXX]
[Claimants Name]
Claimant
And
[Defendants Name]
Defendant

DEFENCE

1.Each and every allegation in the Claimants statement of case is not admitted. unless specifically admitted in this Defence.

2.This claim is for an alleged parking contravention where the location mentioned by the claimant does not exist. The defendant parked the vehicle in question on a single yellow line at XXXXXX road after 9:00 pm. In London area cars are allowed to park on a single yellow line usually after 8:00 pm. The defendant has no reason to believe that the vehicle cannot be parked on that road, as the vehicle was not parked on any parking bay or blocking any parking bays or roadways.

3.It is denied that the Defendant had entered into any contract with the Claimant. The Defendant believes that any sparse signage was not adequately illuminated, such that any small print terms stuck high on a wall or small sign-board, even if nearby, would have been unreadable in the dark at that time of night, and unlit. This is breach of the Claimant's Trade Body Code of Practice requirements re illumination of signage, if enforcing terms in hours of darkness. The site signage is in a poor state of disrepair, is non-compliant with the Claimant’s Approved Trade Association Code of Practice, & the wording fails to offer a meaningful contractual arrangement.

4.The Claimants statement of case fails to give adequate information to enable the Defendant to properly assess the legal position with regards the claim.

5.The Claimant’s Particulars of Claim are vague, & fail to narrow the issues. Instead they appear to offer a menu of choices, putting the Defendant at significant disadvantage.

6. The defendant has the reasonable belief that the Claimant does not have the authority to issue charges on this land in their own name and that they have no rights to bring action regarding this claim.
a) The Claimant is not the landowner and is merely an agent acting on behalf of the
landowner and has failed to demonstrate their legal standing to form a contract.
b) The Claimant is not the landowner and suffers no loss whatsoever as a result of a
vehicle parking at the location in question.
c) The Claimant is put to proof that it has sufficient interest in the land or that there are
specific terms in its contract to bring an action on its own behalf. As a third party
agent, the Claimant may not pursue any charge unless specifically authorised by the principal.

7.It is denied that the Claimant is entitled to the relief as claimed or at all.
The purported added 'costs' are disproportionate, a disingenuous double recovery attempt, vague and in breach of both the CPRs, and the Consumer Rights Act 2015 Schedule 2 'terms that may be unfair'.

8. The arbitrary addition of a fixed sum purporting to cover 'recovery costs' is also potentially open to challenge as an unfair commercial practice under the CPRs, where 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.

9. Alleging that the letters the parking firm sent have caused an additional loss, is simply untrue. The standard wording for parking charge/debt recovery contracts is/was on the Debt Recovery Plus website - ''no recovery/no fee'', thus establishing an argument that the Claimant is breaching the indemnity principle - claiming reimbursement for a cost which has never, in fact, been incurred. This is true, whether or not they used a third party debt collector during the process.

10. The Defendant has the reasonable belief that the Claimant has not incurred an additional £60 in damages or costs to pursue an alleged £100 debt. The arbitrary addition of a fixed sum purporting to cover 'damages/costs' is also potentially open to challenge as an unfair commercial practice under the CPRs, where 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.

10.1. Whilst quantified costs can be considered on a standard basis, this Claimant's purported added £60 'damages/costs' are wholly disproportionate, are not genuine losses at all and do not stand up to scrutiny. This has finally been recognised in many court areas. Differently from almost any other trader/consumer agreement, when it comes to parking charges on private land, binding case law and two statute laws have the effect that the parking firm's own business/operational costs cannot be added to the 'parking charge' as if they are additional losses.

The Beavis case is against this Claim
11. Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 ('the Beavis case') is the authority for recovery of the parking charge itself and no more, since that sum (£85 in the Beavis case) was held to already incorporate the costs of an automated private parking business model including recovery letters. 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 an alleged 'parking charge' penalty is a sum which the Supreme Court found is already inflated to more than comfortably cover all costs. The case provides a finding of fact by way of precedent, that the £85 (or up to a Trade Body ceiling of £100 depending upon the parking firm) covers the costs of the letters.

11.1. This charge is unconscionable and devoid of any 'legitimate interest', given the facts. To quote from the decision in the Beavis case at Para [108]: ''But although the terms, like all standard contracts, were presented to motorists on a take it or leave it basis, they could not have been briefer, simpler or more prominently proclaimed. If you park here and stay more than two hours, you will pay £85''. Ad at [199]: ''What matters is that a charge of the order of £85 [...] is an understandable ingredient of a scheme serving legitimate interests.''

11.2. In the Beavis case it was said at para [205]: ''The requirement of good faith in this context is one of fair and open dealing. Openness requires that the terms should be expressed fully, clearly and legibly, containing no concealed pitfalls or traps. Appropriate prominence should be given to terms which might operate disadvantageously to the customer.''

11.3. At para 98. {re ...The desirability of running that parking scheme at no cost, or ideally some profit, to themselves} ''Against this background, it can be seen that the £85 charge had two main objects. One was to manage the efficient use of parking space in the interests of the retail outlets, and of the users of those outlets who wish to find spaces in which to park their cars [...] The other purpose was to provide an income stream to enable ParkingEye to meet the costs of operating the scheme and make a profit from its services...''

11.4. At para 193. ''Judging by ParkingEye’s accounts, and unless the Chelmsford car park was out of the ordinary, the scheme also covered ParkingEye's costs of operation and gave their shareholders a healthy annual profit.'' and at para 198: ''The charge has to be and is set at a level which enables the managers to recover the costs of operating the scheme. It is here also set at a level enabling ParkingEye to make a profit.''

The POFA 2012 and the ATA Code of Practice are against this Claim
12. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 ('the POFA') at paras 4(5) and 4(6) 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' (further, 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.

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 ('the CRA') is against this claim
13. Further, the purported added 'costs' are disproportionate, vague and in breach of the CRA 2015 Schedule 2 'terms that may be unfair'. This Claimant has arbitrarily added an extra 60% of the parking charge in a disingenuous double recovery attempt that has already been exposed and routinely disallowed by many Courts in England and Wales. It is atrocious that this has been allowed to continue unabated for so many years, considering the number of victims receiving this Claimant's exaggerated Letter before Claim, or the claim form, who then either pay an inflated amount or suffer a default judgment for a sum that could not otherwise be recovered. It is only those who defend, who draw individual cases to the attention of the courts one by one, but at last in 2019, some areas noticed the pattern and have moved to stop this abuse of process at source.

13.1. 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 in 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.''

13.2. That decision in Wales was contested in a N244 application by VCS, but the added £60 was still disallowed on 30 Oct 2019. District Judge Jones-Evans stated that even in cases parking firms win, he never allows the £60 add on, and despite parking firms continuing to include it in their Particulars, most advocates have now stopped pushing for it at hearings. The Judge said that a contract formed by signage is a deemed contract, which the motorist does not have the opportunity to negotiate. That, and the fact that there is no specified sum on the signage, means that the extra £60 cannot possibly be recoverable. He said that the £60 was clearly a penalty, and an abuse of process. The considered sum in that case was reduced to £100 with a full case hearing to follow, but the £60 would not be awarded under any circumstances, and further, he ordered that the Claimant must now produce a statement of how they pleaded claims prior to Beavis, and subsequently.

13.3. In Claim numbers F0DP806M and F0DP201T - BRITANNIA PARKING -v- Mr C and another - less than two weeks later - the courts went further in a landmark judgment in November 2019 which followed several parking charge claims being struck out in the area overseen by His Honour Judge Iain Hamilton-Douglas Hughes QC, the Designated Civil Judge for Dorset, Hampshire, Isle of Wight & Wiltshire.

13.3.1. Cases summarily struck out in that circuit included BPA members using BW Legal's robo-claim model and IPC members using Gladstones' robo-claim model, and the Orders from that court were identical in striking out all such claims without a hearing during a prolonged period in 2019, 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 the Beavis case. 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...''

13.3.2. BW Legal made an application objecting to two 'test' cases that had been struck out by District Judge Taylor against a parking firm for trying to claim for £160 instead of £100 parking charge. This has been repeated conduct in recent years, on the back of the Beavis case, where parking firms have almost unanimously contrived to add £60, or more, on top of the 'parking charge'. Members of both ATAs who have influence on their self-serving 'Trade Bodies' have even voted to have this imaginary 'damages/debt collection' sum added to their respective two Codes of Practice, to create a veil of legitimacy, no doubt to allow their members to confuse consumers and to enable them to continue to 'get away with it' in several court areas which are still allowing this double recovery.

13.3.3. That N244 application to try to protect the cartel-like position of some of the 'bigger player' parking firms, was placed before the area Circuit Judge and a hearing was held on 11th November 2019, with other parking charge cases in that circuit remaining struck out or stayed, pending the outcome. The Defendants successfully argued on points including a citation of the CRA 2015 and the duty of the court to apply the 'test of fairness' to a consumer notice (a statutory duty that falls upon the courts, whether a consumer raises the issue or not). All three points below were robustly upheld by District Judge Grand, sitting at the Southampton Court, who agreed that:
(a) The Claimant knew or should have known, that £160 charge (howsoever argued or constructed) was in breach of POFA, due to paras 4(5) and 4(6).
(b) The Claimant knew or should have known, that £160 charge (howsoever argued or constructed) was unconscionable, due to the Beavis case paras 98, 193, 198 and 287.
(c) The Claimant knew or should have known, that £160 charge where the additional 'recovery' sum was in small print, hidden, or in the cases before him, not there at all, is void for uncertainty and in breach of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, Schedule 2 (the 'grey list' of terms that may be unfair) paragraphs 6, 10 and 14.

13.3.4. At the hearing, the Judge refused their request to appeal. It was successfully argued that the parking firm's consumer notice stood in breach of the CRA 2015, Schedule 2 (the 'grey list' of terms that may be unfair) paragraphs 6, 10 and 14. Using the statutory duty upon the Courts to consider the test of fairness and properly apply schedule 2 of the CRA 2015 it was irrelevant whether or not the consumers' defences had raised it before, which they had not. The same issues apply this this claim.

13.3.5. A transcript will be publicly available shortly. In his summing up, it was noted that District Judge Grand stated: ''When I come to consider whether the striking out of the whole claim is appropriate, that the inclusion of the £60 charge means that the whole claim is tainted by it, the claimant should well know that it is not entitled to the £60. The very fact that they bring a claim in these circumstances seems to me that it is an abuse of process of the court, and in saying that, I observe that with any claim that can be brought before the court that if a party doesn't put in a defence to the claim, default judgments are entered. So, the Claimant, in bringing the claims is, in other cases, aware that if the defendant doesn’t submit a defence, the Claimant is going to get a judgment of a knowingly inflated amount. So I conclude by saying that I dismiss the application to set aside Judge Taylor’s ruling.''

13.4. Consumer notices - such as car park signs - are not excused by the 'core exemption' as set out in the CRA 2015. The CMA Official Government Guidance says: ''2.43 In addition, terms defining the main subject matter and setting the price can only benefit from the main exemption from the fairness test ('the core exemption') if they are transparent (and prominent) – see part 3 of the guidance.'' and at 3.2 ''The Act includes an exemption from the fairness test in Part 2 for terms that deal with the main subject matter of the contract or the adequacy of the price, provided they are transparent and prominent. (This exemption does not extend to consumer notices but businesses are unlikely to wish to use wording that has no legal force to determine 'core' contractual issues).'' The parking industry is the exception to this rule because they have no consumer 'customers' yet are consumer-facing. Their intention is very clearly in many cases (including this case) for a consumer not to see the onerous terms hidden in their notices and it is averred that no regard is paid to consumer law.

13.5. The definition of a consumer notice is given at 1.19 and the test of fairness is expended at 1.20: ''A consumer notice is defined broadly in the Act as a notice that relates to rights or obligations between a trader and a consumer, or a notice which appears to exclude or restrict a trader’s liability to a consumer. It includes an announcement or other communication, whether or not in writing, as long as it is reasonable to assume that it is intended to be seen or heard by a consumer. Consumer notices are often used, for instance, in public places such as shops or car parks as well as online and in documentation that is otherwise contractual in nature. 1.20 Consumer notices are, therefore, subject to control for fairness under the Act even where it could be argued that they do not form part of the contract as a matter of law. Part 2 of the Act covers consumer notices as well as terms, ensuring that, in a broad sense any wording directed by traders to consumers which has an effect comparable to that of a potentially unfair contract term is open to challenge in the same way as such a term. There is no need for technical legal arguments about whether a contract exists and whether, if it does, the wording under consideration forms part of it.''

14. 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, harassing and indeed untrue in terms of the added costs alleged and the statements made.

15. The Defendant is of the view that this Claimant knew or should have known that to claim in excess of £100 for a parking charge on private land is disallowed under the CPRs, the Beavis case, the POFA and the CRA 2015, and that relief from sanctions should be refused.

16. If this claim is not struck out for the same reasons as the Judges cited in the multiple Caernarfon and Southampton cases, then full costs will be sought by the Defendant at the hearing, such as are allowable pursuant to CPR 27.14.


Statement of Truth:

I believe that the facts stated in this Defence are true.


Name

Signature


Date

Silverocks

Please let me know if I can submit this defence as it is. Thanks.