Gladstones letter before claim - £1600 of parking fines

milkyboy92

Hi all,

Any help or advice on the following would be greatly appreciated.

The driver in question had started a new job in 2015 and told by their line manager to park on a private car park owned by a pub as there were no on-site parking available.

On 10 occasions the driver had received parking pickets for failing to display a valid parking ticket as they were told that it was okay to park there by their manager.

Chaser letters from various debt collectors were sent following this in which they were ignored (foolishly), again on the advice of their line manager as they would also normally park there, and due to reading numerous forums regarding parking on private car parks and in hope that the storm would pass.

Three and a half years later, a letter came from Gladstones Solicitors acting on behalf of Local Parking Security Limited demanding a payment of £1,600 for the 10 unpaid PCNs otherwise legal action will commence.

The letter looks legitimate as the reference starts with a 1, given 30 days to reply and came attached with a reply form to fill out.

I have read through endless forums and will be following the standard process (request SAR from parking company, respond to Gladstones to put the case on hold due to seeking legal advice and waiting for the SAR evidence to arrive). However, I will be expecting a claim form to come through and will be willing to form a defence and WS.

Given the circumstances and the volume of PCNs to defend against, will the driver have much of a chance in defending the claim with this reasoning?

They were honest mistakes which could've been easily avoided and as you can imagine, £1,600 isn't a small amount of money so it is very worrying position to be in!

Many thanks for your help.

waamo

10 tickets at £1600 is £160 per ticket. Read the abuse of process thread a couple down from this one.

Redx

the line manager saying go park in a pub car park is no defence (no S in defence)

your current strategy is correct, plus the total claimed is an abuse of process as mentioned above , more like £1000 or less for 10 tickets, plus court costs

read the defences to see what goes into every one , like no landowner authority , poor signage , abuse of process , the CRA 2015 etc

expect a court claim , so start gathering your evidence and staret your draft defence straight away

milkyboy92

Thanks for replying.

That's correct - each ticket includes £60 claimed by their client. I have read the abuse of process thread which has given me some hope.

What do you suggest the next steps to be?

Should I point this out the Gladstones/LPS referencing the case that was throw out in hope that they will not pursue any further?

Redx

you can add whatever you like , it wont stop them , even if you had kicked the bucket !!

you have already stated what those next steps were, the SAR and the place on hold whilst seeking debt management advice

unless you can get the landowner to cancel the whole lot, this will go to court, so you are awaiting their next steps, so I told you what to do in the meantime

waamo

This is a clear example of an abuse of process on several levels. As they knew there were multiple tickets there would be no need for a debt collector to chase each on separately. They could chase them all together incurring a single fee (not that they can charge a single fee anyway)

This is very winnable imho.

Umkomaas

respond to Gladstones to put the case on hold due to seeking legal advice

Nope, not for 'legal advice' - they won't put it on hold for that.

However, for 'debt advice' - they must.

Coupon-mad

Given the circumstances and the volume of PCNs to defend against, will the driver have much of a chance in defending the claim with this reasoning?

Always worth defending because even if a person loses, the falsely added £60 is 'double recovery' and is something only very rarely slipped past a Judge.

However, why didn't she pay & display? Being told to park there is one thing but if the Manager had nothing to do with the pub at all, surely he wasn't telling her to park (effectively trespass on the pub's land) and not pay the fee each day?!

The main defence might be a struggle but the sixty quid makes it worth the fight.

milkyboy92

It was very misguided advice on the line manger's part as they were unaware of how strict the landowner was and effectively told them that the land is free to park on. Possibly poor signage which I will get pictures of tomorrow.

I will be putting together a response to Gladstones requesting for the case to be put on hold due to debt advice and abuse of process.

Is there anything else that should be mentioned at this stage?

ampersand

Good evening all -
I rarely see the threads these days but spotting this one, wondered why recipient had not taken some form of statement from the Line Manager who gave the duff advice.
From this, op, 2 ?s:
- is recipient still in post?
- is said Line Manager ? What was their level of knowledge or competence when INSTRUCTING the new employee thus?
#
I'd lose 'under the impression', 'the advice of' and similar phrases.
Instead, convey a new employee OBEYING a senior.
What was the Line Manager's response when these successive tickets were reported?
#

Coupon-mad

Bonne annee ampersand!

Happy New Year!