Vehicle Control Services PCN in a residential car park

Fruitcake

Section 44 of the Companies Act 2006: -

Companies Act 2006 (legislation.gov.uk)

44 Execution of documents

(1) Under the law of England and Wales or Northern Ireland a document is executed by a company—
(a) by the affixing of its common seal, or
(b) by signature in accordance with the following provisions.

(2) A document is validly executed by a company if it is signed on behalf of the company—
(a) by two authorised signatories, or
(b) by a director of the company in the presence of a witness who attests the signature.

(3) The following are “authorised signatories” for the purposes of subsection (2)—
(a) every director of the company, and
(b) in the case of a private company with a secretary or a public company, the secretary (or any joint secretary) of the company.


(You need to read and understand the other paragraphs 4 - 8 that I have not quoted as well, even though I do not believe they apply in your case.)

The alleged contract has not been executed in accordance with paragraph 1 because it has not been signed by two people from each company nor by a director and witness of each company in accordance with the requirements of paragraph 2, and has not been signed by authorised signatories as defined in paragraph 3.

In addition, VCS have not signed the alleged contract at all.

According to Companies House, PS Hughes is neither a Director or Company Secretary, or even a person with significant interest in the company he/she works for.

Accordingly, the contract has not been executed in accordance with the strict requirements of the above Act.

Fruitcake

Contract, general comments.

The site plan/map has been truncated (unless you have another version). 
Not all the parking spaces or roadways that VCS purport to cover are shown or annotated.
The site entrance is not shown, nor the position of the entrance sign or any other signs throughout the site upon which VCS intend to rely. 
The "Special Instructions" are forbidding in that there is no offer to non-permit holder motorists, therefore the signs are incapable of forming a contract with a non-permit holder.

Have the scammers provided a map/site plan showing where the car was stopped, backed up with photographic evidence, to prove that it was parked in an area that they are contracted to scam?
We have seen two cases at Bristol Airport recently where VCS scamvoices were issued to cars that were outside their scamming zone according to their own map/site plan.

Are the signs forbidding as well as the contract?

PS (Pat) Hughes has put her/his name, signature, and position within his company on the alleged contract, but it has not been dated so there is no proof she/he signed it before the date of the alleged event.
She/he signed the blank site plan two months after the date the contract was allegedly due to start. They have not signed the supplementary page with the truncated map/site plan, so again there is no proof the map was actually correct at the time it was produced. 

Are the pages of the alleged contract numbered?. The part of the alleged contract showing the truncated map appears to be on a separate page to the rest of the contract. I have assumed that the page with the blank map is the reverse side of the contract page with the unsigned VCS section. If the pages are not numbered than it can be argued that the page with the map is not part of the contract itself.

With regards to S43 and S44 of the Companies Act 2006, District Judge Simon Middleton stated in case number F1DP92KF, heard on the 3rd of July 2020 at Truro County Court that,

"Claire Williams could not have signed the contract on behalf of the owner because she is not a director of the owner."

I suggest you read the relevant thread (which is not that long) to understand the context of the judges decision.

LBC stage but who is my parking contract with? — MoneySavingExpert Forum

nosferatu1001

https://www.google.com/search?q=can+a+dormant+company+enter+into+a+contract&rlz=1C9BKJA_enGB590GB590&oq=can+a+dormant+company+enter&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0i22i30l2j0i390l2.9421j1j7&hl=en-GB&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

A dormant company cannot enter into contracts. 

Were they dormant on the date? Yes or no 

nosferatu1001

(In essence if they do they're not dormant)

MoneySavingPest

Thanks for all the excellent comments, especially @Fruitcake.  It's going to be a humdinger of a hearing!

MrsB221

This is my first post, so firstly, a massive thank you to everyone for all the advice on here. It is so helpful and has been invaluable in understanding how to respond at all stages of the process. I really appreciate all the time and effort that you put into this forum.

Secondly, to say that I am in a similar situation - I have just responded to a LBC from DCB Legal on behalf of VCS about PCNs incurred while parked in my allocated resident’s bay (tenant). This is a different property but was also managed by Peerless Properties Ltd.

For anyone else who was a resident in a property managed by Peerless Properties, it might be worth knowing that I have reason to believe (I’m phrasing this carefully) that they have not complied with UK GDPR law in how they have handled my personal data. I’m currently waiting for their formal statement of response before I raise this with ICO (in accordance with ICO complaints procedure).

Umkomaas

MrsB221 said:

This is my first post, so firstly, a massive thank you to everyone for all the advice on here. It is so helpful and has been invaluable in understanding how to respond at all stages of the process. I really appreciate all the time and effort that you put into this forum.

Secondly, to say that I am in a similar situation - I have just responded to a LBC from DCB Legal on behalf of VCS about PCNs incurred while parked in my allocated resident’s bay (tenant). This is a different property but was also managed by Peerless Properties Ltd.

For anyone else who was a resident in a property managed by Peerless Properties, it might be worth knowing that I have reason to believe (I’m phrasing this carefully) that they have not complied with UK GDPR law in how they have handled my personal data. I’m currently waiting for their formal statement of response before I raise this with ICO (in accordance with ICO complaints procedure).

Please start a new thread of your own. You cannot jump in and nudge the original poster out of his/her own thread with answers to your problem potentially overwhelming the original case. 

Bespoke help will be available on your very own thread. 

MoneySavingPest

A happy update on this thread - I had the County Court hearing on Friday, and won my case.

Inadequate signage and some deficiencies in the contract were the main grounds the judge mentioned for the claim being dismissed (although I am awaiting the written order to see the precise reasoning). I have been awarded £95 in costs.

Needless to say, I am very pleased! And full of thanks for all the help on this forum, without which I doubt I could have achieved this successful outcome. 

Timeouts

MoneySavingPest said:

A happy update on this thread - I had the County Court hearing on Friday, and won my case.

Inadequate signage and some deficiencies in the contract were the main grounds the judge mentioned for the claim being dismissed (although I am awaiting the written order to see the precise reasoning). I have been awarded £95 in costs.

Needless to say, I am very pleased! And full of thanks for all the help on this forum, without which I doubt I could have achieved this successful outcome. 

Well done ....... VCS FAIL AGAIN
£95 costs, that's good

You had a REAL judge

Snakes_Belly

Well done   Another VCS claim bites the dust.