dcblegal - Update following hearing

landylife

All, many thanks for your help so far, here is my initial draft defence in readiness for the 9th Dec:

The facts as known to the Defendant:

2.  It is admitted that the Defendant was the keeper of the vehicle at the time in question but liability is denied. The Defendant also admits to being the driver of the vehicle at the time. 

3.  The Defendant, on the date in question, did not see any clear signage that there was still active parking charges at this facility.  The payment terminals were not active, and displayed a blank screen, with no operation upon button press.  The Claimant pleads under appeal that there was additional signage adorned to the terminals in accordance with Government Directive to reduce the spread of COVID19, requesting payment by phone.  The Defendant claims this was not the condition on the terminals visible from their parking position, nor the others within visual distance.  On this premise, the Defendant took that the parking was free of charge during this period of UK Lockdown like many of the other carparks in the area, with a view for supporting the local people and shops with encourage of trade.

Any advice/builds on this would be most helpful.  
Where do i build in the additional charges they are trying to recoup? For info:
2 occurrences - £100 each time initially with Bank, £60 additional when taken up with dcblegal for administration and recovery fees = £320
Then Claim Form states £332.88 (which i believe is interest on the balance) +£35 court fee + £50 legal rep. costs = £417.88
Oh and the Claim Form only references 1 date (twice), so its incorrect as the occurrences were on different days.

Only reason asking now is want to make sure any abuse of process (if there is any there) is within the Defence or wherever it should be

Redx

In 2 , I would not even mention ownership , don't even open the door. , Ownership is never an issue in these court cases , nobody cares if it's you or Toyota finance

Keeper is something we mention a lot , so put keeper , not legal owner

You are the keeper ,you were driving , keep it simple , let it get to the core terms like landowner authority , signage etc

Abuse of process is not a defence

Look at other recent court case threads regarding the double recovery charges , see how they introduced the topic

landylife

Redx said:

In 2 , I would not even mention ownership , don't even open the door. , Ownership is never an issue in these court cases , nobody cares if it's you or Toyota finance

Keeper is something we mention a lot , so put keeper , not legal owner

You are the keeper ,you were driving , keep it simple , let it get to the core terms like landowner authority , signage etc

Abuse of process is not a defence

Look at other recent court case threads regarding the double recovery charges , see how they introduced the topic

thanks Red, edited.

Redx

You put registered keeper , I would just say Keeper , as I said earlier !! 

If you don't want to be arguing about irrelevant claim points , don't open that door , because you are signing this off with a statement of truth

Keep it simple , keeper and driver , nothing more

landylife

Redx said:

You put registered keeper , I would just say Keeper , as I said earlier !! 

If you don't want to be arguing about irrelevant claim points , don't open that door , because you are signing this off with a statement of truth

Keep it simple , keeper and driver , nothing more

Gotcha, done, back to keeper and driver.
Would you mind directing/steering me to a good double recovery charges example?

Redx

I don't do searches on small devices , they don't work properly , besides which it's your job to read other threads , like I do

landylife

Understood @Redx - i hope that with further guidance on the defence i will be able to pull it together.
Ref. double recovery, i have re-read and noticed it already exists in existing defence template in Section 5 and 6, with link to double recovery charges.  Edit: Think i may be wrong here, still can't find where i should put the increase in charges.  Maybe this paragraph, but would anyone be able to confirm?

For Info: Initial (early payment) charge was £60, elevated to £100 after 14 days, then up to £160 when dcblegal got involved.

Any further advice on adaptions of the defence to make it solid would be amazing!

Coupon-mad

Defendant was the keeper of the vehicle.

Remove the italics, no idea why they are there!

And why are you looking for stuff to add (why?) about double recovery of costs when the template already covers that?  I think Redx was merely encouraging you to read up to understand what the template defence says about that.

How does it happen that people are trying to add stuff that, if they read the template, they KNOW is already there, and we go round in pointless circles discussing the basics the template already deals with?  The important thing is that you read the defence and lots of other threads and understand the arguments.

landylife

italics only there to identify edited elements. Won’t carry across into defence file.

I thought it was already there but wanted to check for sure I was understanding it.

any further comments on my defence in #3?

Coupon-mad

Only that 'adorned' is not the right word.  Reads weirdly!