Overstaying - What is the Legal Defense?

Fruitcake

You have to be present for the hearing, even though it will probably be a telephone or video hearing. I doubt you will find someone who knows more about this unregulated parking industry than the regulars here.
You can claim costs for loss of earnings, but they are capped at £95 unless you can persuade the judge to allow costs for unreasonable behaviour.

Coupon-mad

I’ve already told you earlier today that there is no ‘attending court’ needed as these hearings are held by phone.

ONE HOUR ON THE PHONE. A LUNCH HOUR. 

And you get to tell the court in advance, which weeks you are unavailable but you already know all this if you’ve read the 2nd post of the NEWBIES thread about what happens when.

ZZ3100TV0

_________________
Me....

"Changes of address in the last 5 years.For each of the above, can you provide the address and the date of change.(evidence of the address change may be requested at a later date)"

Why do you need this information? Your agents clearly have my current address and previous address at the time the vehicle was registered.

_________________

Them....

Group Nexus do not and cannot share this information with us. They also would not be aware of the dates of changes either i’m afraid.

Many thanks

Coupon-mad

I'd just give it to them and say you look forward to the confirmation that this horrific threat is now cancelled, because you will be publicising this in the press if this is left to continue, and you are well aware that other PCNs are being cancelled.  Clearly, there is a huge problem with this suddenly litigious parking firm who can't even hold registered keepers liable but is suing them anyway, scraping the barrel of very old data that they've 'warehoused' all these years, then swooped on victims with unexpected and unjustified aggressive litigation, all because the pandemic has impacted their income.

Landowners should learn from this and never let this happen to customers, ever again.  The Services needs to rethink its parking contracts and realise the rogue industry that they are in bed with, who are about to be regulated by Government due to endemic rogue practice and millions of unfair and extortionate charges over the years, ruining the reputations of their clients behind their backs.

It is about time landowners stopped letting the tail wag the dog and stopped listening to their utter rubbish excuses, pretending that debt recovery costs have been incurred when that is known to be untrue in this industry.

ZZ3100TV0

I've provided them, the only reason I think they want them is to use them as an excuse to say "well, you were definitely at the correct address where we sent the letters, when we sent them, so you got them and it's your own fault for not dealing with them at the time"

Coupon-mad

But it brings you back to the point that they have been cancelling EVERY case seen online before this and were (until now) earning themselves a fairly good reputation, like MOTO, for putting the needs of patrons ahead of the parking firm from a known rogue industry, who have been suing keepers despite not using the applicable law.

You can also add that if they refuse to cancel it, then you will consider an alternative option of filing a court claim against Roadchef for knowingly allowing their agent to issue inflated court claims (where no 'debt recovery' cost was in fact ever paid or incurred) to a registered keeper who Roadchef know cannot be held liable in law, if they simply read Schedule 4 of the POFA 2012 that Group Nexus have not bothered with).

Umkomaas

You can also add that if they refuse to cancel it, then you will consider an alternative option of filing a court claim against Roadchef for knowingly allowing their agent to issue inflated court claims (where no 'debt recovery' cost was in fact ever paid or incurred) to a registered keeper who Roadchef know cannot be held liable in law, if they simply read Schedule 4 of the POFA 2012 that Group Nexus have not bothered with).

Very nice angle of attack @Coupon-mad. In fact if RoadChef ignore that or respond negatively, it will cost the OP nothing to issue a Letter Before Claim (possibly to their legal department), for a tasty amount to grab their attention. See how they respond to that. 

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/legal-system/small-claims/making-a-small-claim/

ZZ3100TV0

...and a response...

______________

Thank you again for sending your address information to me. As promised I requested and subsequently received the relevant information from Group Nexus to enable me to look at the history of your case, as requested.

In making my decision, I took the following into account:

Mitigating circumstances - I do not believe that there are any mitigating circumstance at the time of the event.

No previous appeals or correspondence appear to have been received by either Group Nexus or Roadchef at the time (or since until now)

The PCN itself, a reminder and a final reminder were sent to your correct home address (as per DVLA records)

A further letter from the DRPL was also sent in March 2018 to the correct address (debt recovery) - which was 3 months after the overstay, which was adequate time to either pay or correspond, however payment or contact from yourself did not apparently occur.

A minimum of 9 further letters have been sent to your newer address in the last year.

However, over and above the letters listed above (which were correctly issued), there were some further letters inbetween which I believe were sent to the wrong address, thus creating a bigger time gap between some of your letters, which I have spoken to Group Nexus about expressed my concern about this particular element.

The payment process in place (for the reasons already explained to you in my initial response) are as follows:

Parking for less than 2 hours = £0

Payment for parking at the time (if over 2 hrs) = As per the Site tariff

PCN issued and paid within 14 days = £60

PCN issued and paid within 28 days = £100

As the majority of our customers do pay, it is then unfair on these people to then allow others (without mitigation) to not pay,

Taking all of the above into account and as a gesture of good will, my decision is to reduce your outstanding debt to £150.

I shall instruct Group Nexus to make this change tonight, which will take approximately 2 working days to process. This reduction will stand for a period of 14 days, thereafter it will revert back to the current outstanding amount of £297. If you use the information in your correspondance to make the payment from Monday, this should then close the matter for you.

I hope this helps 

Kind regards

Tracy Baitup

Director of Commercial Income

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Coupon-mad

Dear Tracy, 

In order for me to make an informed decision about what you are saying and why, please confirm that Roadchef are aware:

(a)  that registered keepers can't be held liable by your agent, yet you still want me to pay without any liability in law, and given that fact, why you think a registered keeper should pay?

and

(b)  that there has been no cost incurred by Group Nexus for the third party 'debt recovery' letters because Debt Recovery Plus operate on a 'no recovery no fee' basis, as advertised on their website for many years, and how you calculated this penalty sum?

I would appreciate your reply to these specific questions.  

ZZ3100TV0

.....the reply....

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I have previously explained both the reasons why we operate the parking system the way that we do and the elements taken into account in making the decision in your particular case.

It is absolutely your prerogative not to pay this reduced amount within the 14 days or to see the process through, in either case, I have sent the instruction to GroupNexus last night, as promised.

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