VCS Court Claim - Parked without permit

Urb14

Johnersh said:

Excellent. You agree on the sign to indemnify any additional cost. You don't agree to pay a flat rate fee of £60 so they had better prove with receipts that those costs have been incurred?

Oh they can't ? Then they best go. And the interest they are claiming on that amount. 

Oh and since the contract was formed 2 years ago, the relevant code of practice is the one at that time. I haven't checked, but I suspect its only the newer revisions that refer to additional charges.

Any photos with that statement? It's obviously not the actual sign that's quoted or reproduced there. 

Yes, here are some other photos, the actual sign (nearest to my stopped vehicle) is on the last page of these photos. To be fair it has all the same info as the one I sent on the first link.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vwbl2iznol00kro/CamScanner 05-11-2021 18.18.pdf?dl=0

And here is my WS, please let me know of anything I should chuck in/take out! 
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nf9kz12si9defc3/dropbox.pdf?dl=0

Le_Kirk

You have used the old statement of truth.  It is Code of Practice.

Fruitcake

If you haven't already found it, I believe the parts of the Jopson case relevant to yours are around paragraphs 19 and 20.

As for the contract, it is between VCS and Excel, sister companies owned by the same person. It is an incestuous contract and could be construed as being a false instrument. This assumes Excel do not own the land.

I haven't looked in detail but it does not identify the landowner. A contract to scam must be with or flowing from the landowner. A Simple Contract must comply with the strict requirements of Section 43 of the Companies Act 2006. It is very short, so have a look at it and quote it. Include the link, but you don't need to quote it full, although you could if you wanted to because it is so short.
Signatories to a Simple Contract as per S43 of the Act must have express or implied authority to act for their company. Express means for example the owner or an officer of the company. Implied means for example a named position within the company, such as a Contracts Manager"  or "Properties Manager".
The position would have to be specifically named by the owner(s) or by an officer of the company, or included in the company's articles of association. 
Since neither the landowner nor an officer of the landowner (person or company) has been named, nor has signed the alleged contract, express authority has not been given. The same applies to implied authority.

In addition, the document has not been validly executed in accordance with the strict requirements of Section 44 of the Companies Act 2006. This requires a document to be signed by two authorised persons from both parties. An authorised person is defined by the Act as a any two from a director or company secretary, or a director and a witness.

S44 of the Act is quite short as well, so do the same as above.

There is no proof that the landowner even knows that VCS are operating on their land, let alone has a contract with them. It is quite possible that one parking company set up a for profit business on someone else's land, and then got their sister company to produce a document giving them permission to do so, without ever consulting the landowner.

You should aver that is the case and require the scammers to prove the contrary is true by producing a contract between or flowing from the landowner to the claimant.

Urb14

Thank you for the additional points Fruitcake which I will incorporate. 

Le_Kirk said:

You have used the old statement of truth.  It is Code of Practice.

Sorry Le Kirk i don't quite follow, what exactly do I need to change?

Coupon-mad

He's telling you about a misspelling (look at the bold) and that you haven't used the 2020 statement of truth (NEWBIES thread tells everyone about it).

Johnersh

Oh and can we for goodness sake stop the claimants misquoting the dicta in Vine. Para 11 of the judgment reads as follows:

The respondents' case is that the Recorder having found that the notice was clearly visible, it should be inferred that the Recorder concluded that the appellant saw the notice and consented to her car being clamped or voluntarily assumed the risk of that occurring. Alternatively, and this is the ground principally urged upon us by Mr Mott, the question whether a person voluntarily assumes a risk or consents to trespass to his or her property is to be judge objectively and not subjectively. Once it is established that sufficient and adequate warning notices were in place, a car driver cannot be heard to say that he or she did not see the notice. Were that to be the law, it would be too easy for car drivers who trespass with their cars to evade the only method land owners have of stopping the unauthorised parking of cars in parking spaces or parking areas on their property. 

Put simply Lord Roche did not at all find that there is an objective test.  He set out the arguments presented before him, that is all.  It will be noted that the driver in Vine did not see the signs and was not liable. 

Unhelpfully the claimant in the second passage the quote from Vine again omits the element of the paragraph that is essential to the understanding of it. 

Normally the presence of notices which are posted where they are bound to be seen, for example at the entrance to a private car park, which are of a type which the car driver would be bound to have read, will lead to a finding that the car driver had knowledge of and appreciated the warning. In this case the Recorder might have reached such a conclusion about the appellant's state of knowledge, but he did not do so. The Recorder made a clear finding of fact that the appellant did not see the sign. That finding is not surprising in view of the absence of any notice on the wall opposite the southern parking space 


In the o/p's case there are signs in the photos, so C will run the point. But it is for the judge to determine that they should have been seen and that they are enforceable. 

KeithP

@Urb14, what happened next?

Anything further to report?

Urb14

KeithP said:

@Urb14, what happened next?

Anything further to report?

Hi, apologies for not updating the thread and I would like to thank everyone on this thread and forum who helped me to get this far! 

Outcome:

I attended a 'Dispute Resolution Hearing' over the phone. To summarise, the judge said it was unlikely that I would win the case. I do not remember her giving any specific reasoning as to why she thought this, and I felt as if she didn't really acknowledge some of the points I raised in my WS.

I decided to settle up (think it was around £125) instead of going to a final hearing. Judge said the costs will be considerably more if I lose at the final hearing than if I just settle now.

I lost confidence in my case after hearing the Judge's opinion. I was also going through personal issues that my attention became more focused on. Due to these reasons I chose not to pursue it further, but in hindsight I wish that I did. 

Coupon-mad

That's a shame.  Dispute Resolution Judges always say that and they are almost always wrong.  There was no reason to settle or lose confidence.

D_P_Dance

Are they judges?