Private Parking Fine Template Advice

BWilkinson95

Le_Kirk said:

You do seem to have tried with the UNI.  Just ask them for the names and available dates for whoever is going to attend court as you will be calling them as a witness so you can cross examine them in front of a judge and ask why they allow THEIR sub-contractor to abuse the students in the name of making a profit! 

This is a good idea! Thank you so much!!

BWilkinson95

Redx said:

2 doesn't seem correct to me , it doesn't say if the keeper was the driver , was not the driver , or isn't known , it should probably say keeper and driver

It should deny liability , not admit liability

Thank you! I’ve corrected this ☺️

BWilkinson95

Le_Kirk said:

Did you complain to the University about the actions of their sub-contractor?  What did they say?  This must have happened before, why not see if they can have it cancelled - even at this stage.

For some reason @Le_Kirk the forum isn’t letting me reply to all of your comments, onlt some!

But all the relevant documents have been done and rereading my draft, it was more like a WS. I’ve tried to make it more punchy and with legislation woven in there, so fingers crossed its better. If nothing else, at least I essentially already have my witness statement done! 😂

Fruitcake

BWilkinson95 said:

Thank you everyone for the replies! I'm really grateful for the advice. I have re-written it and tried to make it more 'to the point' and tried to support each point with some legislation. Apologies again if this still isn't great; I'm not very smart when it comes to legal jargon, acts, rights etc, so this is hard work for me to understand. I've tried to find, read and understand all the relevant threads on here, but again, I'm sorry if I've missed any key threads/points. My brain is frazzled trying to understand all this! I'm trying my best and doing lots of research, and I really appreciate all the feedback.

This is my new draft:

The facts as known to the Defendant:

2.       It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper and driver of the vehicle in question, but liability is denied. 

3.  The Defendant originally received a speculative invoice of £80 from the Claimant on the 1st October 2018 on Hollycross car park of Keele University for failing to display a parking permit. The Defendant paid, collected and displayed the parking permit on the day of the incident (1st October, 2018). The Defendant had been awarded the permit on the 28th September, 2018.

4. The car park signage was unclear: writing stating that a permit needed to be displayed was small, contradicting the Claimant’s statements that the signage was: “appropriately printed, clear and legible”.

 5. The Claimant has breached the terms of The Equality Act 2010, section 20, for not allowing reasonable adjustments. The Defendant has provided medical evidence detailing a need to drive to Keele University campus. The permit was held on campus, therefore the Defendant was required to drive to collect it.

 As this car park is open to student permit holders, the landowner, managing agent, on-site outlets and the private parking company are all 'service-providers' who have a legal duty to adhere to the 'Equality Act Code of Practice on Services, Public Functions and Associations' which became law on 6th April 2011.

 6. The Claimant breached their contract with the land owner and breached the BPA Code of Practice (13.4) by not allowing the Defendant the contracted, nor a reasonable, grace period.

The land owner had stated that students collecting permits (in this instance, the Defendant), could park for twenty minutes without incurring a parking charge. The BPA Code of Practice (13.4) declares the grace period to be a minimum of ten minutes: “[parking operators] should allow the driver a reasonable period to leave the private car park after the parking contract has ended, before you take enforcement action. If the location is one where parking is normally permitted, the Grace Period at the end of the parking period should be a minimum of 10 minutes.”
For the avoidance of doubt, the second 'grace' period of at least ten minutes (not a maximum, but a minimum) is in addition to the separate, first grace/observation period that must be allowed to allow the time taken to arrive, find a parking bay, lock the car and go over to any machine to read & observe the signage terms, before paying.

The Claimant issued the Defendant with a speculative invoice on the incident date within five minutes of parking.

 7. The Claimant has breached The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and The Unfair Terms in Consumer Regulations 1999 (SI 1999 2083) by “irrevocably bind[ing] a consumer to terms that they had no real opportunity of being aware of before the contract was agreed”, by requiring permit holders to be aware of parking regulations on campus prior to parking by reading the land owners guidance, as published on their website, but failing to acknowledge that the online terms differed to those on the signage.

For example, the Defendant highlighted that the land owner’s website did not advise that vehicles must display a permit, only that they must hold one. The Defendant met this requirement. The signage terms however state that a permit must be displayed.

The British Parking Association, in section 4.5 of the BPA Guide to members: Parking Management on private land, quotes the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (62:6): “Under the regulations, a term is ‘unfair’ if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in one party's rights or obligations under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer”. The difference in contracts but expectation to be able to abide by both contracts regardless, favours the Claimant by increasing the opportunity to issue penalty charges, and is therefore in breach of the terms outlines by the BPA, The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, The Unfair Terms in Consumer Regulations 1999 (SI 1999 2083) and The Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Furhter, the signs requiring a permit to be displayed before it was physically possible to obtain the permit is an unfair contract term that breaches the Consumer Rights Act 2015. With regards to this term, the Defendant calls upon the clause of impossibility.

 

This doesn't make sense.

6. The Claimant breached their contract with the land owner and breached the BPA Code of Practice (13.4) by not allowing the Defendant the contracted, nor a reasonable, grace period.

Quote the relevant version of the BPA CoP. 

 7. The UCTA 1977 has been replaced by the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Check for spelling a and grammar. For example, "Furhter"

BWilkinson95

Hi All,

I have scoured over every thread I can find, relevant law, read the Newbies post, based my WS off of the model WS, and also incorporated other examples from WS that are relevant to my own. I have also scoured over my own evidence and done my best to present it all together. I am a complete rookie when it comes to understanding law and case law, so if anyone would mind at all please reading over this to tell me if it is okay?

I've taken out personal details and replaced them with 'xxx' and there are numerous points where I've written 'exhibit x'... I have the evidence, I just need to put them all in at the end of the document, in the order I referred to them, and then I can number and also put a page number with them. I have also point in some cases, 'this is detailed further in point x'. Again, these are already written, but I want to make sure everything is in the right order number wise, and then I'll finalise these up. I've put all my 'exhibit x' and 'point x' in bold font so that I don't miss where needs to be sorted before I submit.

I haven't put anything in about reclaiming costs in a counter claim, because to be honest, this whole thing has had such a damning mental effect on me that if I win, I just want to put it to bed and have nothing more to do with it, or the University.

Any help would be appreciated. I feel extremely worked up about all this and sick with worry. If anyone could kindly confirm if this is acceptable to use or offer advice on where to approve, I would be very, very grateful. I truly believe I haven't broken any regulations, and I want to present my case well. Thank you all for your help so far, and for any replies I receive on here.

Thank you

(I hope this works, I'm struggling to upload).

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ufiqim908sy5k9b2ik8u7/Draft-Witness-Statement.docx?dl=0&rlkey=qpyf7pe19o73k2qw6vu27g4c6

Coupon-mad

A good draft for starters.

 BPA Code of Practice (13.1) declares the grace period to be a minimum of five minutes.

No, you are looking at the wrong BPA CoP and have said that twice.  Stop quoting from the 2020 version.  Your event was in 2018 so the previous CoP linked on the BPA website applies and ten minutes was implied by para 13 then.

I would also add as evidence, a screenshot of the BPA News article (easy to Google) where Kelvin Reynolds of the BPA states that in terms of grace periods, the allowed period on arrival is not set in stone and disabled people may need longer.

AND the BPA CoP has a section somewhere that says that operators must consider the needs of disabled motorists and bear in mind that it may take a disabled person longer to 'get to the machine'.  In your case this on on all fours with you taking the allowed TWENTY MINUTES to walk to the Uni Student Services building and fetch the permit they had invited you to go and collect snd display.

You did nothing wrong.

Your WS could be a lot more concise about your right to twenty minutes and the fact you were invited to go and collect the permit.  End of story!

In p15 it is not a 'fine' and I would NOT EVEN MENTION other warnings or invoices from April or September.  This is muddying the waters.

You also have a lot of repetition.  Get a friend to read it and cross out all the repetition for you.  A pair of fresh eyes helps and they don't need any parking law knowledge to proof-read and find repeated points.

Your understanding of Vine is wrong.  She won because the Recorder found as fact that she DIDN'T see the signs.  Not sure it is needed at all.

I'd remove it and instead add the 2 transcripts I started a thread about in May.  Click on my name to find my 'discussions' as I started a thread and linked the 2 more useful transcripts in May.

The most recent WS examples are those by @jrhys and @Nosy and we don't use the Southampton Crosby case as a similar one with a cherry-picked hopeless defence was appealed.

I do hope you aren't just piloting in here every few months without coming and reading relevant threads at least every week, snd have an awareness of threads over the Summer.  And that you did the Government Consultation in August?

Staying away from the forum for months does posters no good when they have a live claim.  So much happens and new examples and cases (and Government Consultations) occur that you need to know about.

Good work on that WS by the way and I can see you gave trawled threads, just worried when people disappear for months that they might not have been reading the forum and have missed loads of important stuff.

BWilkinson95

Coupon-mad said:

A good draft for starters.

 BPA Code of Practice (13.1) declares the grace period to be a minimum of five minutes.

No, you are looking at the wrong BPA CoP and have said that twice.  Stop quoting from the 2020 version.  Your event was in 2018 so the previous CoP linked on the BPA website applies and ten minutes was implied by para 13 then.

I would also add as evidence, a screenshot of the BPA News article (easy to Google) where Kelvin Reynolds of the BPA states that in terms of grace periods, the allowed period on arrival is not set in stone and disabled people may need longer.

AND the BPA CoP has a section somewhere that says that operators must consider the needs of disabled motorists and bear in mind that it may take a disabled person longer to 'get to the machine'.  In your case this on on all fours with you taking the allowed TWENTY MINUTES to walk to the Uni Student Services building and fetch the permit they had invited you to go and collect snd display.

You did nothing wrong.

Your WS could be a lot more concise about your right to twenty minutes and the fact you were invited to go and collect the permit.  End of story!

In p15 it is not a 'fine' and I would NOT EVEN MENTION other warnings or invoices from April or September.  This is muddying the waters.

You also have a lot of repetition.  Get a friend to read it and cross out all the repetition for you.  A pair of fresh eyes helps and they don't need any parking law knowledge to proof-read and find repeated points.

Your understanding of Vine is wrong.  She won because the Recorder found as fact that she DIDN'T see the signs.  Not sure it is needed at all.

I'd remove it and instead add the 2 transcripts I started a thread about in May.  Click on my name to find my 'discussions' as I started a thread and linked the 2 more useful transcripts in May.

The most recent WS examples are those by @jrhys and @Nosy and we don't use the Southampton Crosby case as a similar one with a cherry-picked hopeless defence was appealed.

I do hope you aren't just piloting in here every few months without coming and reading relevant threads at least every week, snd have an awareness of threads over the Summer.  And that you did the Government Consultation in August?

Staying away from the forum for months does posters no good when they have a live claim.  So much happens and new examples and cases (and Government Consultations) occur that you need to know about.

Good work on that WS by the way and I can see you gave trawled threads, just worried when people disappear for months that they might not have been reading the forum and have missed loads of important stuff.

Hi Coupon-Mad,

Sorry for the delayed response, but I just wanted to say thank you for your advice and recommendations. I made the changes, but just before I submitted the Claimant sent me theirs, so I was able to see exactly what they were claiming which was very useful.

Then after I submitted my WS to the Claimant and to the Court, the Claimant submitted a supplementary piece of 'evidence' AFTER the deadline, a piece of evidence that they are trying to use to prove some of my statement wrong. I'm not too worried about that though. I didn't know they could submit after the deadline!

The court hearing is this coming Monday. Feeling very nervous but hopeful that the judge will see that the Claimant shouldn't be allowed to pursue this. Will be spending the weekend reading up on what to expect in court!

I do read up on here as often as I can, don't worry. I try after work and on weekends etc, but I find it all very difficult to understand (law is not my forte!), but I have tried. I just post when I need help for my specific case, because putting what I'm reading into practice is difficult, and as you can probably tell, I'm not a whizz at using this forum either haha!

But thank you again, it's very appreciated. Hopefully I will have some good news on Monday and fingers crossed this will all be over then.

Coupon-mad

As a preliminary matter, object to the late additional WS and ask the Judge to disregard it, because it was in breach of the deadline in the Order and despite using a serial parking litigator legal firm who should know better, they failed to ask the court for relief from sanctions.

This put you at a disadvantage and was clearly added in response to your correctly served evidence, in an attempt to have the last word, which seems improper and unfair on consumers who reasonably believe the court deadlines apply to both sides.

BWilkinson95

Coupon-mad said:

As a preliminary matter, object to the late additional WS and ask the Judge to disregard it, because it was in breach of the deadline in the Order and despite using a serial parking litigator legal firm who should know better, they failed to ask the court for relief from sanctions.

This put you at a disadvantage and was clearly added in response to your correctly served evidence, in an attempt to have the last word, which seems improper and unfair on consumers who reasonably believe the court deadlines apply to both sides.

Hi Coupon-mad,

I did ask the judge today if he would disregard it, however I wasn't too bothered when he didn't as I was then able to point out that it made no sense. They had tried to show that I wasn't on the 'whitelist' to park as there system hadn't got me down as having a permit... but the signage had stated a University approved system, and there was no way of knowing if the system they had ran was a University approved one, which I pointed out.

The screen they'd also ran showed an entry and exit date of 01/01/2010, which I pointed out to the judge and he just sort of scoffed and said that it made no sense as that was eight years before the PCN was issued. So I was quite glad really that he accepted it as I was able to poke holes in it.

The judge was lovely, he said that I wasn't granted the grace period, I was eligible to park there on the basis that I had been awarded the permit three days before, that the signage was unclear, but actually on closer inspection, I had not breached it any way. He dismissed the case and ordered the Claimant to pay me fixed costs.

I am very, very, happy and so glad that this three year case is now over!

Thank you to you and everyone on here who has helped me. I know I've been a big pain with my forum etiquette (starting new threads rather than keeping on the same one!) but you've all been very, very patient and have helped me win this statement. He said that I had gone to 'substantial efforts to defend the case' and that I had 'clearly taken offence at the claim against me and thrown the book at the Claimant' - these statements are a testament to the help you've all given me on here.

I've over the moon. Thank you again!

Le_Kirk

Excellent outcome for you, well done on your perseverance.