CST Law claim dismissed - can they try again or is that it?

Raoultheman

Le_Kirk said:

The court claim should be 5 x £100 = £500 then they are allowed to add filing fee, hearing fee and max of £50 legal costs.  Sometimes judges allow interest.

Thank you for that.

So, if they are claiming for more than they should, does that invalidate the claim entirely due to abuse of the process? Or can the judge simply find against me but at the lower amount?

Le_Kirk

They have likely added false amounts called "admin costs" or similar wording that they think are for debt collector fees; what a shame they are not allowed to charge those.  Judge might throw out the whole claim or not (judge lottery) and it is called "double recovery" rather than "abuse of process" given that the cost of debt recovery (even though it is not a debt until  a judge says so) is already included in their operating costs and is covered by the £100.  Some judges give the claimants a chance to remove the spurious charges.

Raoultheman

Le_Kirk said:

They have likely added false amounts called "admin costs" or similar wording that they think are for debt collector fees; what a shame they are not allowed to charge those.  Judge might throw out the whole claim or not (judge lottery) and it is called "double recovery" rather than "abuse of process" given that the cost of debt recovery (even though it is not a debt until  a judge says so) is already included in their operating costs and is covered by the £100.  Some judges give the claimants a chance to remove the spurious charges.

Helpful, thanks.

So, what would you do next if you were in my position?

Aim at a pre-court settlement (with the Parking Ticketing company, not CST Law) below £500? Go to court and hope it all gets tossed?

Coupon-mad

Do both.

 Make a ‘without prejudice’ offer of, say, £200 if you want, pointing out this is twenty times the cost of the annual permit that they didn’t bother to introduce until later and instead issued ‘scratch cards’ which set people up to fall.   Give them 14 days to reply to that offer and state that you do not accept liability and intend to defend the matter in court if settlement cannot be reached.

And meanwhile do the usual defence adapted to suit, like everyone else does on any other court claim thread you care to click on.  Same as any other residential case about a court claim.  Read some, don’t ask for links just read the forum first ten pages or so!

You CANNOT AND MUST NOT mention without prejudice offers in a defence though.  They are not allowed to be mentioned.

And of course, you and your driving friends really must do the Government Consultation:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6286801/government-consultation-re-private-parking-charge-levels-august-2021-please-bookmark-this-thread/p1

Never again should residents not be properly exempted.  Object to the £100 PCN level and the £70 false costs add on that the Government doesn’t seem to realise is legalised extortion and is never even paid, let alone reasonably incurred. 

D_P_Dance

Complain that they hae added unlawful amounte, read this

Excel v Wilkinson

At the Bradford County Court, District Judge Claire Jackson (now HHJ Jackson, a Specialist Civil Circuit Judge) decided to hear a 'test case' a few months ago, where £60 had been added to a parking charge despite Judges up and down the country repeatedly disallowing that sum and warning parking firms not to waste court time with such spurious claims.   That case was Excel v Wilkinson: G4QZ465V, heard in July 2020 and leave to appeal was refused and that route was not pursued.  The Judge concluded that such claims are proceedings with 'an improper collateral purpose'.   This Judge - and others who have since copied her words and struck dozens of cases out in late 2020 and into 2021 - went into significant detail and concluded that parking operators (such as this Claimant) are seeking to circumvent CPR 27.14 as well as breaching the Consumer Rights Act 2015.   DJ Hickinbottom has recently struck more cases out in that court area, stating: ''I find that striking out this claim is the only appropriate manner in which the disapproval of the court can be shown''.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/16qovzulab1szem/G4QZ465V Excel v Wilkinson.pdf?dl=0

Raoultheman

Here is an attempted draft of a Without Prejudice letter I intend sending by tomorrow to Parking Ticketing Ltd. I will be continuing with the court claim defence process of course.

Any thoughts on my content? 

Thanks in advance.

Without Prejudice save as to costs

I have received a court claim number XXXXXXX dated 28 July 2021, with you named as claimant, for a total sum of £996.56. I understand this total sum to be 5 tickets at £120 each, with each ticket then having £29 added by a third party (Debt Recovery Plus, perhaps), interest of £111.56, court fees of £70 and legal representative’s fees of £70.

To be clear, I intend to defend this action in court.

I note the following:

1.       I was a resident of the building in question (i.e. whose car park I was parking in, every day). Because I was subletting, and each flat only had one space by default and it was used by the owner, I was told I had to use daily scratchcard visitor parking tickets at £1 per day. Having to attach tickets every single day was highly impractical and seemed an odd solution given I was living there, but that was what I was told to do by the managing agent of the property.

2.       During August 2019 I had to be out of London on urgent family matters and I did not take my car. Unfortunately I was away longer than expected and had no means to get into the car and place more daily scratchcard tickets. During this 2-week period, I was ticketed 5 times.

3.       In late 2019, the management company who were selling me the tickets offered me a 1-year permit out of the blue, which naturally I purchased (not because of its cheap price, but because it meant I no longer needed to attach a daily ticket). I find it strange that this far more sensible solution (for a resident remember, not a visitor) was not provided sooner. It would have stopped the tickets happening in August.

4.       I am at a loss as to why a resident of a building with resident’s parking should have to pay for parking at all, especially given the aforementioned car park never had more than 3 cars in it the whole time I lived there. It was not as if there was a shortage of spaces.

5.       Based on the advice I have received, the parking charges applied are excessive and illegal on several fronts, and have had spurious amounts added.

I am willing to pay a sum of £150 in full settlement of this situation, on condition all claims are dropped and I have confirmation of that in writing.

Please respond within 14 days of the date this letter is emailed to you.

patient_dream

As said above and nowadays, CST have probably less than a "50%" of winning especially in a resedential scenario

Now it is 2021, I received a warning of court proceedings if I did not reply within 7 days

A real warning of a claim must be in the form of a "letter before claim" giving you 30 days to respond.
CST MUST OBEY THE LAW .... 7 days is a begging letter

Suggest you read this thread, 

CST letters' forum group thread

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6166004/cst-letters-forum-group-thread/p1

Raoultheman

patient_dream said:

As said above and nowadays, CST have probably less than a "50%" of winning especially in a resedential scenario

Now it is 2021, I received a warning of court proceedings if I did not reply within 7 days

A real warning of a claim must be in the form of a "letter before claim" giving you 30 days to respond.
CST MUST OBEY THE LAW .... 7 days is a begging letter

Suggest you read this thread, 

CST letters' forum group thread

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6166004/cst-letters-forum-group-thread/p1

Their letter refers to me not responding to their letter of claim, and whilst I cannot locate it I have a feeling they did send one. And I have now received a court claim, so I need to respond.

Raoultheman

For info, I have now sent a Without Prejudice letter by email to Parking Ticketing Ltd to see what response I get. I tweaked it a bit from what was above but not substantially enough to warrant a re-post.

I will be working on the defence for court today so will update once I have a draft.

Thanks to all for comments so far (and yes, I will be responding to the consultation).

Raoultheman

OK, so I have acknowledged service. Given I have sent a Without Prejudice letter to the parking company, with 14 days to respond, and that 4 days finishes before I have to defend I guess I now wait.

But...

Having looked at the template defence, I want to ask if it is really suitable for my situation. Am I best arguing that parking penalties in a residential car park, when I was a resident, are illegal, on the basis that I had no written lease agreement (I was informally living with a friend and paying him rent) and as such no contractual agreement to pay parking?

The fact is that I agreed to pay parking every day for 2.5 years before these tickets occurred, and I am not claiming a lack of signage etc.

I am claiming:

 - that forcing a resident to put a daily scratchcard on the dashboard was unnecessary and unfair, given they later (just after the parking tickets in fact) offered me a cheap annual permit
 - that when going away and being delayed by a fortnight in my return to London, I was unable to physically attach further scratchcards, leading to the tickets being issued
 - that the penalties are excessive in the first case at £120 per day, when the scratchcards were £1 (and the annual parking permit less than 10p per day)
 - that further amounts have then been illegally added by DRP

I know, having read all the advisories on here, that the typical answer to this form of question is "yes your case is no different" so if the standard defence template is still considered the best way forward so be it.

And apologies if the above has wasted anybody's precious Monday afternoon.