Another Parking Fine @ Wise Campus Bristol

suckyfish

Hey Guys,

My housemate picked up a parking fine a couple of years back, driving my car up to play 5-a-side at Wise College Campus in Bristol. After ignoring the letters from debt recovery I have been issued a claim form. My housemate insists that there was essentially no signage to alert him that he needed to pay for parking and from searching round the forum I found another case that corroborates this from a couple of years back.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5928855/parking-fine-wise-campus-bristol/p1

Gladstones dropped the case against the poster above so I'm optimistic I can reach the same result! I have responded with the AOS on MCOL and have requested an SAR (with no response so far). I chucked all the letters from debt recovery but I have the initial letter from UK Car Park Management with time stamped photos of the car coming in and out of the car park. 

My claim was issued on 16/07/2021, acknowledgment of service was submitted on 22/07/2021 and was received on 23/07/2021.

I have been preparing a defence and hoped one of you good people might be able to check it over for me?!

Cheers! 

D_P_Dance

It is not a fine, please read the newbies. and complain to your MP.  Please als read this,

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.gladstonessolicitors.co.uk

Le_Kirk

suckyfish said:

 have requested an SAR (with no response so far). 

My claim was issued on 16/07/2021, acknowledgment of service was submitted on 22/07/2021 and was received on 23/07/2021.

I have been preparing a defence and hoped one of you good people might be able to check it over for me?!

Parking companies have 30 days to respond to your SAR.  Thanks for posting the dates, @KeithP will be along to give you some deadlines for filing your defence.  If you post only paragraphs 2 & 3 that you alter from the standard defence template, the regulars will critique it for you.

KeithP

suckyfish said:

My claim was issued on 16/07/2021, acknowledgment of service was submitted on 22/07/2021 and was received on 23/07/2021.

With a Claim Issue Date of 16th July, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Wednesday 18th August 2021 to file your Defence.

That's over two weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence, but please don't leave it to the last minute.

To create a Defence, and then file a Defence by email, look at the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Don't miss the deadline for filing a Defence.

suckyfish

Thanks for all the info guys. 

As it stands my defence reads as follows:

IN THE COUNTY COURT

CLAIM No: xxxxxxxxxx

BETWEEN:

UK CAR PARK MANAGEMENT LTD (Claimant)

-and-

xxxxxxxxxxxx (Defendant)

________________________________________

DEFENCE

________________________________________

1. The Defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle registration number xxxxxx on the material date. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.

2. It is denied that any 'parking charges’ are owed and any debt is denied in its entirety because no keeper liability, no cause for action against the defendant. The claimant has failed to show locus standi, the defendant does not believe they have a right to bring an action against anyone.

3. Accordingly, it is denied that the driver breached any of the Claimant's purported contractual terms, whether express, implied, or by conduct as no enforceable contract offered at the time by claimant, no cause for action can have arisen.

4. The Claimant also stated in the Particulars of Claim that ‘the driver became liable for a parking charge’. However, the claimant has failed to provide evidence of that agreement and failed to identify the driver that it is referring to.

5. It is denied that the signs used by this claimant can have created a fair or transparent contract with a driver in any event hence incapable of binding the driver as the claimant failed to comply with International Parking Company Code of Practice ‘PART E Schedule 1 – Signage’.

6. Photos obtained following a subject access request to the claimant show zero evidence of signage pertaining to the restrictions and regulations of parking on the Landowners property.

7. The Claimant is put to strict proof that it has sufficient proprietary interest in the land, or that there are specific terms in its contract to bring an action on its own behalf. As a third party agent, the Claimant may not pursue any charge, unless specifically authorised by the principal. The Defendant has the reasonable belief that the Claimant does not have the authority to issue charges on this land in their own name, and that they have no right to bring any action regarding this claim.

8. Costs on the claim - disproportionate and disingenuous

- CPR 44.3 (2) states: ''Where the amount of costs is to be assessed on the standard basis, the court will

(a) only allow costs which are proportionate to the matters in issue. Costs which are disproportionate in amount may be disallowed or reduced even if they were reasonably or necessarily incurred; and

(b) resolve any doubt which it may have as to whether costs were reasonably and proportionately incurred or were reasonable and proportionate in amount in favour of the paying party.

9. Whilst quantified costs can be considered on a standard basis, this Claimant's purported costs are wholly disproportionate and do not stand up to scrutiny. In fact it is averred that the Claimant has not paid or incurred such damages/costs or 'legal fees' at all. Any debt collection letters were a standard feature of a low cost business model and are already counted within the parking charge itself.

10. The Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis case is the authority for recovery of the parking charge itself and no more, since that sum (£85 in Beavis) was held to already incorporate the minor costs of an automated private parking business model. There are no losses or damages caused by this business model and the Supreme Court Judges held that a parking firm not in possession cannot plead any part of their case in damages. It is indisputable that the alleged 'parking charge' itself is a sum which the Supreme Court found is already inflated to more than comfortably cover the cost of all letters.

11. Any purported 'legal costs' are also made up out of thin air. Given the fact that robo-claim solicitors and parking firms process tens of thousands of claims handled by an admin team or paralegals, the Defendant avers that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste claims.

12. According to Ladak v DRC Locums UKEAT/0488/13/LA a Claimant can only recover the direct and provable costs of the time spent preparing the claim in a legal capacity, not any administration costs allegedly incurred by already remunerated administrative staff.

13. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (POFA) makes it clear that the will of Parliament regarding parking on private land is that the only sum potentially able to be recovered is the sum in any compliant 'Notice to Keeper' (and the ceiling for a 'parking charge', as set by the Trade Bodies and the DVLA, is £100). This also depends upon the Claimant fully complying with the statute, including 'adequate notice' of the parking charge and prescribed documents served in time/with mandatory wording. It is submitted the claimant has failed on all counts and the Claimant is well aware their artificially inflated claim, as pleaded, constitutes double recovery.

14. Judges have disallowed all added parking firm 'costs' in County courts up and down the Country. In Claim number F0DP201T on 10th June 2019, District Judge Taylor sitting at the County Court at Southampton, echoed an earlier General Judgment or Order of DJ Grand, who on 21st February 2019 sitting at the Newport (IOW) County Court, had struck out a parking firm claim. One was a BPA member serial Claimant (Britannia, using BW Legal's robo-claim model) and one an IPC member serial Claimant (UKCPM, using Gladstones' robo-claim model) yet the Order was identical in striking out both claims without a hearing:

''IT IS ORDERED THAT The claim is struck out as an abuse of process. The claim contains a substantial charge additional to the parking charge which it is alleged the Defendant contracted to pay. This additional charge is not recoverable under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 nor with reference to the judgment in ParkingEye v Beavis. It is an abuse of process from the Claimant to issue a knowingly inflated claim for an additional sum which it is not entitled to recover. This order has been made by the court of its own initiative without a hearing pursuant to CPR Rule 3.3(4) of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998...''

15. In summary, the Claimant's particulars disclose no legal basis for the sum claimed and it is the Defendant's position that the poorly pleaded claim discloses no cause of action and no liability in law for any sum at all. The Claimant's vexatious conduct from the outset has been intimidating, misleading and indeed mendacious in terms of the added costs alleged.

16. There are several options available within the Courts' case management powers to prevent vexatious litigants pursuing a wide range of individuals for matters which are near-identical, with meritless claims and artificially inflated costs. The Defendant is of the view that private parking firms operate as vexatious litigants and that relief from sanctions should be refused.

17. The Court is invited to make an Order of its own initiative, dismissing this claim in its entirety and to allow such Defendant's costs as are permissible under Civil Procedure Rule 27.14 on the indemnity basis, taking judicial note of the wholly unreasonable conduct of this Claimant, not least due to the abuse of process in repeatedly attempting to claim fanciful costs which they are not entitled to recover.

Statement of Truth:

I confirm that the contents of this defence are true to the best of my knowledge.

Name

Signature

Date

KeithP

Where did you find that Defence? It's quite old.

In my post yesterday I gave you a link and suggested you look in the NEWBIES thread for help in creating a Defence.
By writing that I expected you to see this...

suckyfish

Apologies. I took this one from a thread I was reading, didn't realise things had changed. Will whip up a new one from the newbies template now. 

suckyfish

If I was not the person driving the vehicle at the time but I know who was, should I be naming the driver? And if so, should I be mentioning the lack of signage as reported by them?

Coupon-mad

No you don’t name the driver in a defence as it’s too late but you can say you were not driving and that it was your partner (or whoever).  Same as all he other exact same defences you see from this year (not old ones).

I hope you’ve done the vital public Government Consultation and email to your MP that we are all discussing?

Please share on other forums, social media and certainly with your MP:

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

We are calling for everyone to do a full and robust response by email to the MHCLG, attaching evidence of what happened to you and what you think is wrong about £100 charges and fake debt recovery ‘fees’ that no PPC actually incurs or pays. 

We also need people to contact their MP to ask questions about why the MHCLG appear to have performed a U-turn on their March promise to cap parking charges, and why instead they propose to fund the race to court at £70 a time from victims

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78517562/#Comment_78517562

To you, your family, the driver and anyone reading this: 
PLEASE DO THIS IF YOU WANT CONSUMER VOICES TO OUTWEIGH THE PARKING INDUSTRY’S GREED. WHICH SEES THEM TRY TO CLAIM MORE THAN THE LAW ALLOWS, FROM A REGISTERED KEEPER,

I just looked at the POFA Explanatory Notes (part of the legislation):

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/9/notes/division/5/1/3/3

221.Paragraph 4 provides that the creditor has a right to recover unpaid parking charges from the keeper of the relevant vehicle if the conditions set out in paragraphs 5, 6, 11 and 12 are satisfied. The creditor is not obliged to pursue unpaid parking charges through this scheme and may seek to do so through other means but they may not use the scheme provided for here to secure double recovery of unpaid parking charges (paragraph 4(6)), nor will they have the right to pursue the keeper, as opposed to the driver, of the vehicle where they have sufficient details of the driver’s identity. The right to reclaim unpaid parking charges from the vehicle keeper does not apply in cases where the vehicle has been stolen before it was parked, (paragraphs 4(2) to (3)), or in certain circumstances where the vehicle in question was a hire vehicle (paragraph 4(7)). The creditor may not make a claim against the keeper of a vehicle for more than the amount of the unpaid parking related charges as they stood when the notice to the driver was issued (paragraph 4(5)).

suckyfish

Ok guys, here's my first attempt at a defence from the newbies template.

The facts as known to the Defendant:

 2). It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle in question but liability is denied. The driver of the vehicle was the Defendants housemate.

3). The Defendant was issued with a Claim Form by Gladstones Solicitors acting on behalf of the Claimant UK Car Park Management Limited for a Total amount of £268.59 (inclusive of £35 Court Fee & £50 Legal representative's costs). The Defendant has come to understand that this relates to a PCN that was issued against the Defendant’s vehicle xxxx-yyy on 13th August 2019.

4). It is denied that the driver breached any of the Claimant's purported contractual terms, whether express, implied, or by conduct. As no enforceable contract was offered at the time by claimant, no cause for action can have arisen.

 5). Photos obtained following a subject access request to the claimant show zero evidence of signage pertaining to the restrictions and regulations of parking on the Landowners property.

 6). Following on from [4] & [5], It is denied that the signs used by this claimant can have created a fair or transparent contract with a driver in any event and is therefore incapable of binding the driver as the claimant failed to comply with International Parking Community Code of Practice ‘Schedule 1 – Signage’.

 7). The Defendant also finds the costs added by the claimant to be both disproportionate and disingenuous

- CPR 44.3 (2) states: ''Where the amount of costs is to be assessed on the standard basis, the court will

(a) only allow costs which are proportionate to the matters in issue. Costs which are disproportionate in amount may be disallowed or reduced even if they were reasonably or necessarily incurred; and

(b) resolve any doubt which it may have as to whether costs were reasonably and proportionately incurred or were reasonable and proportionate in amount in favour of the paying party.

 8). Whilst quantified costs can be considered on a standard basis, this Claimant's purported costs are wholly disproportionate and do not stand up to scrutiny. In fact it is averred that the Claimant has not paid or incurred such damages/costs or 'legal fees' at all. Any debt collection letters were a standard feature of a low cost business model and are already counted within the parking charge itself.

9). The Claimant has failed to even state any facts about the alleged breach or the amount of the parking charge that was on the signage, because it cannot have been over £100. Which then leads to the question of how they arrive at the Amount Claimed for a Total of £183.59. The Defendant has excluded the £35 Court Fee & £50 Legal representative's costs from the Total amount for the purposes of this defence point. 

10). The Defendant recalls receiving multiple "debt collection" letters over the years that can only be described as extremely threatening and harassing in nature from multiple different senders (there was always a different name/company). The letters all appeared to demand immediate action on the part of the Defendant and gave rise to the feeling that they must be part of some sort of scam. It felt like the Defendant was being harassed into hastily handing over money (with ever changing amounts) to avoid further costs down the line, court visits and an impending CCJ that would impact on the Defendants livelihood. The Defendant ignored these threatening “Debt Collection” type letters believing that they could be part of a scam.

What do you reckon?

Fruitcake

2). It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle in question but not the driver. Liability is denied. The driver of the vehicle was the Defendants housemate.

3). Doesn't explain to the judge what happened on the day. If you can't remember, then say the defendant cannot remember what happened on an unremarkable day on X date, or similar.
If you can remember, then explain why the driver didn't see the signs/why no contract could have been formed.

Fake add on costs are already covered in the template defence, so remove 7 - 9, and I suggest you save 10 for the WS stage.

As for 4 - 6, I would modify the signage paragraph of the template to include this.