Vehicle Control Services - County Court Defence help please

fight_the_cowboys

Hi,
Any feedback on the following will be greatly appreciated. I am assisting a family member who had received a PCN having been parked in their work car park, which was covered by a lease arrangement between their employer and the landowner. A valid permit was displayed but had slid down the dashboard slightly, however, it could still be seen from outside the vehicle (from some angles but not others) including the necessary information on it. This happened in 2016 and a letter was sent to the landowner, followed by several phonecalls, attempting to rectify the issue. Eventually my relative was told that Vehicle Control Services would be instructed to cancel the PCN but this clearly hasn't been actioned properly as, following a lengthy delay, debt recovery letters started being sent...

I have followed guidance from this thread, including the steps outlined in the newbies thread but would like some confirmation/advice please.

• We 'Acknowledged Service' of the claim after more than 5 days, as instructed. Given that the issue date was 16th August and the 5 + 28 days would take it to Sat 19th Sep, am I correct in thinking that the deadline to submit the defence is Mon 21st Sep?
• Should we mention in the defence that the permit had slipped down but was still visible or simply state that a valid permit was displayed?
• Please see the following draft defence - any suggested improvements are welcomed!
• Do we need to amend anything from para 4 onwards in the defence template? We are using the recommended one from Oct 20 posted by Coupon-mad.

DEFENCE

____________________

1. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.  It is denied that a contract was entered into - by conduct or otherwise - whereby it was ‘agreed’ to pay a ‘parking charge’ and it is denied that this Claimant (understood to have a bare licence as managers) has standing to sue, nor to form contracts in their own name at the location.

 

The facts as known to the Defendant:

2. It is admitted that the Defendant was the lessee of the vehicle, which is subject to these proceedings, registration mark xxxxxxx, at the material time but liability is denied. It is admitted that on xx/yy/2016 the Defendant was the driver of the vehicle, which was parked at YYYYYY.

 

3. Authority to Park and Primacy of Contract

3.1.1. It is denied that the Defendant was in breach of any parking conditions or were not permitted to park in circumstances where an express permission to park had been granted to the Defendant’s employer permitting the above mentioned vehicle to be parked by the current employee.

 

3.1.2. The employer, X of YYYYYY... had issued the Defendant with a valid parking permit (xxx), which was on display in the aforementioned vehicle for the duration of the time it was parked at YYYYYY... on the specified date.

3.1.3. The tenancy agreement between X and the landowner permits the parking of its employees’ vehicle(s) on land. The Defendant avers that there was an absolute entitlement to park deriving from the terms of the lease, which cannot be fettered by any alleged parking terms. The lease terms provide the right to park a vehicle in a relevant allocated bay.

3.1.4 The Defendant avers that the operator’s signs cannot (i) override the existing rights enjoyed by employees of X and (ii) that parking easements cannot retrospectively and unilaterally be restricted where provided for within the lease. The Defendant will rely upon the judgments on appeal of HHJ Harris QC in Jopson v Homeguard Services Ltd (2016) and of Sir Christopher Slade in K-Sultana Saeed v Plustrade Ltd [2001] EWCA Civ 2011. The Court will be referred to further similar fact cases in the event that this matter proceeds to trial.

3.1.5. Accordingly it is denied that:

3.1.5.1. there was any agreement as between the Defendant or driver of the vehicle and the Claimant; and

3.1.5.2. the Claimant has suffered loss or damage or that there is a lawful basis to pursue a claim for loss.

3.1.6. The bombardment of ‘debt recovery’ letters and abject failure to respond to the Defendant's attempts to resolve the matter has made them feel extremely harassed. The Defendant had a right to park in the space at YYYYYY under the terms of my employer’s lease and deny accepting any contract with this third party.

Thanks in advance any support.

fight_the_cowboys

Hi, I can't edit my original post and have noticed I missed redacting some identifiable information. Please can somebody help me to remove it?
Thanks.

fight_the_cowboys

Having done a quick piece of research, it appears that I haven't made enough posts to unlock access to the edit function! Please could a forum moderator/admin assist?

Redx

fight_the_cowboys said:

Having done a quick piece of research, it appears that I haven't made enough posts to unlock access to the edit function! Please could a forum moderator/admin assist?

There are no forum moderators ,  you need to report your post to alert the admin

You can edit after maybe 20 posts

Your deadline date of next Monday at 4pm is correct

Only paragraphs 2 & 3 are altered , nothing else , apart from renumbering after slotting in your paragraphs , especially if you have a few instead of just 2. Every paragraph has a number of its own in the completed draft

fight_the_cowboys

Thanks Redx - it’s sorted now.

KeithP

fight_the_cowboys said:

• We 'Acknowledged Service' of the claim after more than 5 days, as instructed. Given that the issue date was 16th August and the 5 + 28 days would take it to Sat 19th Sep, am I correct in thinking that the deadline to submit the defence is Mon 21st Sep?

You are right with your Defence filing deadline, but there might be something useful here...

With a Claim Issue Date of 16th August, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 21st September 2021 to file your Defence.

Just a few days to go, but plenty of time to produce a Defence.

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.

Do not try and file a Defence via the MoneyClaimOnline website. Once an Acknowledgment of Service has been filed, the MCOL website should be treated as 'read only'.

fight_the_cowboys

fight_the_cowboys said:

Hi,
Any feedback on the following will be greatly appreciated. I am assisting a family member who had received a PCN having been parked in their work car park, which was covered by a lease arrangement between their employer and the landowner. A valid permit was displayed but had slid down the dashboard slightly, however, it could still be seen from outside the vehicle (from some angles but not others) including the necessary information on it. This happened in 2016 and a letter was sent to the landowner, followed by several phonecalls, attempting to rectify the issue. Eventually my relative was told that Vehicle Control Services would be instructed to cancel the PCN but this clearly hasn't been actioned properly as, following a lengthy delay, debt recovery letters started being sent...

I have followed guidance from this thread, including the steps outlined in the newbies thread but would like some confirmation/advice please.

• We 'Acknowledged Service' of the claim after more than 5 days, as instructed. Given that the issue date was 16th August and the 5 + 28 days would take it to Sat 19th Sep, am I correct in thinking that the deadline to submit the defence is Mon 21st Sep?
• Should we mention in the defence that the permit had slipped down but was still visible or simply state that a valid permit was displayed?
• Please see the following draft defence - any suggested improvements are welcomed!
• Do we need to amend anything from para 4 onwards in the defence template? We are using the recommended one from Oct 20 posted by Coupon-mad.

DEFENCE

____________________

1. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.  It is denied that a contract was entered into - by conduct or otherwise - whereby it was ‘agreed’ to pay a ‘parking charge’ and it is denied that this Claimant (understood to have a bare licence as managers) has standing to sue, nor to form contracts in their own name at the location.

 

The facts as known to the Defendant:

2. It is admitted that the Defendant was the lessee of the vehicle, which is subject to these proceedings, registration mark xxxxxxx, at the material time but liability is denied. It is admitted that on xx/yy/2016 the Defendant was the driver of the vehicle, which was parked at YYYYYY.

 

3. Authority to Park and Primacy of Contract

3.1.1. It is denied that the Defendant was in breach of any parking conditions or were not permitted to park in circumstances where an express permission to park had been granted to the Defendant’s employer permitting the above mentioned vehicle to be parked by the current employee.

 

3.1.2. The employer, X of YYYYYY... had issued the Defendant with a valid parking permit (xxx), which was on display in the aforementioned vehicle for the duration of the time it was parked at YYYYYY... on the specified date.

3.1.3. The tenancy agreement between X and the landowner permits the parking of its employees’ vehicle(s) on land. The Defendant avers that there was an absolute entitlement to park deriving from the terms of the lease, which cannot be fettered by any alleged parking terms. The lease terms provide the right to park a vehicle in a relevant allocated bay.

3.1.4 The Defendant avers that the operator’s signs cannot (i) override the existing rights enjoyed by employees of X and (ii) that parking easements cannot retrospectively and unilaterally be restricted where provided for within the lease. The Defendant will rely upon the judgments on appeal of HHJ Harris QC in Jopson v Homeguard Services Ltd (2016) and of Sir Christopher Slade in K-Sultana Saeed v Plustrade Ltd [2001] EWCA Civ 2011. The Court will be referred to further similar fact cases in the event that this matter proceeds to trial.

3.1.5. Accordingly it is denied that:

3.1.5.1. there was any agreement as between the Defendant or driver of the vehicle and the Claimant; and

3.1.5.2. the Claimant has suffered loss or damage or that there is a lawful basis to pursue a claim for loss.

3.1.6. The bombardment of ‘debt recovery’ letters and abject failure to respond to the Defendant's attempts to resolve the matter has made them feel extremely harassed. The Defendant had a right to park in the space at YYYYYY under the terms of my employer’s lease and deny accepting any contract with this third party.

Thanks in advance any support.

Thanks for the feedback so far. Does anybody have any comments or suggestions on my proposed defence please?

D_P_Dance

Have you complained to your MP?

fight_the_cowboys

D_P_Dance said:

Have you complained to your MP?

Not yet but we will - would it be to our MP or the one whose constituency contains the car park? Thanks.

Le_Kirk

It has to be your MP but you can ask them to forward your letter to the MP in whose area the car park is situated.

Coupon-mad

I would change all the complicated sub numbering to normal consecutive whole numbers.

i would add that strenuous efforts were made to resolve the dispute and the leasehold business wanted the charge cancelled and the Defendant was assured it would be.  It is the Defendant's position that the Claimant has no commercial justification or legitimate interest in pursuing this charge against a known permitted vehicle and that they refused to cancel it.  The Claimant is put to strict proof of that chain of communications.