Letter of claim DCBL

Charlsg17

KeithP said:

Charlsg17 said:

I also was confused about the timings as the original claim was dated 26/05/2022. I sent my AOS and they received this on 06/06/2022. I have panicked and believe I only have 3 days left to send the defence? 28 days plus the 5 from the date of service?

With a Claim Issue Date of 26th May, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Tuesday 28th June 2022 to file your Defence.

That's just a week 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.

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'.

Phew thankyou!

Do you think more needs to be added to this part or would this be adequate enough?

The facts as known to the Defendant:

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

3. The Defendant had a haircut appointment, whereby he needed to park his car for a very short period of time outside of the barbers. The Defendant had parked in what he assumed to be a parking space. Upon returning to his car the Defendant noticed he'd received a PCN. He took the PCN back to the barbers and explained the situation to the hairdressers. He was told that many people had received tickets recently and to ignore the ticket. The hairdresser explained that the claimant had no authority and that there are no clear marked signage. The Defendant questioned the reasoning of not being correctly parked within the bays. The images taken by the claimant suggest that the long rectangular pavers/slabs on the drivers side of the car, the thin concrete slabs/pavers behind, the pavement on the passenger side, and the pole at the front showed that the vehicle was in fact clearly parked within a marked bay. The small signage was not suitable to alert a motorist. The Defendant avers that the parking signage in this matter was, without prejudice to his/her primary defence above, inadequate.

I don't need to change any other parts of the defence template?

Coupon-mad

Change nothing in the template.  But change:

"had parked in what he assumed to be a parking space."

to 

"had parked in what appeared to be an unmarked parking space."

Fruitcake

I would actually suggest that the PPC's images show that the car was parked in a marked bay, defined by the long concrete strips on the driver's side, and the narrow concrete strips to the rear, and the nearside before the pavement slabs start, and the pole to the front.

I wouldn't use words like assumed, or appeared to be, but would state that it was a marked bay and the car was clearly within the confines of the markings.

Other opinions are available.

The image on the sign only shows a line either side of a car, which in my opinion can clearly be seen in the PPC's own images.

I'm not sure if it was in the BPA's CoP in place in 2018, but I'm sure it mentions something about defining bay surface markings with something like different sized, or contoured, or coloured paving blocks or setts.

Charlsg17

Fruitcake said:

I would actually suggest that the PPC's images show that the car was parked in a marked bay, defined by the long concrete strips on the driver's side, and the narrow concrete strips to the rear, and the nearside before the pavement slabs start, and the pole to the front.

I wouldn't use words like assumed, or appeared to be, but would state that it was a marked bay and the car was clearly within the confines of the markings.

Other opinions are available.

The image on the sign only shows a line either side of a car, which in my opinion can clearly be seen in the PPC's own images.

I'm not sure if it was in the BPA's CoP in place in 2018, but I'm sure it mentions something about defining bay surface markings with something like different sized, or contoured, or coloured paving blocks or setts.

Something more along the lines of this? I completely get what your saying to be honest and hadn't really thought of this take on it. I've been thinking the whole time where are the clear marked out bays there literally are none??? but what you have said does make total sense but will they see it that way?

3. The Defendant had a haircut appointment, whereby he needed to park his car for a very short period of time outside of the barbers. The Defendant had parked within a marked bay and was clearly within the confines of the markings as stated within the image on the signage. The image on the sign only showed a line either side of a car, which can be clearly seen in the PPC's own images. The images taken by the claimant suggest that the long rectangular pavers/slabs on the drivers side of the car, the thin concrete slabs/pavers behind, the pavement on the passenger side, and the pole at the front showed that the vehicle was in fact clearly parked within a marked bay. Upon returning to his car the Defendant noticed he'd received a PCN.  He took the PCN back to the barbers and explained the situation to the hairdressers. He was told that many people had received tickets recently and to ignore the ticket. The hairdresser explained that the claimant had no authority. The Defendant questioned the reasoning of not being correctly parked within the bays as explained above. The small signage was not suitable to alert a motorist. The Defendant avers that the parking signage in this matter was, without prejudice to his/her primary defence above, inadequate.

Coupon-mad

Looks fine, except for using two unexplained acronyms!

Fruitcake

Agreed. The first time you use any abbreviation or acronym, you must precede it with an explanation, then only use the abbreviation thereafter.

Private Parking Company (PPC), the first time, then just PPC afterwards.

Fruitcake

I edited my post about the bay markers after you posted as I noticed there is a thin concrete strip on the nearside between the block pavers and the pavement paving slabs, further supporting the statement that it is a bay boundary marker.

"The images taken by the claimant suggest that the long rectangular pavers/slabs on the drivers side of the car ..."

I would replace the word "suggest" with something to make a more forceful statement of fact.

KeithP

Fruitcake said:

I would replace the word "suggest" with something to make a more forceful statement of fact.

I agree.
Maybe replace suggest with clearly show.

Fruitcake

Can you get your own photos of the site and signage, or look on google streetview to see if there are any historic images that would help you?
An image showing a concrete marker strip in front of where the car was stopped if one exists would be really useful.

Charlsg17

Fruitcake said:

Can you get your own photos of the site and signage, or look on google streetview to see if there are any historic images that would help you?
An image showing a concrete marker strip in front of where the car was stopped if one exists would be really useful.

Unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to take my own photos, it was years ago when I was at university. I live 4+ hours away now!

I could have a look on Google street view but I can’t even remember the name of the road to be honest.