Highview parking County Court Claim SAR and Defense advice - reduced timeframe due to postal error!

Coupon-mad

Remove 3 and 8 which mean nothing.

KeithP

KellfromHell said:

KeithP said:

I expect you have worked out your Defence filing deadline correctly, but there might be something useful here...

With a Claim Issue Date of 16th February, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 21st March 2022 to file your Defence.

That's over 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'.


My suggestion is that you stop fiddling with a SAR - the response to a SAR will be far more use at Witness Statement time - and instead concentrate on your Defence.

Coupon-mad said:

Also, it is urgent that you email the CCBC and the parking firm and solicitor who filed the claim, to rectify your address data

Even if you covered that in the AOS, be aware that the Claimant and their solicitors won't have seen that and will still use the wrong address until you tell them to erase it and rectify the address held, immediately.

Key Questions;

1) Is paragraph 8 useful? It is stated in the POC, but I never agreed - perhaps they are referring to the agreement by parking in the car park, but I thought it was referring to documentation submitted by the keeper, for I wouldn't have done as I ignored them

8. The Defendant does not recall ever agreeing “to pay within 28 but did not”, as stated in the POC, nor any supporting documentation on this matter.

There is no allegation that the keeper did agree to that.

The allegation is that by parking the driver agreed to the terms of the contract.

Those contract terms are the terms on the signs.

Almost certainly there is a term on the signs stating something like "if the driver doesn't park in accordance with the rules then he agrees to pay £nn within 28 days...".

Remind us, are you defending as the driver or keeper?

1505grandad

A heads-up:-

Para 3  -  "....for a Total amount of £918.13 (inclusive of £75 Court Fee & £75 Legal representative's costs)."

Para 6  -  "Which then leads to the question, how does the Claimant arrive at the Amount Claimed for a Total of £778.13. The Defendant has excluded the £75 Court Fee & £75 Legal representative's costs from the Total amount for the purposes of this defence point."

The two amounts when totalled are not the same

Coupon-mad

Yep but para 3 can go altogether! A pointless paragraph someone wrote last year.

KellfromHell

Thanks guys, this is a huge help! It turns out the costs were both £70 so great spot @1505grandad ! this has been updated now 1505grandad said:

A heads-up:-

Para 3  -  "....for a Total amount of £918.13 (inclusive of £75 Court Fee & £75 Legal representative's costs)."

Para 6  -  "Which then leads to the question, how does the Claimant arrive at the Amount Claimed for a Total of £778.13. The Defendant has excluded the £75 Court Fee & £75 Legal representative's costs from the Total amount for the purposes of this defence point."

The two amounts when totalled are not the same

KellfromHell

KeithP said:

There is no allegation that the keeper did agree to that.

The allegation is that by parking the driver agreed to the terms of the contract.

Those contract terms are the terms on the signs.

Almost certainly there is a term on the signs stating something like "if the driver doesn't park in accordance with the rules then he agrees to pay £nn within 28 days...".

Remind us, are you defending as the driver or keeper?

Thanks for this, that has cleared that question up nicely

I am defending as the keeper only, but it is hard to remember! Does this defence argue that properly, in your opinion?

KellfromHell

Coupon-mad said:

Remove 3 and 8 which mean nothing.

Okay they have been removed now - do you have any additional builds for my argument? I will post the updated version in the next message

KellfromHell

Are there any additional builds from yourselves? Have I provided you all with enough information on this matter?? 

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. There are multiple insured drivers on the vehicle.

3. The Defendant as the registered keeper of the vehicle in question notes that they cannot be held liable due to the Claimant not complying with the ‘keeper liability’ requirements set out in the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 ('PoFA'), Schedule 4.

4. In the Particulars of Claim ('POC') it is stated that the Defendant is liable as the driver or keeper but the Claimant has failed to provide any evidence that Defendant was also the driver. The Defendant cannot be held liable for the charges as the keeper of the vehicle. The Claimant did not properly serve a compliant notice to keeper in strict accordance with Paragraph 9, sub-paragraphs 4 and 5 of the PoFA, which states that notice to keeper must be delivered within the relevant period. Where the relevant period is defined as the period of 14 days beginning with the day after that on which the specified period of parking ended.

5. Following on from [3] & [4], where it is noted that the Claimant has elected not to comply with the 'keeper liability' requirements set out in PoFA, Claimant has included a clear falsehood in their POC which were signed under a statement of truth by the Claimant's legal representative who should know (as the Claimant undoubtedly does) that it is untrue to state that the Defendant is 'liable as keeper'.  This can never be the case with a Highview Parking Limited claim because this parking firm, same as any Group Nexus company, have never used the POFA 2012 wording, of their own volition.  Not only does the POC include this misleading untruth, but the Claimant has also added an unidentified sum in false 'damages' to enhance the claims.  So sparse is their statement of case, that 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, how does the Claimant arrive at the Amount Claimed for a Total of £778.13. The Defendant has excluded the £70 Court Fee & £70 Legal representative's costs from the Total amount for the purposes of this defence point.

6. The Parking and Traffic Appeals Service (PATAS) and Parking on Private Land Appeals (POPLA) lead adjudicator and barrister, Henry Michael Greenslade, clarified that with regards to keeper liability, “There is no ‘reasonable presumption’ in law that the registered keeper of a vehicle is the driver and the operators should never suggest anything of the sort” (POPLA report 2015).

7. The Defendant does not recall receiving the original PCN. The Defendant upon receiving the Claim Form has subsequently requested a copy via Subject Access Request to Group Nexus (who through research the Defendant now understand own Highview Parking Limited).

8. The Defendant does recall receiving multiple "Debt Collection" letters over the years, from bodies like Debt Recovery Plus, 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) in order to avoid further costs down the line, court visits and an impending CCJ that would impact on the Defendant livelihood. The Defendant ignored these threatening “Debt Collection” type letters believing that they could be part of a scam.

KeithP

Remove your vehicle's registration marks from your post. They uniquely identify you.

The parking companies trawl this forum just looking for people to trip themselves up.

Having used the reg no to identify the parking incident, it would be very easy for them to decide who was driving.
Suggest you edit your post Today at 2:43PM as the last paragraph does give away the driver's identity.


Apart from that, why have you mentioned two registration marks?
Is it necessary? If it is, then you need to add a little bit to explain what that's all about.

Coupon-mad

Shouldn't this sentebce in 5 be 'per parking charge' as (going by the inflated amount) this must be a multi ticket case?

because it cannot have been over £100 per parking charge.