Help with County Court Claim - Highview Parking

southwesteast

Good Afternoon

I am looking for some advice and hoping someone might be able to help.

I have recently received a claim form from the County Court Business Centre with an issue date of 29 March 2022. The claimant is Highview Parking Limited, respresented by DCB Legal Ltd and seeking £283.

I believe I can acknowledge and respond online (through the moneyclaim website) and having read through the newbie thread plan to submit a SAR to Highview Parking.

The claim relates to a "parking offence" back in March 2020 for which I never received any PCN although Highview claim to have issued this. The first I heard of the matter was when I received a letter from their debt collectors (in April 2020) requesting payment, which at that time would have been approx. £140. My reaction at the time was to call the debt collectors and query what it related to, they referred me to Highview Parking who I called and was informed verbally that the charge related to an overstay of around 20 minutes but that I was now beyond the period in which I could appeal.

Feeling aggrieved and that it was not correct that the first I should have heard about the matter was through their debt collectors, I did send Highview several subsequent emails (using their appeals address) up to July 2020 outlining that I did not agree with or accept these charges, each time only to be referred back to their debt collectors and finding Highview unwilling to engage or even to share with me the detail of the parking offence. Several subsequent letters from the debt collectors were ignored.

Further to the fact that they didn't inform me of the charge, on the date in question my wife and I had arrived at the car park directly from registering the birth of our two-week-old son. Whilst shopping and visiting the coffee shop within the retail park, we had to make use of the baby changing facilities multiple times and my wife was recovering from caesarean section at the time of our visit, meaning that she was in a fair amount of discomfort with her mobility reduced. This did mean that our stay was longer than it might otherwise have been and I do not dispute that we may have been parked for more than two hours.

I would like to defend this claim but I'm hoping somebody can help me to understand whether I have a good enough case to do so based upon the above?

Further, I just need to understand what the risks are if I were to defend and lose i.e. is the £283 in danger of increasing significantly or would I get a CCJ on my record? If anybody can give some reassurance on this that would be most appreciated.

Thank you for any help you can offer on this matter.

Kind regards

Trainerman

Even if you lost, the amount should be less, and if you pay within the time frame allowed (usually 30 days) then you have no CCJ recorded. So, better to fight surely? It seems very common that original PCNs do not arrive, leaving people out of appeal time. Wonder why that is and why so often?

Have you ever named the driver, if not...do not. They are usually not compliant with PoFA to shift the claim to keeper. It is also probably not too late to try to get a landowner cancellation. You need to swot up on the Newbies thread and get familiar with everything, and read some Highview threads to see how they have been handled

KeithP

southwesteast said:

I have recently received a claim form from the County Court Business Centre with an issue date of 29 March 2022.

With a Claim Issue Date of 29th March, you have until Tuesday 19th April to file an Acknowledgment of Service but there is nothing to be gained by delaying it. 

To file an Acknowledgment of Service, follow the guidance in the Dropbox file linked from the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Tuesday 3rd May 2022 to file your Defence.

That's almost four 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 again at the second post on the NEWBIES thread - immediately following where you found the Acknowledgment of Service instructions.

Don't miss the deadline for filing an Acknowledgment of Service, nor that 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'.

southwesteast

Thank you both for the advice, I am reassured to hear that the amount should be less even if I were to lose.

My only worry with defending it was that the claim form indicates that the amount due may increase if I do so and I didn't want it to run into several hundreds (or thousands) of pounds for example. Noted about the CCJ not going on my record as long as any payment is made on time as well.

I have downloaded the guide for filing the acknowledgement of service, so will do that today and then review the post about creating my defence.

Fruitcake

Start from the standpoint that (some) parking companies have been known to tell lies, then apply that to their comment on the claim form that the amount may increase.

What happened when the keeper complained to the landowner and retail park management company and the manager/CEO of any stores visited? That is always Plan A, and it is never too late to get a landowner cancellation.

You should also complain to your MP, as should the breastfeeding mother. My congratulations to you both, and I hope mother and baby are doing well.

When you submit the AoS, do not put anything in the MCOL defence box. You want to defend the whole claim, and you do not want to change jurisdiction.

The registered keeper as defendant should be doing all of this.

Have a look at the Equality Act 2010 with regards to breastfeeding mothers with infants up to six months old. The PPC should have made reasonable adjustments for people with "protected characteristics" in accordance with the Act. Failing to do so would constitute indirect discrimination.
Continuing with the claim once they have been made aware of the person's protected characteristics would constitute direct discrimination in my opinion.

As a result of the above, you should include the breach of the EA 2010 as part of your defence, because the claimant failed to make reasonable adjustments that should have included allowing extra time for a mother and new born baby. The EA requires "service providers" to make allowances and adjustments in anticipation of such an event, not wait until afterwards.

Coupon-mad

Agreed.  In your paragraph #3 of the template defence, mention the Equality Act maternity provisions to protect nursing mothers and state that a formal discrimination complaint has been made to the principal of this parking agent.  There can be no legitimate interest in pursuing patrons of the shops where the family included a nursing mother of a 2 week old baby, where the mother had just had a Caesarean and needed more time due to the severe effect on her mobility and stamina.

I say this with knowledge, as someone who had 'a few' Caesareans for medical reasons, for some of my four kids, years ago!  A Caesarean is a major abdominal operation and knocks you out twice as much as 'just' caring for a new baby.

And definitely put in a formal complaint to the managing agents of this retail park, sharpish, demanding they account for the actions of their agents in failing to provide a way to exempt either disabled, elderly or mobility-impaired shoppers from the fixed policy of a tight time limit that is only suitable for able-bodied quicker patrons.  Ask for them to step in and insist Highview cancel the charge immediately, or you are minded to call the managing agent's own Director to court because in law, they are liable for the conduct of their agent.

Finally - ask yourself, why didn't the PCN arrive, yet a DRA could find you with an address trace?  Check your logbook in case your car is registered to your old address because that's a real offence that must be sorted.

southwesteast

Thank you for all the great and informative responses, I'm glad to hear that there are some provisions under the Equality Act which I will definitely include in the defence template. 

Regarding contacting the retail park management company, I did have a telephone conversation with a manager at the Matalan store we visited on the day, this was back in 2020 a few weeks after becoming aware of the matter. They expressed their sympathies and frustrations with Highview parking as it sounded like a fairly familiar story to them with their customers being affected by this, but they ultimately informed me that there was nothing they could do. How would I go about finding out who the managing agent / company of the car park is though? Once I've established that, I will get that discrimination complaint lodged as suggested.

Regarding the non-arrival of the PCN, at the time of the "parking offence" my car was indeed registered to my old address (it was updated shortly after this incident), which was my parents address. However, this was also the address where the debt collectors managed to contact me without issue and as I only live a short distance from my parents address, any correspondence that I do receive there is promptly passed on to me. Apologies for neglecting to include this information in my original post, I hope it doesn't have any bearing on the advice that has been given?

Fruitcake

Where did the alleged event occur? It may have cropped up here before.

The name of the managing agents may be on signs at the site or on the retail park's website. If you want to find the landowner you can pay a few pounds to get a copy of the Land Registry entry.

southwesteast

It was at Riverside Retail Park, Norwich.

A quick Google search has turned up Nuveen Real Estate as a possible owner, so I will see if I can contact them as well as trying some of the retailers again.

Fruitcake

That site came up on another thread within the last week or two. I suggest you do a search for it.
The MSE search facility is pants, so if you get no luck, do an internet search then add keywords to the search criteria including moneysavingexpert and parking, as well as the Riverside Norwich.

Google Streetview has some historic images of the site, which from memory is quite big with a supermarket on one side of the approach road and retail outlets on the other.

Here's a sample from the latter dated 2018.

Umkomaas

There are dozens of Riverside/Norwich/Highview cases on the forum. You need to know how to use the forum search function correctly. It's not particularly intuitive, but if you meticulously follow the steps in the following thread, there is little you won't be able to find if it has a thread/post about it. I've hardly ever 'failed' since the new search function was introduced a few months ago. 

Just use the search term 'Riverside Norwich' then follow the steps. 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6289402/weve-updated-the-search-function/p1

Further, I have no recollection of any Riverside/Highview case getting to a court hearing, or for that matter any other Highview case. They are using low-rent legals to turn the thumbscrews on beleaguered motorists knowing that if the motorist fails to follow each of the required court steps, Highview will obtain a judgment in default in their favour. So you must get over each hurdle as it presents itself. The good news - the forum will guide you through it and every step in your journey is documented in the NEWBIES FAQ Announcement, second post - a 24/7 resource available for you to access. 

My only worry with defending it was that the claim form indicates that the amount due may increase if I do so

Really?  Can we see that?