County Court Claim Parking Fine Defence

Jiggly21

I received a County Court Claim Form on 07th April 2022 from a parking fine dated July 2019. I have reviewed the stickied threads and posts for formulating a defence letter. I used the first step of the process to sign up to Government Gateway and send off the acknowledgement form to get an extended 14 days on the 09/04/2022, but have not had any email confirmation. (Unsure if I am meant to receive something.) I have since moved and my previous landlord has not forwarded me any addressed letters, so I presume the letter before claim was issued to my old address as I've not seen it.

I now have used the template from the stickied thread and edited paragraph 3 to suit my situation. 

In essence I went to the gym and parked in the wrong car parking spot. The business park where the gym I used to go to which I was a member of, has another gym attached to the back of the unit and the car park is shared between both gyms but under allocated spots. As it was always a busy gym,  I unknowingly parked in the spot for the other gym. The signs said "authorised users only" which as my gym's banners are displayed along all the car parking spots, including the other gyms spaces, I presumed authorised users were gym users, so that added to my confusion. Along with it being a busy car park, the signage is not clear and small and when cars/vans are parked up you can not see the signage and the sign is not facing the entrance. (You can see this from Google Maps, even to this day) I was unaware I parked in the wrong car parking spot until I came back from the gym and there is a ticket on my windscreen. 

I hope I've set the scene enough to be able to understand why I have written my defence for paragraph 3, please may I have some constructive criticism before finalising my draft and sending it off. I am now aware that parking tickets are not to be ignored and should be challenged straight away to avoid this unneeded stress.

I have removed all instances of everything past Paragraph 3, but will be readded before sending as this is just the draft for the defence.

IN THE COUNTY COURT

Claim No.:

Between

UK Parking Control Limited

(Claimant) 

- and -  

 (Defendant)

_________________

DEFENCE

 

1.The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.  It is denied that any conduct by the driver gave rise to a ‘parking charge’ and it is denied that this Claimant (understood to have a bare licence as managers) has standing to sue or 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 registered keeper of the vehicle in question but liability is denied. 

3. To the best of my knowledge, as this offence allegedly took place in July 2019, as I recently moved to the area and started at the gym. I was aware that my gym offered free parking to members, but was not aware that the car park was shared with the neighbouring gym and specific spots were allocated to each gym and not in fact shared amongst the two gyms. In addition to this, there was also no clear or visible signage within view of where I parked or the entrance of this car park that areas were allocated to different companies. This along with an always busy car park made the feat of being able to clearly view any signage to be able to agree any such terms even more difficult. In addition to this, there is banners for the gym I was a member of along all car parking spots making it even harder to distinguish which parking spots belonged to which gym. I fail to see how there is any “loss of earnings” from me staying in a free car parking spot and how I could have entered into any kind of contract for using these parking facilities when it was not adequately displayed which gym parking spots to use, and is an unjustified amount to pay.

KeithP

Jiggly21 said:

I received a County Court Claim Form on 07th April 2022...

You have told us when you have received the County Court Claim Form.
Can you now please tell us the Issue Date on that form?

Jiggly21 said:

I used the first step of the process to sign up to Government Gateway and send off the acknowledgement form to get an extended 14 days on the 09/04/2022, but have not had any email confirmation.

Your MCOL Claim History will tell you when your Acknowledgment of Service was received.
Please give us that date too.

Jiggly21

Sorry for any confusion Keith, the 'Issue Date' for the letter is 07th April 2022. I received the actual letter on 09th April 2022.

My acknowledgment of service was received on 11/04/2022. Hope this clears things up. 

Thank you.

KeithP

Jiggly21 said:

the 'Issue Date' for the letter is 07th April 2022.
My acknowledgment of service was received on 11/04/2022.

With a Claim Issue Date of 7th April, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service on 11th April, you have until 4pm on Monday 9th May 2022 to file your Defence.

That's 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 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'.

Le_Kirk

All defences are written in the third person, ergo no "I", "Me" or "My" just use "the defendant".   Also the argument about loss of earnings or unjustified amount is old hat and should no longer be used.  Use "the member of gym, gives free parking to gym members, no clear delineation between different gyms or car parks (or parking areas) and the inadequate signage" that you have included.  Be aware that the template defence that you are using already has "signage" points so don't repeat what is already there.

Jiggly21

Thank you Le_Kirk for the invaluable information. I have amended my paragraph 3 

"To the best of the defendant’s knowledge, as this offence allegedly took place in July 2019, the defendant had recently moved to the area and became a member of the gym. The defendant was aware that the gym offered free parking to members. There are advertisement banners for the gym that the defendant was a member of along all car parking spots and there is no clear delineation between different gyms or car parks (or parking areas). In addition to this, there was no clear or visible signage within view of where the defendant had parked or the entrance of the car parking area clearly defining which parking spaces belonged to which gym. The defendant remembers that this car park was always very busy and parked cars frequently blocked what little signage there was."

Can you advise if this would be enough information for my defence.

Many Thanks for all your help

Coupon-mad

Yes, except for "this offence".
it is not a criminal offence. Just call it a parking event.

KeithP

Jiggly21 said:

"To the best of the defendant’s knowledge, as this offence allegedly took place in July 2019, the defendant had recently moved to the area and became a member of the gym.

I would adjust that sentence by removing the words "To the best of the defendant’s knowledge".

So that sentence becomes...
"This parking event allegedly took place in July 2019 and the defendant had recently moved to the area and became a member of the gym".

1505grandad

As  you are admitting being the driver - in your para 2 add "and driver" after keeper as presumably you deny liability as driver also.

Jiggly21

Thank you Coupon-mad, KeithP & 1505grandad for your help with this. Below is my finalised draft which I shall print off and wet sign, and scan to be emailed over. Just a quick question, do I keep "(ironically template)" in Paragraph 4? See stated in bold.

Here is the final product, any more additional help or pointers still would be great if you see anything.

1.The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.  It is denied that any conduct by the driver gave rise to a ‘parking charge’ and it is denied that this Claimant (understood to have a bare licence as managers) has standing to sue or 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 registered keeper and driver of the vehicle in question but liability is denied. 

3 This parking event allegedly took place in July 2019 and the defendant had recently moved to the area and became a member of the gym. The defendant was aware that the gym offered free parking to members. There are advertisement banners for the gym that the defendant was a member of along all car parking spots and there is no clear delineation between different gyms or car parks (or parking areas). In addition to this, there was no clear or visible signage within view of where the defendant had parked or the entrance of the car parking area clearly defining which parking spaces belonged to which gym. The defendant remembers that this car park was always very busy and parked cars frequently blocked what little signage there was.  

4. The facts in this defence come from the Defendant's own knowledge and honest belief.  The Defendant should not be criticised for using some pre-written wording from a reliable source.  The Claimant is urged not to patronise the Defendant with (ironically template) unfounded accusations of not understanding their defence. This Defendant signed it after full research and having read this defence several times, because the court process is outside of their life experience.  The claim was an unexpected shock.


As usual before submitting I will copy all paragraphs on the sticky thread when submitting.

Many Thanks for your continued help and advice.

Coupon-mad

Why is ironically template in bold?  It shouldn't be.

If this is about not knowing that you were meant to input your VRM into a hidden ipad, you could grab some wording about that from the ParkingEye defence Odeon example, in the 2nd post of the NEWBIES thread.