DCB Legal Claim Form- PCN from parking with authorization from a restaurant on the road in front,

YoungDriver123

I have received a parking claim form from DCB legal on behalf of UK parking control Ltd

I humbly am asking for your unequivocal help in the coming months to get ready for the defence I am preparing following advice from reading multiple forums I have submitted my acknowledgement of service form and I am currently preparing my defence.

Background on the alleged offence that dates back to 04/08/2019

My family and I were at a restaurant where we went inside the restaurant to ask the employees of the restaurant prior to eating to see whether we can park at this location to which employees stated yes especially because at the time my father was going through dialysis and was walking with a limp and he’s walking cane so this location was perfect parking and was situated at the back of the restaurant. The back of the restaurant  where we parked had no lighting to very little lighting as you can see from the photos I have uploaded. When you enter there’s a sign on the right however when you’re driving in at 10-11pm at night the sign is barely visible and in a car with legal tints almost un see able. Inside the parking spaces at the back, there is one sign at least 16 to 18 feet which says no unauthorised parking hidden amongst the black shadows of the night with one little light which is supposed to cast the area but did not do so. 

Prior to parking here we asked the restaurant owner can we have authorisation to park here to which they said yes, as it was so dark we did not notice the parking ticket till the next day as it was tucked into the windshield and as you can see from the photos lighting will be very sparse as it is in an alleyway location. 

The Place where we parked says no unauthorised parking and to which we believe the signs have changed since 2019 when the legend offence occurred especially the fact that we believe this occurred many years prior but we had authorisation from the restaurant through verbal words to which we stated we are parking at Rigby Mews and they said no worries that is fine ( 5 of us are witness to this), 

In application to parking control Ltd of a SARR parking control Ltd failed to send the data in accordance to the alleged offence, e.g no original parking charge notice, no letter of claim, no other letters sent on their behalf this is especially an important part as we have not had a message from parking control Ltd until I have sent them a message all the way back dating 2020 May stating we do not agree to these park charges please stop messaging us. With no receipt of any past letters, claim forms and the SAR only showing 2 other parking tickets not related to this alleged offence something very fishy is going on! Including the fact that once in May 2020 we have not received a reply to our email saying under FCA we do not need to state who the driver is etc. With all this how do you think I should proceed with my defence points, my arguments I was thinking were signage was in proper authorisation given from the restaurant, fees added are excessive, keeper cannot be liable, SAR violation and no evidence of other messages before claim form. 

I am currently very ill so I am trying to draft this letter for the claimants behalf, 

 

The issue date was the 7th of April 2022 I applied for BAOS on the 15th of April 2022 so when would the defence be due?

Many thanks in advance

Front Entrance

*I have tried to post the links to the photos which it wouldnt allow me to do, so please accept my apoligies in posting the photos in advance, as i know some forums would prefer links.

KeithP

YoungDriver123 said:

I have received a parking claim form from DCB legal on behalf of UK parking control Ltd

The issue date was the 7th of April 2022 I applied for BAOS on the 15th of April 2022 so when would the defence be due?

Hello and Welcome.

What does BAOS mean? To me, AOS means Acknowledgment of Service, but BAOS?

Did to file an Acknowledgment of Service via the MCOL website or some other way?

YoungDriver123

Hi Keith Thanks for your speedy reply, apologises i did mean acknowledgment of service form i applied via MCOL website but i understand that the next steps would be to email my defence and use the MCOL website as a read only function. 

go-on-then

Please post your defence on here first for regulars to help you with.  Only the parts that you are adding into the template defence,  not the whole thing.

Have you been back to the restaurant to speak to management ?? 

Fruitcake

It is not offence.

What happened when you complained to the landowner and asked them to cancel it? 

Have you found the guide to court written by bargepole in the second post of the NEWBIES sticky Announcement yet? It is a step by step guide taking you from LBC to the court hearing.
I hope you didn't put anything in the defence box when you completed the AoS. That gets sent later by email.

This is complimented by the ready written defence template in one of the other sticky Announcements. 
You only need to amend paragraphs 2 and 3 to support your case. Being authorised/promissory estoppel will feature greatly in your paragraph 3.

You should also complain to your MP about this unregulated industry.

Did the keeper send proof of non-photo ID with the SAR? If not, then the PPC would have been within their rights not to send a response.
If ID was provided, then send a complaint, asking for the data to be provided within seven days or they keeper will complain to the ICO.

KeithP

YoungDriver123 said:

Hi Keith Thanks for your speedy reply, apologises i did mean acknowledgment of service form i applied via MCOL website but i understand that the next steps would be to email my defence and use the MCOL website as a read only function. 

That's great.

With a Claim Issue Date of 7th April, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Tuesday 10th May 2022 to file your Defence.

That's over three 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'.

YoungDriver123

Good Evening everyone, 

Thanks for the messages and feedback i have received thus far. It is really heart warming to see the support on these threads, i have been completely snowed under with work and health problems as of late so have been working on this in my rare off time. 
Please scrutinise my defence below so i can improve, my main points are..
1.) Forbidden term of the sign means no contract was formed.
2.) Permission from restaurant which is in front of the private land, permission received in front of five family members (parking space is behind a bunch of shops/restaurant 
3.) Signage space, illegible, no lighting around 2/3 of the signs (signs used a white background i remember reading one post and saw this is a breach of TMA? As they use white background similar to councils can't remember so have not included this point as of yet.
4.)Abuse of process under CRA
+ The multiple points from the defence template

I have included the parts i have changed part 4-14 are the same in the defence template, following from the CRA abuse of process point i added in paragraph 15 the further points 16-26 are also the same in the defence template.  
Hope everyone keeps well and thanks in advance. 

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. 

2.1. The Particulars of Claim are sparse and provide no information regarding the alleged contract, or breach, or what the terms on signage actually said on the material date, or what the alleged breach was, or why/how the Claimant purports that the registered keeper is liable, given the facts that this Claimant has failed to evidence the identity of the driver and they do not conform to the keeper liability provisions in the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (the 'POFA'). As such, the Claim fails to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4, or with Civil Practice Direction 16, paras. 7.3 to 7.5. Further, the particulars of the claim does not meet the requirements of Practice Direction 16 7.5 as there is nothing which specifies how the terms were breached.

2.2. However, it is denied that the vehicle was - by any reasonable interpretation - unauthorised, or that the driver of the vehicle, entered into any contractual agreement with the Claimant, whether express, implied, or by conduct.

3. The facts are that the vehicle, registration XXXXXX, the defendant was parked in the space with verbal permission given from the restaurant situated in the road in front which was witnessed from 5 different individuals at the time. On the date of the alleged charge the defendant and the driver attended a meal at a restaurant with family members, to which post parking and walking towards the restaurant the signs which were not noticed because of the positioning and lack of lighting caused it not be seen from a passing vehicle initially driving into the road.

3.1.1. In sighting the sign this provoked the driver to query the restaurant to which they gave permission in order to allow parking on rigby mews road. On returning to the vehicle due to the lack of lighting and the time being around 11pm in the evening no member of the family even saw the PCN attached in the corner of the wind shield wipers- a testament to the lack of sufficient lighting which also caused the sign an estimated 16ft on the wall to not be clearly seen. The three signs are sporadically placed, indeed obscured and hidden in some areas. They are unremarkable, not immediately obvious as parking terms and the wording is mostly illegible due to the white background black lettering in the evening time, also the sign being crowded, cluttered and small font. It is indisputable that placing letters too close together in order to fit more information into a smaller space can drastically reduce the legibility of a sign, especially one which must be read BEFORE the action of parking and leaving the car.

3.2.1 There are only 3 small A2/A3 sized signs with extremely small font writing, one of which is stapled some 16ft on the wall making it not noticeable from eye level. The signage at the entrance of the narrow side road stated “Permit holders only” which would suggest the signs are prohibited and is only making an offer to permit holders.  It is submitted that if this notice is attempting to make a contractual offer, then as it is forbidding, they do not fulfil the basic requirement of a contract, which is that each party to the contract must offer valuable consideration to the other party, on clear terms capable of acceptance. The notices cannot, therefore, reasonably be construed as having created a contractual relationship between the Claimant and the Defendant. The only claim would be for trespass which only the landholder can claim, and only for a nominal sum. 

3.2.2 The above point was tested in the County Court at High Wycombe, in the case of Parking Control Management (UK) Ltd v Bull & 2 Others (B4GF26K6, 21 April 2016), where District Judge Glen dismissed all three claims, stating in his judgment that: "If the notice had said no more than if you park on this roadway you agree to pay a charge then it would have been implicit that PCM was saying we will allow you to park on this roadway if you pay £100 and I would agree with Mr Samuels' first analysis that essentially the £100 was a part of the core consideration for the licence and was not a penalty for breach. The difficulty is that this notice does not say that at all. This notice is an absolute prohibition against parking at any time, for any period, on the roadway. It is impossible to construct out of this in any way, either actually or contingently or conditionally, any permission for anyone to park on the roadway. All this is essentially saying is you must not trespass on the roadway. If you do we are giving ourselves, and we are dressing it up in the form of a contract, the right to charge you a sum of money which really would be damages for trespass, assuming of course that the claimant had any interest in the land in order to proceed in trespass”.

3.3. Furthermore, as mentioned in paragraph 3.2.1. the claimant denies that the sign makes it clear that the driver of the vehicle is entering into a contract. The signs used were not dissimilar to those in the case Pace v Lengyel. Where District Judge Iyer dismissed the claim noting that:

3.4. “Nowhere on this sign does it inform the reader that by parking in this car park, he is entering into a contract with the Claimant. Indeed, the words “contract” or “agreement” do not appear at all within the sign it merely refers to the driver “accepting liability for a charge”. The phrase “Terms and conditions” are not synonymous with a contract. Further, the opening words of the sign appear to be designed more to ward off trespassers than to enter into a contract with the driver.” There were inadequate signs (at the time of the offence) incapable of binding the driver into the contract - this distinguishes this case from the Beavis case.

3.5. The Claimant also stated in the Particulars of Claim that the claim is for ‘breach of the terms of parking stipulated on the signage”. However, an agreement through employee and driver was agreed to.

3.6. It is vital to observe, since 'adequate notice of the parking charge' is mandatory under the POFA Schedule 4 and the BPA Code of Practice, these signs do not clearly mention the parking charge which is hidden in small print (and does not feature at all on some of the signs). Areas of this site are unsigned and there are no full terms displayed - i.e. with the sum of the parking charge itself in large lettering - at the entrance either, so it cannot be assumed that a driver drove past and could read a legible sign, nor parked near one

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 ('the CRA') is against this claim
15. Further, the purported added 'costs' are disproportionate, vague and in breach of the CRA 2015 Schedule 2 'terms that may be unfair'. This Claimant has arbitrarily added an extra 60% of the parking charge in a disingenuous double recovery attempt that has already been exposed and routinely disallowed by many Courts in England and Wales. It is atrocious that this has been allowed to continue unabated for so many years, considering the number of victims receiving this Claimant's exaggerated Letter before Claim, or the claim form, who then either pay an inflated amount or suffer a default judgment for a sum that could not otherwise be recovered. It is only those who defend, who draw individual cases to the attention of the courts one by one, but at last in 2019, some areas noticed the pattern and have moved to stop this abuse of process at source.

15.1. In the Caernarfon Court in Case number FTQZ4W28 (Vehicle Control Services Ltd v Davies) on 4th September 2019, District Judge Jones-Evans stated: ''Upon it being recorded that District Judge Jones-Evans has over a very significant period of time warned advocates [...] in many cases of this nature before this court that their claim for £60 is unenforceable in law and is an abuse of process and is nothing more than a poor attempt to go behind the decision of the Supreme Court in Beavis which inter alia decided that a figure of £160 as a global sum claimed in this case would be a penalty and not a genuine pre-estimate of loss and therefore unenforceable in law and if the practice continued he would treat all cases as a claim for £160 and therefore a penalty and unenforceable in law it is hereby declared [...] the claim is struck out and declared to be wholly without merit and an abuse of process.''

15.2. That decision in Wales was contested in a N244 application by VCS, but the added £60 was still disallowed on 30 Oct 2019. District Judge Jones-Evans stated that even in cases parking firms win, he never allows the £60 add on, and despite parking firms continuing to include it in their Particulars, most advocates have now stopped pushing for it at hearings. The Judge said that a contract formed by signage is a deemed contract, which the motorist does not have the opportunity to negotiate. That, and the fact that there is no specified sum on the signage, means that the extra £60 cannot possibly be recoverable. He said that the £60 was clearly a penalty, and an abuse of process. The considered sum in that case was reduced to £100 with a full case hearing to follow, but the £60 would not be awarded under any circumstances, and further, he ordered that the Claimant must now produce a statement of how they pleaded claims prior to Beavis, and subsequently.

15.3. In Claim numbers F0DP806M and F0DP201T - BRITANNIA PARKING -v- Mr C and another - less than two weeks later - the courts went further in a landmark judgment in November 2019 which followed several parking charge claims being struck out in the area overseen by His Honour Judge Iain Hamilton-Douglas Hughes QC, the Designated Civil Judge for Dorset, Hampshire, Isle of Wight & Wiltshire.

15.3.1. Cases summarily struck out in that circuit included BPA members using BW Legal's robo-claim model and IPC members using Gladstones' robo-claim model, and the Orders from that court were identical in striking out all such claims without a hearing during a prolonged period in 2019, with the Judge stating: ''It is ordered that The claim is struck out as an abuse of process. The claim contains a substantial charge additional to the parking charge which it is alleged the Defendant contracted to pay. This additional charge is not recoverable under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 nor with reference to the judgment in the Beavis case. It is an abuse of process from the Claimant to issue a knowingly inflated claim for an additional sum which it is not entitled to recover. This order has been made by the court of its own initiative without a hearing pursuant to CPR Rule 3.3(4) of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998...''

15.3.2. BW Legal made an application objecting to two 'test' cases that had been struck out by District Judge Taylor against a parking firm for trying to claim for £160 instead of £100 parking charge. This has been repeated conduct in recent years, on the back of the Beavis case, where parking firms have almost unanimously contrived to add £60, or more, on top of the 'parking charge'. Members of both ATAs who have influence on their self-serving 'Trade Bodies' have even voted to have this imaginary 'damages/debt collection' sum added to their respective two Codes of Practice, to create a veil of legitimacy, no doubt to allow their members to confuse consumers and to enable them to continue to 'get away with it' in several court areas which are still allowing this double recovery.

15.3.3. That N244 application to try to protect the cartel-like position of some of the 'bigger player' parking firms, was placed before the area Circuit Judge and a hearing was held on 11th November 2019, with other parking charge cases in that circuit remaining struck out or stayed, pending the outcome. The Defendants successfully argued on points including a citation of the CRA 2015 and the duty of the court to apply the 'test of fairness' to a consumer notice (a statutory duty that falls upon the courts, whether a consumer raises the issue or not). All three points below were robustly upheld by District Judge Grand, sitting at the Southampton Court, who agreed that:
(a) The Claimant knew or should have known, that £160 charge (howsoever argued or constructed) was in breach of POFA, due to paras 4(5) and 4(6).
(b) The Claimant knew or should have known, that £160 charge (howsoever argued or constructed) was unconscionable, due to the Beavis case paras 98, 193, 198 and 287.
(c) The Claimant knew or should have known, that £160 charge where the additional 'recovery' sum was in small print, hidden, or in the cases before him, not there at all, is void for uncertainty and in breach of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, Schedule 2 (the 'grey list' of terms that may be unfair) paragraphs 6, 10 and 14.

YoungDriver123

15.3.4. At the hearing, the Judge refused their request to appeal. It was successfully argued that the parking firm's consumer notice stood in breach of the CRA 2015, Schedule 2 (the 'grey list' of terms that may be unfair) paragraphs 6, 10 and 14. Using the statutory duty upon the Courts to consider the test of fairness and properly apply schedule 2 of the CRA 2015 it was irrelevant whether or not the consumers' defences had raised it before, which they had not. The same issues apply to this claim.

15.3.5. A transcript will be publicly available shortly. In his summing up, it was noted that District Judge Grand stated: ''When I come to consider whether the striking out of the whole claim is appropriate, that the inclusion of the £60 charge means that the whole claim is tainted by it, the claimant should well know that it is not entitled to the £60. The very fact that they bring a claim in these circumstances seems to me that it is an abuse of process of the court, and in saying that, I observe that with any claim that can be brought before the court that if a party doesn't put in a defence to the claim, default judgments are entered. So, the Claimant, in bringing the claims is, in other cases, aware that if the defendant doesn’t submit a defence, the Claimant is going to get a judgment of a knowingly inflated amount. So I conclude by saying that I dismiss the application to set aside Judge Taylor’s ruling.''

YoungDriver123

Fruitcake said:

It is not offence.

What happened when you complained to the landowner and asked them to cancel it? 

Have you found the guide to court written by bargepole in the second post of the NEWBIES sticky Announcement yet? It is a step by step guide taking you from LBC to the court hearing.
I hope you didn't put anything in the defence box when you completed the AoS. That gets sent later by email.

This is complimented by the ready written defence template in one of the other sticky Announcements. 
You only need to amend paragraphs 2 and 3 to support your case. Being authorised/promissory estoppel will feature greatly in your paragraph 3.

You should also complain to your MP about this unregulated industry.

Did the keeper send proof of non-photo ID with the SAR? If not, then the PPC would have been within their rights not to send a response.
If ID was provided, then send a complaint, asking for the data to be provided within seven days or they keeper will complain to the ICO.

" Being authorised/promissory estoppel will feature greatly in your paragraph 3."
Hi Fruitcake, i researched what you meant by estoppel and tried looking through threads regarding how the forbidden nature and reference to "permit holders only" made the case of a contract being formed null. I hope the defence i wrote showed this. If not please let me know

"If ID was provided, then send a complaint, asking for the data to be provided within seven days or they keeper will complain to the ICO."
Keeper did give proof of ID, so i have informed parking control limited that i will complain to the ICO already as they said they have no data on the reg i have given them twice! I need to think of ways to find the evidence

I am planning on messaging my local MP

Coupon-mad

(signs used a white background i remember reading one post and saw this is a breach of TMA? As they use white background similar to councils can't remember so have not included this point as of yet.

The above isn't relevant so don't include it.

15 is not needed as those court cases are old news and in fact a matching case was appealed and overturned (Semark Jullien) and I already cover that later in the template.

The sentence 'an agreement was agreed to' is a bit clunky and you should make more of that and cut right down on what you say about the signs.  At this stage you only need to say they were unlit and incapable of forming a contract (you can expand later at WS stage).

1505grandad

"3. The facts are that the vehicle, registration XXXXXX, the defendant was parked in the space with verbal permission given from the restaurant situated in the road in front which was witnessed from 5 different individuals at the time. On the date of the alleged charge the defendant and the driver attended a meal......"

Suggest you amend to "the defendant's vehicle was parked in the space"