County Court Claim - UKPC DCBL - Defence advice needed please

sowhatnow

Hi All,

Many thanks to all those that take time to help us simple folk. Read through the NEWBIES post, and have filled in AoS as per instructed.

To sum up:

Having moved into a property back in early 2020. The previous leaseholder to the property was renting out a parking spot at the residential car park, this was a signed contract agreement paid for monthly.
The parking bay is not assigned to a particular flat but is located in the residential car park and owned by a seperate firm who issue a contract to be signed on agreement.
Took over the parking space after fully moving in to the property and soon signed a contract authorizing to park in said space. However soon after signing this contract, received three PCN's from UKPC.
Appealed to these and sent UKPC a copy of signed contract although they were ignored and the usual goodwill sum was asked for.
Declined to pay these out of principle as parking was already paid for under contract and could not guarantee that more PCN's would be issued again.
Later informed by another resident who parked in the car park to contact the property managers to inform them of the vehicle registration and for it to be added to an electronic permit system. None of this is mentioned in the leasehold agreement for the property or contract from the owners.
The owners did not mention anything regarding an iPermit system or that my vehicles registration needed to be registered in order to avoid PCN's.

All the signs in the car park are for UKPC only and make no mention of this permit system, nor that the property managers are the ones managing the car parks permit system. Contacting UKPC is nigh on impossible as all calls lead to their payment system.

All PCN's received and what's being claimed for were issued after contract had been signed with the owners.

The car park is situated in a gated location beneath the residence requiring a code and remote fob for entry.

As per contract with owners payment for the right to park has been met every month without fail, with bank statements to prove this.

The usual scenario, UKPC passed on PCN's to DCBL. DCBL sent a number of letters demanding payment to which were ignored as they could not be contacted what so ever. Try calling them and you're 112th person in the queue. Writing them get's no reply.

Now at the stage of CC Claim and prepering defence. Hoping an expert can assist in checking if it's correct.

Appreciate the time it takes for anyone to read through these statements. Do forgive if I've left any information out. Aware that these boards get regularly checked by these companies which is why statements appear to be vague or bits of information left out. Please let us know if you require any more info.

Many thanks again in advance!

Claim No.:  xxxxxx

Between

(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. The Defendant moved in to premises at, XXXXX Court, in XXXX 2020. The previous Leaseholder to the property informed the Defendant that she was renting one of the parking spaces in the underground car park and had paid for the next three months so it was free for the Defendant to use. The previous Leaseholder provided contact details of the parking space’s owner for the Defendant to contact once the term that had been paid for was up.

4. Parking bay, space number X of which the Defendant is permitted to park within, and to what this PCN is relating to, is situated in an underground parking area under XXXX XXXX, the site of which is often referred to as XXXX XXXX and consists of "names of residence". The underground parking is gated, and can only be accessed using a remote fob or keycode which was given to the Defendant by the former leaseholder to the property and parking space when he moved in.

5. Parking is restricted for residents of XXXX XXXX and only those authorised to park in the car park are allowed a fob or the security code to get in.

4. The Defendant received a number of PCN’s from the Claimant between XXXX and XXXX 2020 while the UK was in lockdown due to COVID which the Defendant has paid.

5. On the Day Month 2020, the Defendant entered into the attached rental agreement with Company name who are the owners of parking space, bay number X.

6. The car park is managed by Property Managers, who engage the Claimant to supervise the parking arrangement at the premises and issue tickets to vehicles that are parked without required authority.

7. Not long after the Defendant entered into the rental agreement for the parking bay, the Defendant was advised by another resident that they should contact Property Managers to inform them of the vehicles registration in order add it to their electronic permit system.

8. In the intervening period between execution of rental agreement for the parking space and registration with the property company, the Defendant received 3 further tickets from the Claimants, one of which forms the basis for this claim.

9. The Defendant contacted the Claimants providing documentary evidence that they were authorised to park at the location that they had issued tickets and explained that they should be cancelled as the Defendant was authorised and approved to park in the location as demonstrated by the valid rental agreement. The Claimant then insisted to the property managers that no one had informed them that the Defendant was authorised under signed contract to park in bay X.

10. The Claimants back office seems to be non existent, they appear to have no staff, and their automated systems are only set up to receive payments. The Defendant attempted to use their online appeals process, but this just seems another route to payment.

11. Further and in the alternative, the signs refer to 'Registered Users Only/No Unauthorised Parking', and suggest that failiure to comply with the following will result in a breach of contract, and a parking charge of £100. This is clearly a nonsense, since the Claimant is not the owner, but merely manages the issue of permits and wardens the parking area.

11.1. The Defendant's vehicle clearly was 'authorised' as per the contract signed and the Defendant relies on primacy of contract and avers that the Claimant's conduct in aggressive ticketing is in fact a matter of tortious interference, being a private nuisance to residents. In this case the Claimant continues to cause a substantial and unreasonable interference


Below this would be the remainder of the template provided in NEWBIES thread from point 4. onwards. Am I right to suggest to keep everything as is, or are there some points that should be omitted?

KeithP

Hello and welcome.

What is the Issue Date on your County Court Claim Form?

Upon what date did you file an Acknowledgment of Service?
Your MCOL Claim History will have the definitive answer to that.

sowhatnow

Hi KeithP,

Many thanks for your response.
My issue date was ion 6th May.
My AoS was done on the 12th May.

KeithP

sowhatnow said:

My issue date was ion 6th May.
My AoS was done on the 12th May.

With a Claim Issue Date of 6th May, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Wednesday 8th June 2022 to file your Defence.

That's two weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence and it is good to see that you are not leaving 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'.

sowhatnow

Hi KeithP, I'm finalising my defence and will send through tomorrow. However I would like to ask regarding points 15 to 25 on the defence template. Are they only required for specific reasons or can they all be included in my defence?

Le_Kirk

You use all of the defence template, changing only paragraphs 2 & 3 to suit your particular circumstances.

sowhatnow

Hello,
I wanted to add to this to let you know of the conclusion. I submitted my defence in time and eventually a court date was set. I received the questionaire from DCBL and filled in my reply.
Following this I then received an email with a reduced fine for settlement, I was given 14 days to reply but I ignored. Not long after the deadline for response had passed did I receive an email containing the N279 Notice of Discontinuance.

A week later I received a new letter from DCBL demanding payments from another two PCN's which were issued around the same time as the one that originally formed this thread. They were obviously witholding them until this claim had come to a conclusion.

I'm now dealing with a new CCJ claim and as before have filed my AOC and will be using the same defence amended to fit the dates of the new CCJ claim.

I also came across the following thread: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6377263/dcb-legal-record-of-private-parking-court-claim-discontinuations/p1

The thread begins with the following points.
'adding £70 per PCN is nothing to do with ensuring that parking charges are 'enforceable' and all about funding a robo-claim model where DCBLegal have demonstrated no intention of proceeding to a court hearing to 'enforce' the parking charge.

It's all about funding a gaslighting model, calculated to 'pick off' scared victims along the road, abusing the court process and routinely giving up when Defendants don't blink.  HM Court Service and Defendants alike are just dropped at the last minute and left to suck up wasted time and costs and the whole farce starts again, and again.'

Would it be approriate to add these points (correctly worded) in my new defence? I'm assuming this would assist my case entirely as they're effectively pursuing a claim with no intention of following with court proceedings.

Coupon-mad

Yes if you like, include that assertion but the Template Defence does already deal thoroughly with the abuse of the added £70 per PCN.  So it's already in there and maybe that wording is better saved for your witness statement.

Here is what you should have sent to stop this current claim at LBC stage:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79716984/#Comment_79716984

You would not have got a claim if you'd done that!  You do need Henderson v Henderson and cause of action estoppel (as seen in that link) mentioned in this new defence though.

Search the forum for Henderson estoppel defence.


Oh yes. And congrats!  You won the first one!

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!

Calling @Umkomaas - another discontinuance. 

Umkomaas

Well done @sowhatnow, your success story is now linked in the DCB Legal Discontinuation Thread of Shame.