QDR Solicitors County Court Claim; should I pay?

User4815162342

Coupon-mad said:

Google Street view has old images.  Go and look, move the little yellow man to the right place (car park entrance) and use the little date arrow.

You must ALWAYS argue insufficient signage in any parking defence. It's the whole crux of most cases.

So this is the clearest & closest shot on Google Street View of the car park & signage. I essentially parked where that grey car did:

Those signs are well placed and the individual ones said something along the lines of 'Permit Only', which I did not have. So how could I argue this in my Defence please?

Coupon-mad

Why did you park there? I am trying to understand why you thought you were permitted?

User4815162342

Coupon-mad said:

Why did you park there? I am trying to understand why you thought you were permitted?

I had a meeting with the company whose building is based on the left side (as we look from the photo) of this alley - we were essentially under the impression that it was okay to park there as they said they had none of their own parking (what they actually had suggested was to park on the left hand side of the brick wall, not where we did park)

Coupon-mad

Ok and have you seen the Claimant's SAR photos showing your car and what the various signs actually say?

DCBLegal discontinues over half the cases we see. You may as well continue, and defend saying you had the honest belief that this was the area you had verbal permission to park in, and certainly no sign prominently warned of paying £100 to park there.

If there had been prominent terms about some sort of £100 contractual agreement, then you would not have parked. There was no meeting of minds because at best, £100 must be positively buried in small print because none of the occupants of the car thought you were breaching any rules, having been invited to use that area and given the clear impression you could park in any of the bays.

Do not guess what the signs may or may not have said. 

EDITED TO CORRECT - sorry thought you were at WS stage as you asked about WS earlier.

User4815162342

Coupon-mad said:

Ok and have you seen the Claimant's SAR photos showing your car and what the various signs actually say?

Yes I did see them online (which I can no longer view as the claim has been passed on), but do not have evidence of what the signs actually said. I am trying to obtain evidence, but doubt this is going to be able to happen before my Defence deadline.

Coupon-mad said:

Attach evidence of your authorised visit. Attach other exhibits as seen in the WS example by @wobs2k - but obviously don't just copy verbatim stuff about the IPC Code of Practice if your PPC is a BPA member. You have to make your version make sense for your case.

Are you saying to provide evidence of my visit to the meeting that occurred on that day? Again, this may be hard to provide before the deadline for my Defence, or is this something that will be provided as evidence for the hearing at a later date (along with the WS based on wobs2k's one)?

User4815162342

So for submitting my defence, is this anywhere near satisfactory?:

"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.

3. The Defendant was under the belief that they were entitled to park in the parking spot, based on advice from a local business. The Defendant had the honest belief that this was an area they had verbal permission to park in, and certainly no sign prominently warned of paying £100 to park there. If there had been prominent terms about some sort of £100 contractual agreement, then the Defendant would not have parked in this area. There was no meeting of minds because at best, £100 must be positively buried in small print as none of the occupants of the car thought the Defendant was breaching any rules, having been invited to use that area and given the clear impression the Defendant could park in any of the bays."

Apologies if this is not any good, but I am really struggling to get a grasp of it all, but do appreciate all the kind support and help that is available and being provided.

Coupon-mad

No-one needs a SAR reply to come back before defence stage.

But do get the SAR now anyway, to inform you at WS stage.

Evidence is not submitted until a good few months' time, as we already told you.  So you have ages to gather proof of the authorised visit (an email would suffice).   

That defence is fine, within the rest of the Template Defence. See how easy that was?

Le_Kirk

User4815162342 said:

3. The Defendant was under the belief that they were entitled to park in the parking spot, based on advice from a local the business that they were visiting. The Defendant had the honest belief that this was an area they had verbal permission to park in, and certainly no sign prominently warned of paying £100 to park there. If there had been prominent terms about some sort of £100 contractual agreement, then the Defendant would not have parked in this area. There was no meeting of minds because at best, £100 must be positively buried in small print as none of the occupants of the car thought the Defendant was breaching any rules, having been invited to use that area and given the clear impression the Defendant could park in any of the bays."

Apologies if this is not any good, but I am really struggling to get a grasp of it all, but do appreciate all the kind support and help that is available and being provided.

I would just clarify the point  for the judge.

User4815162342

KeithP said:

User4815162342 said:
...it was a private permit area, so I had no right to be there at all as it were.

Then the signs are very important.

For example, if the signs forbid parking for people who don't have a permit, then there is no way that a forbidden driver could actually agree a contract to park.

Please tell us exactly what the driver has been accused of.
Please show us pictures of the signs.

I have finally been able to get a picture of the sign that is in place at the car par at preset. I cannot confirm if this is the same one as when I parked there, but nonetheless, please see below.


Any further advice or support will be greatly appreciated, thanks. 

Coupon-mad

As expected. Nothing about our advice has changed.