VCS County Court Claim - Hearing Stage: I Won!!!

Mouse007

Fantastic, well done. If you could provide a little more comment to explain what happened it would be much appreciated by the regulars - we like to know what worked and do derive some satisfaction when our advice is confirmed as well placed.

koahanee

Hi all,

Sorry about the delay in getting back. Work got a bit busy so I didn’t get round to check the forum till now.

So I took the advice and arrived in court half an hour early. As I was waiting, the VCS solicitor asked the DJ Usher to tannoy me?! He then approached me and said if I would like a word before we went into hearing. I just politely say no. I never delved in but I reckon at this point he would probably ask if I wanted to settle outside court. Interestingly, he introduced himself as a ‘soliciting agent’ which made me wonder whether he is actually a solicitor.

Then the Usher took us to the hearing room shortly after. The judge seemed to know VCS solicitor but he was actually really nice and sensible. He wasn’t impressed with VCS witness statement - he said it was skeleton with loads of repeating law cases and very little factual evidence. Even the VCS soliciting agent himself called it a  ‘sausage statement’ 😂 One thing that everyone was correct - the VCs agent didn’t look at the case in details before hands; he said he only got assigned the case the night before and kept asking for pauses to look through my statement and VCS statement.

So essentially my case rested on three main points:

1. The landowner authorised the cancellation of my ticket. However, VCS argued that the contract from the signage is between myself and their company and their parking management contract with the landowner doesn’t have a cancellation law so landowner cannot cancel the ticket - which the judge wasn’t fully convinced.

2. Primacy if contract: Myself as the leaseholder and my lease allow me to use the common area. However, the judge did say this is open to interpretation.

3. The fact that VCS never sent me a PCN in the first place - the first letter I received from them was 2 months after and it was a demand for payment. What turned the case was that the VCS SAR didn’t not show that the PCN was sent, but it showed that other letters e.g the letter before action was sent. The judge said without the PCN then a contract was not formed and hence the claim was dismissed.

In all honesty, it was stressful at time preparing all my docs and I was a bit nervous (although I put on a poker face - one good thing that my day job trained me well for  🤣)  but it was definitely rewarding when I was told that I won the case. Gotta say it’s probably VCS greed and their threatening and intimidation tactics are what anger and then motivate me lol 😂 and I’m glad that I fought them till the end! 😃

Grizebeck

Good report

Johnersh

Congratulations - but Jesus: The routine dispatch of unqualified staff who've never read the papers really should be clamped down on. Once upon a time a 'solicitor agent' was a qualified lawyer acting as a stand in. Now, the term is manipulated so that any old Johnny-come-lately can claim to be authorised to do a hearing. 

Glad that the o/p stood their ground. 

Finally, this report is interesting insofar as I think this is the first case I have seen on here which had turned on a disclosure point. 

Grizebeck

Johnersh said:

Congratulations - but Jesus: The routine dispatch of unqualified staff who've never read the papers really should be clamped down on. Once upon a time a 'solicitor agent' was a qualified lawyer acting as a stand in. Now, the term is manipulated so that any old Johnny-come-lately can claim to be authorised to do a hearing. 

Glad that the o/p stood their ground. 

Finally, this report is interesting insofar as I think this is the first case I have seen on here which had turned on a disclosure point. 

This is the norm for these cases

Snakes_Belly

Great report.

"He said he only got assigned the case the night before and kept asking for pauses to look through my statement and VCS statement."

Same in my hearing and the representative was a barrister.

Really now with video links they could surely represent themselves as they do have legally qualified people working in their legal department. 

Le_Kirk

koahanee said:

So I took the advice and arrived in court half an hour early. As I was waiting, the VCS solicitor asked the DJ Usher to tannoy me?! He then approached me and said if I would like a word before we went into hearing. I just politely say no. I never delved in but I reckon at this point he would probably ask if I wanted to settle outside court. Interestingly, he introduced himself as a ‘soliciting agent’ which made me wonder whether he is actually a solicitor.

I thought that soliciting was illegal!  Good report, thanks.  Well done on not engaging "with the enemy".

Coupon-mad

koahanee said:

Hi all,

Sorry about the delay in getting back. Work got a bit busy so I didn’t get round to check the forum till now.

So I took the advice and arrived in court half an hour early. As I was waiting, the VCS solicitor asked the DJ Usher to tannoy me?! He then approached me and said if I would like a word before we went into hearing. I just politely say no. I never delved in but I reckon at this point he would probably ask if I wanted to settle outside court. Interestingly, he introduced himself as a ‘soliciting agent’ which made me wonder whether he is actually a solicitor.

Then the Usher took us to the hearing room shortly after. The judge seemed to know VCS solicitor but he was actually really nice and sensible. He wasn’t impressed with VCS witness statement - he said it was skeleton with loads of repeating law cases and very little factual evidence. Even the VCS soliciting agent himself called it a  ‘sausage statement’ 😂 One thing that everyone was correct - the VCs agent didn’t look at the case in details before hands; he said he only got assigned the case the night before and kept asking for pauses to look through my statement and VCS statement.

So essentially my case rested on three main points:

1. The landowner authorised the cancellation of my ticket. However, VCS argued that the contract from the signage is between myself and their company and their parking management contract with the landowner doesn’t have a cancellation law so landowner cannot cancel the ticket - which the judge wasn’t fully convinced.

2. Primacy if contract: Myself as the leaseholder and my lease allow me to use the common area. However, the judge did say this is open to interpretation.

3. The fact that VCS never sent me a PCN in the first place - the first letter I received from them was 2 months after and it was a demand for payment. What turned the case was that the VCS SAR didn’t not show that the PCN was sent, but it showed that other letters e.g the letter before action was sent. The judge said without the PCN then a contract was not formed and hence the claim was dismissed.

In all honesty, it was stressful at time preparing all my docs and I was a bit nervous (although I put on a poker face - one good thing that my day job trained me well for  🤣)  but it was definitely rewarding when I was told that I won the case. Gotta say it’s probably VCS greed and their threatening and intimidation tactics are what anger and then motivate me lol 😂 and I’m glad that I fought them till the end! 😃

Very well done! Bet you were buzzing afterwards!  Thanks for the full 'court report'.

ANOTHER VCS ONE BITES THE DUST!

One favour please:

We need you - as a genuine PPC victim of aggression, sharp practice and an 'extortion' attempt to add £70 - to respond robustly to the Public Consultation on the level of parking charges and banning of the false added DRA 'fee' that too many honest motorists currently fall victim to.

It will need consumer input (powerful voices) but change is afoot. It's taken about 5 years to get to this stage:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6333036/breaking-news-government-has-announced-the-statutory-code-of-practice-and-enforcement-framework/p1

And then the industry threw victims' money at it and blocked and delayed it - explained here:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79310609/#Comment_79310609

Please now Bookmark BOTH threads and set up email alerts on your posting profile, so that you get an email alert when we post there, as we will, once the Public Consultation opens - anticipated by July...

We need people like you and your driving family & friends to respond in high numbers!

You have a personal story to tell about the culture of getting a roboclaim 'legal' firm to add a pointless £70 for their own profit, to be let loose to intimidate people.

I am sure you want your voice heard to stop this happening again.