County claim form - Defence draft (parking in own resident car park)

kal_uk

Hi guys - thank you for the wonderful tips and templates, I have spent hours going through the newbie thread!

I received a claim form from county court business centre for a PCN parking in private land (my residents car park) from over 4 years ago. This was issued to me on on 12 September and I have already done the AOS. I have spent all evening writing the defence, can i please ask if any of the experts advise changing anything?

DEFENCE

1. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.

 

2.     It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle in question but liability is denied.

 

3.     The Defendant can neither confirm nor deny with certainty who was driving that day as the day in question was over 4 years ago and believes there may have been at least one other named driver insured on the vehicle at the time. The defendant at the time was dealing with the breakdown of a serious relationship which was causing mental health issues and so it is the Defendant’s position that it is likely that he was not the driver.

 

4. The Particulars refer to the material location as ”X”. The Defendant has, since 8th August 2012, held legal title under the terms of a lease, to “X” at that location. At some point, the managing agents contracted with the Claimant company to enforce parking conditions at the estate.

 

5. The car parking area contains allocated parking spaces demised to some residents, and a general area for residents who do not have an allocated space. The car park can only be entered by a fob. The defendant appealed the original PCN, the driver had parked for over 5 years without a problem and believes the parking Permit had unfortunately fallen from the dashboard on the day of question. The driver did not receive a response to the appeal, the claimant claimed to have sent a reduced PCN, however this was not received by the defendant and when went to appeal again was told it was too late, with aggressive debt demands constantly following after.

 

6. There are no terms within the lease requiring lessees to display parking permits, or to pay penalties to third parties, such as the Claimant, for non-display of same.

 

7. The Claimant, or Managing Agent, in order to establish a right to impose unilateral terms which vary the terms of the lease, must have such variation approved by at least 75% of the leaseholders, pursuant to s37 of the Landlord & Tenant Act 1987, and the Defendant is unaware of any such vote having been passed by the residents.

 

8. The Defendant's vehicle clearly was 'authorised' 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 with the Defendant's property, or his use or enjoyment of that property.

 

9. The Claimant, or their legal representatives, has added additional sums to the original parking charge, for which no explanation or justification has been provided. Schedule 4 of the Protection Of Freedoms Act, at 4(5), states that the maximum sum which can be recovered is that specified in the Notice to Keeper. It is submitted that this is an attempt at double recovery by the Claimant, which the Court should not uphold, even in the event that Judgment for Claimant is awarded.

10. For all or any of the reasons stated above, the Court is invited to dismiss the Claim in its entirety. Given that the amount claimed on the claim form is inexplicably £304.08, the Defendant avers that this inflation of the considered amount is a gross abuse of process. The Defendant believes that it is in the public interest that claims like this should be struck out because knowingly enhanced parking claims like this one cause consumer harm on a grand scale

Statement of Truth

I believe that the facts stated in this defence are true.  I understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought against anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest belief in its truth.

KeithP

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

Who is the Claimant - UKPC?

kal_uk

Thanks Keith for coming back to me, I filed the AOS yesterday, the claimant is UKPC.

In your expert opinion, Is there anything you would add or remove to the defence? I am not very smart with legal stuff and jargon, I could do with all the help I can get!

Le_Kirk

In my opinion you would be better using the standard defence template and adding the usual "own space" defence points at paragraph #2 as you have done at your paragraphs 4-8 but leave out your personal circumstances. A defence is a series of technical/legal arguments (title held under lease, primacy of contract, terms of lease and key fob etc.) and you can add the narrative your story) at witness statement stage.

kal_uk

Thanks Le Kirk, I have to be honest I was a bit worried to go too much into legal arguments in case it goes to court and my lack of legal knowledge is exposed

KeithP

kal_uk said:

I received a claim form from county court business centre... issued to me on on 12 September and I have already done the AOS.

kal_uk said:

I filed the AOS yesterday...

With a Claim Issue Date of 12th September, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 17th October 2022 to file your Defence.

That's over four weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence and it is good to see 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'.

Le_Kirk

kal_uk said:

Thanks Le Kirk, I have to be honest I was a bit worried to go too much into legal arguments in case it goes to court and my lack of legal knowledge is exposed

My point is that the defence is the place for legal/technical and the witness statement is the pace for the narrative.  We have a standard template defence (unless it is ParkingEye) for you to use.

Trainerman

Following from what @Le_Kirk said, I think a lot of your first draft is good, and would make a good start to a witness statement. So, as suggested, shorten and almost 'bullet point' the relevant legal bits and add it to the template, numbering accordingly.

Coupon-mad

Le_Kirk said:

kal_uk said:

Thanks Le Kirk, I have to be honest I was a bit worried to go too much into legal arguments in case it goes to court and my lack of legal knowledge is exposed

My point is that the defence is the place for legal/technical and the witness statement is the pace for the narrative.  We have a standard template defence (unless it is ParkingEye) for you to use.

kal_uk said:

Thanks Le Kirk, I have to be honest I was a bit worried to go too much into legal arguments in case it goes to court and my lack of legal knowledge is exposed

IANAL and I wrote the template defence.

I don't recall much in there that could be called a 'legal argument' except the point about POFA/keeper liability.  A point you need!

Which points in it are you finding it hard to know how to voice in court? We can explain more.

You should use all of the Template Defence (otherwise you are not covering all bases) and just slot your points into the facts.  You will be adding several numbered paragraphs then re-numbering the rest of the Template.

kal_uk

Thank you all for your feedback, I will get back to work on the second draft, appreciate the support 

patient_dream

As this is UKPC, we assume their legal is DCBL ?

We keep saying that DCBL take on the most crap cases from UKPC and this is how most end up .... being discontinued OR ..... DCBL being spanked in court

You could not make this up .... amazing the penny has not dropped about UKPC

DCB LEGAL RECORD OF PRIVATE PARKING COURT CLAIM DISCONTINUATIONS

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6377263/dcb-legal-record-of-private-parking-court-claim-discontinuations/p1

When you use Google search, this firm has so many negatives but they still try it on to get monopoly money

Doubt they will wake up until a court sanctions them or the SRA do.