UKPC/DCBLegal County Court Claim Defence

wetman

Hello

Long-time lurker, first-time poster. Hoping to get some feedback on my defence

Background
Between 2016 and 2018, I received around 10-15 parking tickets at a residential site of which I was a resident. The site was permitted, but owing to various problems in obtaining permits from UKPC, I was often forced to park my car without displaying a valid permit. My tenancy agreement gave me parking rights and I had explicit approval from the letting agent and my landlord (the leaseholder) to park in the car park. I also sent lots of emails to UKPC. Many of the tickets were eventually cancelled, others I ignored after emailing UKPC with a comprehensive explanation of what was going on.

Fast forward to two weeks ago and I have received a claim form through the CCBC from DCBLegal for one of these tickets issued in 2018. This ticket was issued to a car that I was driving, but was not a vehicle that I had a residents permit for. Also of note is that I did not receive a LBC (or it was sent to a previous address).

Having relied on this forum's detailed and reassuring advice for many years, I have followed as best I can the instructions in the Newbie thread. Here's where I'm up to:

• SAR sent to UKPC asking for all correspondence, photos etc. (no response as yet);
• Notice sent to DCBLegal letting them know I have sent a SAR, and letting them know my current address (which has changed many times since the tickets were issued);
• Acknowledged service through the MCOL site. 

Defence
I'm using the template defence; here's my sections 2 and 3 (to be renumbered). I would really appreciate some feedback on these points, plus advice of any other points to add. 

2. It is admitted that the Defendant was the driver of the vehicle in question.

3. The Defendant was a resident of xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx - the residential building associated with the site where this PCN was issued. The residential rights of the Defendant - as given by the tenancy contract - allow parking at the site. As well as the tenancy contract, the Defendant had explicit permission from the Leaseholder and the letting agent of the property to park at the site. There was no suggestion that this was limited to one particular vehicle.

4. Permits issued by the Claimant to the Defendant were not done in a timely fashion, meaning the Defendant was often forced to park with no permit. In this case, the Defendant was not provided with a valid visitors permit. The Defendant cannot be held responsible for delays in sending out permits. The Defendant received multiple other parking tickets at this site from the Claimant that the Claimant has acknowledged were wrongfully issued and have been canceled.

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.

wetman

Issue date was 12th September and Acknowledgement of Service on the 15th. 

Umkomaas

You seem quite au fait with the way this forum operates and looks like you're well able to get on top of this claim. I wonder whether from your reading of the forum you have seen the following thread - it may be of some relevance and interest to you. 

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

You must keep going through all the necessary court procedure phases, but the hope is that your case will follow the same pattern of all those detailed in the thread. 

Coupon-mad

That defence looks fine, but you might also gain some ideas for wording from the example residential defence linked in the NEWBIES thread which covers the primacy of contract angle and the fact you were de facto authorised and had no obligation to display any permit.

KeithP

wetman said:

Issue date was 12th September and Acknowledgement of Service on the 15th. 

With a Claim Issue Date of 12th September, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service on 15th September, you have until 4pm on Thursday 13th October 2022 to file your Defence.

That's over two 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'.

wetman

Thanks all.

Funnily enough, I've just received the evidence from the SAR request form UKPC (literally as I was typing out my post), and this is even more ridiculous than I remember.

The car was parked with a valid visitors permit. It's parked in the bay next to my residents bay, which you can see from the photographs is occupied my a car that is not mine! In any case, there is no distinction in the car park between which spaces are visitors and which are residents bays (even the permit doesn't say). Hence I will change my point 4 to:

The vehicle was parked with a valid visitors permit clearly on display. The vehicle was parked in the space adjacent to the Defendants own residents bay, which at the time was occupied by another vehicle which prevented the defendant from parking in the correct bay. In any case, there is no indication form the signage at the site, or on the permit, which bays should be used by visitors for parking and hence this cannot be said to be a breach of the parking terms.

Coupon-mad

Perfect.

Maybe the rogue car was the UKPC ticketer's car.  Clever little scam when PPCs do that.