New Generation Parking Management Ltd/DCBL - County Court Claim Form

Nate_J

KeithP said:

When is your witness statement and evidence filing deadline?

I ask because claimants often/usually leave leave theirs to the last minute.
Make sure your witness statement and evidence isn't filed and served late.

The date provided on the letter is tomorrow 'By 20th February' I had started drafting previously but had to put on hold for a while as I dealt with some other urgent matters going on. Does this mean by end of working day tomorrow? It's not much of an issue as I've still got time to draft it all up today in any case.

The claimant sent theirs on 14th, which is another reason I held off as I didn't want to spend time on the witness statement if they were going to end up discontinuing the claim as per the DCBL thread with now over a hundred discontinuances. I am now assuming they do want to take it further, or just wanted to play their card to see if I would produce a witness statement.

Boat_to_Bolivia

The experts here recommend adapting the WS as written by @aphex007.

Yes you have until 4pm tomorrow to file it to your local court where the hearing is to take place.

Galloglass

The claimant sent theirs on 14th

In their WS how they deal with the issue of their contract and how they argue it overrides your right to use the common areas. 

What does your actual rental agreement say as where there are two competing contracts (your tenancy / their signs) the dates will be relevant. Were NGPM on site before you started living there?

Nate_J

Galloglass said:

The claimant sent theirs on 14th

In their WS how they deal with the issue of their contract and how they argue it overrides your right to use the common areas. 

What does your actual rental agreement say as where there are two competing contracts (your tenancy / their signs) the dates will be relevant. Were NGPM on site before you started living there?

I moved into that rental property in back in 2014 (as of 2020, I no longer reside there), and the tenancy agreement does not at all refer to any car parking information whatsoever.

NGPM were not then employed, I believe they took over in 2018.

Galloglass

Your argument will be a Primacy of Contract one. There were two contracts - your tenancy which did not bind you to NGPM's terms as NGPM had no property rights when you moved in and the Claimant (C) needs to show the terms in any lease or tenancy subsequently that extinguished your rights when they were subsequently hired.

It's all well and good them turning up saying they had a contract (the signs) but so did you and it was before theirs. 

Nate_J

Galloglass said:

Your argument will be a Primacy of Contract one. There were two contracts - your tenancy which did not bind you to NGPM's terms as NGPM had no property rights when you moved in and the Claimant (C) needs to show the terms in any lease or tenancy subsequently that extinguished your rights when they were subsequently hired.

It's all well and good them turning up saying they had a contract (the signs) but so did you and it was before theirs. 

Thanks for that input,

The claimants witness statement includes a parking control agreement. I recall there being some kind of smart phone application, therefore I believe that they were allowing the tenants of each parking bay a way of reporting parking offences, which I never did because it seemed like a waste of time as it didn't stop anyone parking in my bay (happened on countless occasions), and now it seems it was just to get the tenants to do their job for them. But I have no recollection of ever signing any parking agreement when they took over.

EDIT: 

I have also just read this within their witness statement

Coupon-mad

But you will putting into evidence case law that says otherwise.

Search the forum for:

witness statement PACE v Noor

or

witness statement Link v Parkinson

DO NOT use the example bundle in the NEWBIES thread that includes Crosby (the Southampton case) as that is old news and a similar one was appealed.

Use the recent WS bundles posted by @SJRRJS or @aphex007 as your base then search the forum for recent 2022 WS about residential cases.  Copy & adapt.

Galloglass

The argument they are putting forward in viii is "consideration". 

They are suggesting that you "took out" a contract with them in return for them patrolling your space for you. Clearly you didn't accept though they will try to argue you did.

They have also tried to reverse the burden of proof by saying that you have to prove you didn't take their offer which is nonsense as they have no evidence you did accept their terms. It's a "rope a dope" argument.

Simply state and provide a copy of your tenancy to show the terms pre-date theirs; there has been no consideration offered or accepted which changed the tenancy terms. You could also add that despite their claims of policing the space, it was in fact the other residents and even then their policing of spaces was ineffectual (as their staff did not carry out the function they were hired to undertake.)

Nate_J

I have drafted my WS based on the template suggestions, I don't think there's much to it in my case, but also didn't want to contradict myself at the same time by adding overly unnecessary information.

I have created a dropbox link below, if anyone has further suggestions, It'd be much appreciated although the deadline is looming and there's probably not a lot more that I can edit in time.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sxoul4nxzhg1lqo/Witness Statement redacted.pdf?dl=0

KeithP

Just a quick glance... you have two Statements of Truth.