Parking charge - I didn't pay at the machine and didn't to pay online within 24 hours

nellie555sharks

Thanks all I think I was in a bit of a state afterwards as it felt really touch and go and I thought it wasn’t guaranteed it was gone which it is as long as we do the defence which of course we will do.
Just very stressed out from it all.

Thanks again I will read and compose it all and post here before sending.

So grateful for all the support and knowledge 

Le_Kirk

Of course, if the POC on the original N1 claim form were sparse, you can use the @hharry100 defence.

nellie555sharks

Hi all,

Thank you for your comments and direction. Below are numbers 2 and 3 I have personalised for the template defence for you to review.

I am getting 2 photos today to provide to show the lack of boundary on the site and also the signage that are quoted as annexes in 3ii.

Any comments would be welcome thank you.

The facts known to the Defendant:

2. The facts in this defence come from the Defendant's own knowledge and honest belief.  Conversely, the Claimant sets out a cut-and-paste incoherent and sparse statement of case provided to the defendant by Deputy District Judge David Willink during the hearing dated 17.11.2023 at 3pm. However, the vehicle is recognised and it is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper and driver.

Given the extended period of time that has passed from the beginning of this case, the defendant  provides a detailed timeline of events below.

The alleged breach was 07.11.2018 with the reason given as ‘driver left site’. The defendant appealed the parking charge online approximately 2 weeks after receiving the ticket that was stuck to the windscreen of vehicle registration EY16 XXX. No response was received at all to this. The defendant appealed citing a breach of the BPA Code of Conduct (Version January 2018)

·       Grace Period

13.2 If the parking location is one where parking is normally permitted, you must allow the driver a reasonable grace period in addition to the parking event before enforcement action is taken. In such instances the grace period must be a minimum of 10 minutes.

(The time seen and time ticket issued were both 13:01 so no grace period was given)

09.01.2019 Letter received from Debt Recovery Plus saying that the charge had increased to £160.

25.01.2019 2nd Letter received from Debt Recovery Plus titled ‘Notice of Intending Court Action’

Defendant spent several days calling UKPC convinced it was a clerical error as no response has been received to the appeal made. When calling the number detailed on the website, there was an option to choose if you wanted to speak to someone but the call was cut off. This happened every time.

30.01.2019 - Defendant called Debt Recovery Plus and asked for a note to be placed on the account that they were trying to contact UKPC to gain a response about the appeal. The defendant was told that an email was apparently sent on the 25/11/2019 rejecting the appeal and the charge stands. This email was not received by the defendant else they would have taken the complaint to IAS or POPLA.

11/02/2019 – Formal Complaint made to UKPC (Annex 1) and copy sent to BPA advising them UKPC were in breach of the BPA Code of Conduct (Cover letter – Annex 2)

14/03/2019 – A response was received from UKPC but did not address the points raised in the formal complaint. A complaint was made to the BPA on this date with copies of the previous correspondence as UKPC failed to address the points raised in the formal letter of complaint. (Annex 3).

19/03/2019 – A further letter sent to UKPC requesting a response to my formal complaint (Annex 4).

NO FURTHER CORRESPONDENCE WAS RECEIVED AT ALL. The next time the defendant heard anything more about this charge was on the 17/03/2023 when the defendant received a copy of the POC from a default judgement obtained 07/03/2023. The defendant received a notification on change of credit score and that a CCJ had been applied.

The defendant moved property on 23/03/2022 and changed address with the DVLA within the first months of living in the property.

Given the length of time that had passed from the last correspondence received (before 14/03/2019) they had a duty to check the current address of the keeper in order to correctly serve the claim. They did not and instead a default CCJ was obtained.

Further to the original BPA breach of ‘Grace Period’ not being given, the defendant also states the below additional breach;

BPA (Version Jan 2018) Notice to Keeper not received.

20.8 If you have issued a parking charge notice to a driver in your car park but had no response, you may wish to take the next step to recover the charge.

20.9 Or, if you were unable to issue a parking charge notice while the driver was present, perhaps because you use ANPR or camera equipment to monitor the car park, you may want to issue a parking charge notice by post.

20.10 In either case, you will need to try to identify who was driving the vehicle and make contact with them. You do this by first seeking the keeper details from the DVLA. Having received the keeper details from the DVLA you will need to issue a ‘Notice to Keeper’.

nellie555sharks

I have also added the below information underneath the grace period section as additional information.

The car park in question is an open car park for users of Stevenage Leisure Park to use the facilities for up to 3 hours. There is no ANPR recognition or dedicated parking attendant location / hut / property. Instead the attendant resides in their car watching the stair case to see if anyone climbs the stairs before issuing them with a ticket for an apparent breach of site usage. This is based on their sight only and  which they state is the boundary of the site despite not making this clear. The signage is too high for an average person to read without issue and the print too fine to be read easily. (See Annexes 5 & 6). 

Coupon-mad

But that doesn't include the Chan case linked in para 3 of the Template Defence.

nellie555sharks

Coupon-mad said:

But that doesn't include the Chan case linked in para 3 of the Template Defence.

Hi Thanks for this, the above is only number 2 on the template. The rest I have left as per the template so for number 3 the link should be there.

Can I still ask at this stage to have the court fee reimbursed from the other side for the set aside?

Assume it’s ok otherwise to be sent?

Coupon-mad

The Template Defence shows where to put the Chan image, and it takes two paragraphs.

nellie555sharks

Coupon-mad said:

The Template Defence shows where to put the Chan image, and it takes two paragraphs.

OK I misunderstood as QDR did put the detail of what the breach was in the POC so I discounted that it was relevant to my case. 

I have now copied the below;

1.  The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.  It is denied that any conduct by the driver was in breach of any term.  Further, it is denied that this Claimant (understood to have a bare licence as agents) has standing to sue or form contracts in their own name. Liability is denied, whether or not the Claimant is claiming 'keeper liability', which is unclear from the boilerplate text in the Particulars of Claim ('the POC').

Preliminary matter: The claim should be struck out

2. The Defendant draws to the attention of the allocating Judge that there is now a persuasive Appeal judgment to support striking out the claim (in these exact circumstances of typically poorly pleaded private parking claims, and the extant PoC seen here are far worse than the one seen on Appeal).  The Defendant believes that dismissing this meritless claim is the correct course, with the Overriding Objective in mind.  Bulk litigators (legal firms) should know better than to make little or no attempt to comply with the Practice Direction.  By continuing to plead cases with generic auto-fill unspecific wording, private parking firms should not be surprised when courts strike out their claims based in the following persuasive authority.

 

3. A recent persuasive appeal judgment in Civil Enforcement Limited v Chan (Ref. E7GM9W44) would indicate the POC fails to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4 and Practice Direction Part 16. On the 15th August 2023, in the cited case, HHJ Murch held that 'the particulars of the claim as filed and served did not set out the conduct which amounted to the breach in reliance upon which the claimant would be able to bring a claim for breach of contract'. The same is true in this case and in view of the Chan judgment, the Court should strike out the claim, using its powers pursuant to CPR 3.4

And I have the 4 images of the transcript to paste in also.

I'm a bit nervous given the attitude of the judge in question but I will go with it. It would be nice to get the court fee back and I have put that at the bottom in para 29.

1505grandad

Reminders:-

"The case is against my husband and he was driving."

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/79926766/#Comment_79926766

 THE CONTRAVENTION BEING     VEHICLE OWNER DRIVER LEFT SITE.. 

Coupon-mad

I misunderstood as QDR did put the detail of what the breach was in the POC so I discounted that it was relevant to my case. 

Then you can't use Chan. Take it back out!