compiling defence for unfair parking ticket, county court business centre stage

Coupon-mad

Please confirm you are using the 34 paragraph defence I advised you to use?

Le_Kirk

Don't send evidence,  such as that picture of the sign, with your defence. You could also simplify your defence wording along the lines suggested by @B789 and keep War and Peace for the witness statement. 

Ysekots

Coupon-mad said:

Please confirm you are using the 34 paragraph defence I advised you to use?

Hi, yes I’m using the johny86 one, it has 35 paragraphs. but I’m also using the other defence draft from the newbies page (27 paragraphs) alongside because I’m finding the instructions useful and it had the correct headings etc 

Ysekots

B789 said:

You are arguing primacy of contract, lack of authority, no contract due to prohibiting sign and of course all the other items that go in with your defence. There are literally hundreds of threads with this type of defence where you adapt your para #3.

Here is a link to the template you should be using, especially for the farcical duo of UKPC/DCB Legal as it includes all the extra paragraphs about Yasmin Mia's contemptuous statement of untruth:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/66hosld75llha3j/2023 defence.pdf?dl=0

Thank you, I’m currently using another template that I was advised to use by another forumite. but I’ll definitely give this a read and add in any extra useful parts. That’s really helpful thanks. 

Ysekots

So I have now added in paragraphs 3-6, see below and please let me know what you think. Because of the mention of unloading I added the jopson v homeguard case.

The facts as known to the Defendant: 

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

3. The parking charges were issued at the residential site where the defendant lives. The defendant was moving into a residential property attached to the private land in question. Therefore the defendant was unloading the vehicle in question on four different occasions. The residential property is situated on the fourth floor with no lift thus requiring the defendant to carry belongings and furniture up eight flights of stairs multiple times on each occasion. 

4. The defendant stopped the vehicle in each circumstance purely for unloading purposes. As per (Laura) Jopson vs Homeguard (services Ltd), case number 9GF0A9G, His Honour Judge Harris determined that ‘The concept of parking, as opposed to stopping, is that of leaving a car for some duration of time beyond that needed for getting in or out of it, loading or unloading it and perhaps coping with some vicissitude of short duration, such as changing a wheel in the event of a puncture.’ And ‘Merely to stop a vehicle cannot be to park it’.

5. The defendants tenancy agreement has no mention of the claimants parking terms. It only lays out terms of use pertaining to the residents private use vehicle based on it; being roadworthy and properly licensed, not being a caravan, not having motor repairs carried out, and not obstructing the parking area, other vehicles or the road. All of these terms were abided by on all four occasions by the defendant. 

6. The claimant is accusing the defendant of being parked in breach of the terms on the signage with no specificity as to which term was breached. 

7. The Defendant avers that the Claimant failed to serve a Notice to Keeper compliant with the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. Consequently, the claimant cannot transfer liability for this charge to the Defendant as keeper of the vehicle. 

8. The Particulars of Claim ('POC') appear to be in breach of CPR 16.4, 16PD3 and 16PD7, and fail to "state all facts necessary for the purpose of formulating a complete cause of action”. 

B789

Ysekots said:

So I have now added in paragraphs 3-6, see below and please let me know what you think. Because of the mention of unloading I added the jopson v homeguard case.

The facts as known to the Defendant: 

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

3. The parking charges were issued at the residential site where the defendant lives. The defendant was moving into a residential property attached to the private land in question. Therefore the defendant was unloading the vehicle in question on four different separate occasions. The residential property is situated on the fourth floor with no lift thus requiring the defendant to carry belongings and furniture up eight flights of stairs multiple times on each occasion. 

4. The defendant stopped the vehicle in each circumstance purely for unloading purposes. As per (Laura) Jopson vs Homeguard (services Ltd), case number 9GF0A9G, His Honour Judge Harris determined that ‘The concept of parking, as opposed to stopping, is that of leaving a car for some duration of time beyond that needed for getting in or out of it, loading or unloading it and perhaps coping with some vicissitude of short duration, such as changing a wheel in the event of a puncture.’ And ‘Merely to stop a vehicle cannot be to park it’.

5. The defendants tenancy agreement has no mention of the claimants parking terms. It only lays out terms of use pertaining to the residents private use vehicle based on it; being roadworthy and properly licensed, not being a caravan, not having motor repairs carried out, and not obstructing the parking area, other vehicles or the road. All of these terms were abided by on all four occasions by the defendant. 

6. The claimant is accusing the defendant of being parked in breach of the terms on the signage with no specificity as to which term was breached. 

7. The Defendant avers that the Claimant failed to serve a Notice to Keeper compliant with the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. Consequently, the claimant cannot transfer liability for this charge to the Defendant as keeper of the vehicle. 

8. The Particulars of Claim ('POC') appear to be in breach of CPR 16.4, 16PD3 and 16PD7, and fail to "state all facts necessary for the purpose of formulating a complete cause of action”. 

I hope you are including all the other paragraphs and renumbering them after the above?

Just suggesting a slight edit (highlighted) to the above.

Ysekots

B789 said:

Ysekots said:

So I have now added in paragraphs 3-6, see below and please let me know what you think. Because of the mention of unloading I added the jopson v homeguard case.

The facts as known to the Defendant: 

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

3. The parking charges were issued at the residential site where the defendant lives. The defendant was moving into a residential property attached to the private land in question. Therefore the defendant was unloading the vehicle in question on four different separate occasions. The residential property is situated on the fourth floor with no lift thus requiring the defendant to carry belongings and furniture up eight flights of stairs multiple times on each occasion. 

4. The defendant stopped the vehicle in each circumstance purely for unloading purposes. As per (Laura) Jopson vs Homeguard (services Ltd), case number 9GF0A9G, His Honour Judge Harris determined that ‘The concept of parking, as opposed to stopping, is that of leaving a car for some duration of time beyond that needed for getting in or out of it, loading or unloading it and perhaps coping with some vicissitude of short duration, such as changing a wheel in the event of a puncture.’ And ‘Merely to stop a vehicle cannot be to park it’.

5. The defendants tenancy agreement has no mention of the claimants parking terms. It only lays out terms of use pertaining to the residents private use vehicle based on it; being roadworthy and properly licensed, not being a caravan, not having motor repairs carried out, and not obstructing the parking area, other vehicles or the road. All of these terms were abided by on all four occasions by the defendant. 

6. The claimant is accusing the defendant of being parked in breach of the terms on the signage with no specificity as to which term was breached. 

7. The Defendant avers that the Claimant failed to serve a Notice to Keeper compliant with the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. Consequently, the claimant cannot transfer liability for this charge to the Defendant as keeper of the vehicle. 

8. The Particulars of Claim ('POC') appear to be in breach of CPR 16.4, 16PD3 and 16PD7, and fail to "state all facts necessary for the purpose of formulating a complete cause of action”. 

I hope you are including all the other paragraphs and renumbering them after the above?

Just suggesting a slight edit (highlighted) to the above.

Yes all the other paragraphs follow and are numbered correctly, I have 38 paragraphs in total now. Thanks for the amendment, I have added that in

B789

@Ysekots, you mention in your original post:

I completed the initial appeal on 12/03/22, the latter reponse from them was received in May. At which stage it was too late to make any appeals to the remaining PCNs and they were already passed on to DCB legal. 
DCB legal then sent letters to my old address for nearly a year until i received two separate claims from the county court business centre. i collected my post from my old address a month after one of the claims was sent so i missed the acknowledgment of service deadline and the judgment was issued against me which i had no choice but to pay (approx. £290). the second claim i received was for £691.20 and i submitted the acknowledgment of service online today (05/03/23) which is within the 14 day deadline thankfully.

I don't think anyone has actually responded about that bit which was submerged amongst all the info about the other 4 PCNs.

If the Claim was sent to an address you no longer resided at, then you should apply for a set-aside. If the Claimant has not adhered to CPR 6.9(3) because they have failed to show due diligence in using an address at which you no longer reside, then the claimant has not taken reasonable steps to ascertain the address of your current residence despite having plenty of time to establish the correct address for service. This led to the Claim being incorrectly served to an old address and an irregular judgment.

Under CPR 13.2 the court must set aside a judgment entered under part 12 if judgment was wrongly entered. Given that CPR 6.9 (3) was not met, CPR 13.2 applies and the CCJ should be set aside.

Hopefully one of the legal experts will advise whether to apply for this set aside separately or get it set aside and then the original Claim added to the 4 you are currently Defending.

Ysekots

B789 said:

@Ysekots, you mention in your original post:

I completed the initial appeal on 12/03/22, the latter reponse from them was received in May. At which stage it was too late to make any appeals to the remaining PCNs and they were already passed on to DCB legal. 
DCB legal then sent letters to my old address for nearly a year until i received two separate claims from the county court business centre. i collected my post from my old address a month after one of the claims was sent so i missed the acknowledgment of service deadline and the judgment was issued against me which i had no choice but to pay (approx. £290). the second claim i received was for £691.20 and i submitted the acknowledgment of service online today (05/03/23) which is within the 14 day deadline thankfully.

I don't think anyone has actually responded about that bit which was submerged amongst all the info about the other 4 PCNs.

If the Claim was sent to an address you no longer resided at, then you should apply for a set-aside. If the Claimant has not adhered to CPR 6.9(3) because they have failed to show due diligence in using an address at which you no longer reside, then the claimant has not taken reasonable steps to ascertain the address of your current residence despite having plenty of time to establish the correct address for service. This led to the Claim being incorrectly served to an old address and an irregular judgment.

Under CPR 13.2 the court must set aside a judgment entered under part 12 if judgment was wrongly entered. Given that CPR 6.9 (3) was not met, CPR 13.2 applies and the CCJ should be set aside.

Hopefully one of the legal experts will advise whether to apply for this set aside separately or get it set aside and then the original Claim added to the 4 you are currently Defending.

Ah yes, I did get a reply about this. I was advised to do it separately because if after receiving my defence they throw out the case it means the set aside request will also be thrown out. 

So what I’m going to do is a counter claim at a later date when I have the money for the application, as it costs just under £300 to do. But if I win they should cover the cost of my application and reimburse me for the amount I paid them. Also if I win this case, I can use it as part of my counter claim and also argue the Henderson rule where basically they should have combined all of the claims in one case as they are all so similar and by separating them they are just wasting the court and everyone else’s time. I’ve done my research and I have loads of time to do it so hopefully I can make a really solid counter claim. 

Thank you for the extra info on this, I will add it to my research. 

B789

Do you mean a "set aside" rather than a "counterclaim"?