Fined for parking in my allocated residential parking space.

1505grandad

"9.       The Defendant would like to highlight the Claimant’s insulting allegation that the Defendant has no ability to understand the complexities of his defence. This is insulting, unacceptable, amounts to abuse and should be sanctioned by the court."

I haven't looked back but have you received the claimant's WS so that you can state that?

TitaniumManta

1505grandad said:

"9.       The Defendant would like to highlight the Claimant’s insulting allegation that the Defendant has no ability to understand the complexities of his defence. This is insulting, unacceptable, amounts to abuse and should be sanctioned by the court."

I haven't looked back but have you received the claimant's WS so that you can state that?

The section this is referring to in the Claimant's WS is this:
"The Claimant would like the Court to note that the Defendant is using, for the most part, a generic defence which can be found on the internet. It is highly doubtful the the Defendant would understand the complexities of all the references to the Civil Procedure Rules, the requirements in the Act and in established case law....."

So yeah I actually did find that a bit insulting when I first read it, and when I found the response to that in someone else's WS, I felt it was a good addition to include it in my WS.

TitaniumManta

I spent quite a few hours last night giving my WS a few tweaks and tidying it up a bit. So if there aren't any further recommendations from the forum I will send it this afternoon.
I also finished the Schedule of Costs section with the £95 cost for attending the hearing and 20 hours for "Research, preparation and drafting documents" for a total of £475. I probably spent way more time than that putting all this together, but I feel like I would be lucky to get even that amount to be honest.

Thank you all for your invaluable help so far.

TitaniumManta

Hi all, so my court date is now 10 days away, and as I'm away on holiday for 6 days of that I'm trying to get everything ready as soon as possible. I have printed off my Witness Statement in preperation for it. But was hoping to get some advice for the day, which I'm a bit nervous about to be honest.

During my court appearance do I just go through each of the points of my WS or my Defence? Or will I be expected to respond to statements/questions from the Claimant? Should I have a 'main defence' and focus on that? Which I guess should be that there was no mention in my tenancy agreement about needing a parking permit for my allocated parking space.

Thanks for the help getting to this point, and any further advice you can give would be really appreciated.

Le_Kirk

Take an extra copy of your WS in case the claimant pulls the old "we didn’t get the defendant's WS judge".  The judge will lead the hearing. Dress smartly, be early to get through security (if it is a F2F hearing) and know your defence and witness statement thoroughly, it might be a good idea to have a crib sheet with bullet points (and pointers to where each point is in your document) make sure you get across each point you want to make if the judge allows you time,  address the judge as "judge" and be polite. Don't forget to ask for your costs when you win!

Coupon-mad

And don't agree to discuss the case before the hearing in a side room with their rep. Nope!

TitaniumManta

Hello all, I had my hearing a couple of days ago and wanted to update you on how it went.
So I arrived at the courthouse before my alloted hearing time. There was 12 hearings scheduled for the morning, 8 of which were against various parking companies. Which just goes to show how ridiculous the problem is with these companies.

Gladstones hadn't bothered to show up, and I didn't get into the court room for an hour and a half after my time slot. In the court room the judge asked why I hadn't included the Civil Enforcement vs Ming Tak Chan in my initial defence. I explained that I had found the evidence afterwards while doing more research and then added it to my witness statement. He then read through a few statements made by Judge Murch and after some nerve-wracking deliberation he decided that the claimant hadn't set out the conduct which amounted to the breach of contract, and struck out the case! 

While I was extremely happy to have won, it feels like it was a close decision. I think if Gladstones had sent a representative they could of argued around that decision by the judge and I would of struggled to counter them.
I then asked for my costs, but I didn't get the money for 'research, preparation and drafting documents'. Which was a shame but I did get the money for taking a day off work, plus the cost for printing the documents and parking for the day. So at least that's something. 

Thank you all for your incredible help getting this result, I couldn't of done it without you! 

Debszzzz2

Great result and well done. Thank you for the report which will help others facing similar situations to understand what goes on and how these cases are overturned.

You have the satisfaction knowing it has cost them a lot more to have gone this far and lost than it would have cost you if you'd lost.

Which judge and which court?

TitaniumManta

Yeah was very glad to have them paying me rather than the other way round. Speaking of which, is there a time limit that they have to pay me by? Or can they appeal the decision?

It was at Brentford County Court, but can't remember the name of the judge I'm afraid. 

Coupon-mad

They can appeal - but highly unlikely.  They didn't attend so they won't know the rationale.

You should get a short written outcome in the post (it'll just be the fact you won, and an order for them to pay £xx in costs).

That will be the first that Gladstones will know that they have to pay your costs.  They will do so within 14 days of that - or whatever the court says is the deadline.

You could push it forward with an email informing Gs that you won at the hearing, and giving them your sort code and account number to pay your costs.

WELL DONE!  That's a great result!