DCB legal going to court for parking

B789

Lwalker89 said:
Hi sorry I no I've made a real hash of this and I really appreciate you replying despite my mess so far. Can I please ask what is a ws bundle?please

It is all explained in the Newbies/FAQ thread which you should be referring to each time you have a question. It is your go-to reference.

Le_Kirk

KeithP said:

But Mrs Pickering said:

Any extra information can then be filed later, if the case proceeds to a Hearing date.

The last bit there - if the case proceeds to a Hearing date - says to me that the suggestion is that further information can be added at Witness Statement time.

I did suspect that this was what Mrs Pickering meant but it could have been written as such rather than leaving it ambiguously and with defendants (and others) able to misinterpret her statement.

B789

Le_Kirk said:

KeithP said:

But Mrs Pickering said:

Any extra information can then be filed later, if the case proceeds to a Hearing date.

The last bit there - if the case proceeds to a Hearing date - says to me that the suggestion is that further information can be added at Witness Statement time.

I did suspect that this was what Mrs Pickering meant but it could have been written as such rather than leaving it ambiguously and with defendants (and others) able to misinterpret her statement.

Trust me, it took months of email ping-pong just to get anyone at CCBC to understand that my question was aimed at their IT department (my fault I suppose for not being clear enough but with almost 20 email exchanges to get to this point, I don't know what more I could have done).

Each time I was "advised" to tell them my claim number or just put what I wanted to say on a separate piece of paper and so on, ad nauseam. It is pretty obvious that whoever in their IT dept. eventually gave the answer, just passed it back down to Mrs Pickering and she (careful) emailed the response in her (careful) own words, confirming that the content limit for the defence box is the same as for the PoC box.

Lwalker89

I have been able to recover my mcol access, here is the defence they have recorded as submitted.

DEFENCE

1. The parking charges referred to in this claim did not arise
from any agreement of terms. The charge and the claim was an
unexpected shock. 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 a breach of any prominent term
and it is denied that this Claimant (understood to have a bare
licence as managers) 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
Particulars.
The facts as known to the Defendant:
2. The Defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle in
question. The Claim relates to an alleged debt arising from the
driver's alleged breach of contract, which is denied. It is
further denied that there was any agreement to pay the Claimant a
£100 'parking charge notice' (PCN).
3. The defendant denies being made aware of any such contract and
therefore denies that any contract agreement was entered between
the two parties.
ii. The lack of an entrance sign to entering motorists is not in
line with the IPC’s Code of Practice (Schedule 1 – Signage): Which
states make it clear to motorists entering private land’ As
evidenced in the attached images there is no sufficient signage at
the entrance to the land. The defendant was not aware of any
parking restrictions. Further subsequent signage is not reasonably
sufficient to make a patron aware of the contract. The defendant
draws attention to small sign that is not sufficiently reasonable
to make a patron of the land aware of the alleged contract.

d. It should be obvious from the above that signage at this
location is entirely inadequate and incapable of creating a
contract with the Defendant. The only visible signage stated
parking was not clear and written in small print.

i. For the reasons described, the signage at this location fails
to meet the Code of Practice regulations (Schedule 1 – Signage)
set by the Claimant’s ATA, the IPC. Part B.2.1 states: It is
therefore of fundamental importance that the signage meets the
minimum standards under this Code as this underpins the validity
of any such charge.

ii. The elements of offer, acceptance and consideration both ways
have not been satisfied, therefore no contract can exist and the
Claimant has no case. No promise was made by the driver that could
constitute consideration because there was no offer known nor
accepted. No consideration flowed from the Claimant
4. The facts in this defence come from the Defendant's own
knowledge and honest belief. To pre-empt the usual template
responses from this serial litigator: the court process is outside
of the Defendant's life experience and they cannot be criticised
for using, in part, pre-written wording suggested by a reliable
online help resource. The Claimant is urged not to patronise the
Defendant with (ironically template) unfounded accusations of not
understanding their defence.
5. With regard to template statements, the Defendant observes
after researching other parking claims, that the Particulars of
Claim ('POC') set out a cut-and-paste incoherent statement of
case. In breach of the pre-action protocol for 'Debt' Claims, no
copy of the contract (sign) accompanied any Letter of Claim. The
POC is sparse on facts and specific breach allegations, which
makes it difficult to respond in depth at this time; however this
claim is unfair, generic and inflated.
6. This Claimant continues to pursue a disproportionate fixed sum
(routinely added per PCN) despite knowing that this is now likely
to be confirmed as banned by the Government this year. It is
denied that the purported 'damages' or 'debt fee' sought was
incurred or is recoverable. Attention is drawn to paras 98, 100,
193, 198 of ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC67. Also
ParkingEye Ltd v Somerfield Stores Ltd ChD [2011] EWHC 4023(QB)
where the parking charge was £75, discounted to £37.50 for prompt
payment. Whilst £75 was reasonable, HHJ Hegarty (sitting at the
High Court; later ratified by the CoA) held in paras 419-428 that
unspecified 'admin costs' inflating it to £135 'would appear to be
penal'.
7. This finding is underpinned by the Government, who stated in
2022 that attempts to gild the lily by adding 'debt recovery
costs' were 'extorting money'. The Department for Levelling Up,
Housing and Communities ('DLUHC') published in February 2022, a
statutory Code of Practice, found here:
(rmoblved link so i can post)v.uk/government/publications/private-parking-code-of
-practice
8. Whilst the new Code is temporarily stalled for a final Impact
Assessment, it is anticipated that adding false costs/damages or
'fees' to enhance a parking charge claim is likely to remain
banned. In a section called 'Escalation of costs' the (stalled but
incoming in 2023) statutory Code of Practice says: The parking
operator must not levy additional costs over and above the level
of a parking charge or parking tariff as originally issued.
9. The Code's Ministerial Foreword is unequivocal about abusive
existing cases such as this claim: Private firms issue roughly
22,000 parking tickets every day, often adopting a labyrinthine
system of misleading and confusing signage, opaque appeals
services, aggressive debt collection and unreasonable fees
designed to extort money from motorists.
10. The DLUHC consulted for over two years, considering evidence
from a wide range of stakeholders. Almost a fifth of all
respondents to the 2021 Technical Consultation called for false
fees to be scrapped altogether; this despite the parking industry
flooding both public consultations, some even masquerading as
consumers. Genuine consumer replies pointed out that successful
debt recovery does not trigger court proceedings and the
debt/robo-claim firms operate on a 'no win, no fee' basis, seeking
to inflate these claims with 'costs/damages' in addition to the
strictly capped legal fees the small claims track allows.
11. This Claimant has not incurred any damages or additional costs
(not even for reminder letters) because the parking charge more
than covers what the Supreme Court in Beavis called an 'automated
letter-chain' business model that generates a healthy profit. In
Beavis, there were 4 or 5 letters including reminders. The
parking charge was held to cover that work.

Coupon-mad

That's not recommended and you can see why, but phew!  Captured almost everything.  

The numbering of the paragraphs under 3 is really odd!

Wrong Code of Practice referred to as well; if this is UKPC they aren't in the IPC but you can put it right with your WS bundle.

Lwalker89

Coupon-mad said:

That's not recommended and you can see why, but phew!  Captured almost everything.  

The numbering of the paragraphs under 3 is really odd!

Wrong Code of Practice referred to as well; if this is UKPC they aren't in the IPC but you can put it right with your WS bundle.

Tha k you for reading and giving feedback

Boat_to_Bolivia

That must be far more than 1080 characters! I know @B789 has tried to get clarification but it seems absurd that when filing a defence on the MCOL website, you get no indication of how long said defence can be?

B789

Well, if I'm correct based on information provided by CCBC/MCOL, the only part of that defence received by the CCBC will literally be:

DEFENCE 1. The parking charges referred to in
 this claim did not arise from any agreement 
of terms. The charge and the claim was an une
xpected shock. The Defendant denies that the 
Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum cla
imed, or at all. It is denied that any conduc
t by the driver was a breach of any prominent
 term and it is denied that this Claimant (un
derstood to have a bare licence as managers) 
has standing to sue or form contracts in thei
r own name. Liability is denied, whether or n
ot the Claimant is claiming 'keeper liability
', which is unclear from the Particulars. The
 facts as known to the Defendant: 2. The Defe
ndant was the registered keeper of the vehicl
e in question. The Claim relates to an allege
d debt arising from the driver's alleged brea
ch of contract, which is denied. It is furthe
r denied that there was any agreement to pay 
the Claimant a £100 'parking charge notice' (
PCN). 3. The defendant denies being made awar
e of any such contract and therefore denies t
hat any contract agreement was entered betwee
n the two parties. ii. The lack of an entranc

24 lines of 45 characters, unformatted.

Coupon-mad

But it isn't, so the CCBC misled you which is what I meant.  What the OP showed us is what the system took.

I know for a fact @Grizeback puts in fairly long defences using MCOL and it's longer than what the CCBC told you.

B789

I'm not arguing but why would an antiquated IT system that limits the input on the PoC but not on the defence be set up that way? With a background in IT, amongst other things, there is no logic for that which is why I queried it with the CCBC/MCOL. They quote a limit in their guidance notes for the PoC but no mention of why or what the limit is for Defence.

Logic dictates that if there is no reason to limit the character input count, then why do so for PoC? They have responded to my definitive query and said there is no difference and that the Defence box has the same limitation as the PoC box.

We can find out if someone wants to try and start a claim and defend it using MCOL and see what the results are. The OP on this thread could request a copy of their defence from CCBC/MCOL and we can then see definitively what it actually is.