UK PC Claims received

Coupon-mad

I have been advised that a Holding defence is all I need to file ?

Who on earth told you that? Not true.

Read the 2nd post of the NEWBIES thread and grab the Template Defence.  

Then add in stuff about Henderson v Henderson (pretty sure the recent defence by @preloved1416 has that wording).

LionsShare

Coupon-mad said:

I have been advised that a Holding defence is all I need to file ?

Who on earth told you that? Not true.

Read the 2nd post of the NEWBIES thread and grab the Template Defence.  

Then add in stuff about Henderson v Henderson (pretty sure the recent defence by @preloved1416 has that wording).

ok will do.

LionsShare

Here is my first draft of my Defence using the template and adding in some of the defence by @preloved1416 plus my own details. Please advise

2. It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle, but was not the driver

3.1 The Defendant is under a contract to manage flat ########### as letting agent and therefore requires use of the carpark regularly in order to carry out duties and obligations relating to their contract and their ongoing work, which includes maintaining the flat. In 2020, when their contract started the Defendant purchased two valid parking permits at £25 each from ########### Management who are the managing company for the block. It is admitted that the vehicle on occasion parks outside of the allocated parking space when loading and unloading heavy items in order to carry out work but never for more than a few minutes at any time.

3.2 No documents or warnings with regard to this claim were received by the Defendant. The claim form was sent to an old address and therefore was not served correctly. The vehicle has been registered to it’s current address since January 2023.

3.3. There have been multiple other similar claims filed by the Claimant to the defendant all relating to PCN's at the same address. All served incorrectly to a previous address. A full list of claims are as follows:

    a. Claim-XYZ

    b. Claim-XYZ

    c. Claim-XYZ

3.4. It is my strong belief that the Claimant is purposefully abusing the court process to their own ends by submitting multiple claims for same circumstance PCN’s all of which they would have been aware. The defendant believes they do this to bombard any defendant with multiple claim forms to have to acknowledge service, submit defence statements, witness statements and prepare cases for, in the hope that defendants, who mostly have no knowledge of civil law, will give up or that claims will ‘slip through the net’.

3.5. Authorities to support the Defendant's position that the subsequent claims are all estopped are:

a. Arnold V National Westminster Bank PLC [1991] 3 ALL ER 41. The court noted that ‘....cause of action estoppel applies where a cause of action in a second action is identical to a cause of action in the first, the latter having been between the same parties, or their privies and involving the same subject matter’. This case involves the same Claimant and Defendant, The same vehicle, The same Car Park and the same manner in which the PCN was issued.

b. In Henderson v Henderson [1843]67 ER 313 The court noted the following…’when a matter becomes subject to litigation, i) the parties are required to advance their whole case, ii) the Court will not permit the same parties to reopen the same subject of litigation regarding matters which should have been advanced in the earlier litigation, but were not owing to negligence, inadvertence or error

3.6. By filing the first claim and failing to advance the whole case at that time, any cause of action was immediately extinguished for any other similar fact Parking Charges against the defendant. The courts may estop further claims beyond the first where the cause of action is substantially the same. 

4. The Defendant sent letters to the Claimant requesting to see documents the Claimant intends to use in evidence in pursuit of the claims, including a copy of the Claimants agreement with the landowner, which is a statutory requirement to operate at the relevant site. The Defendant also sent an email reminders, however the Claimant has not responded with evidence that is essential for assessment of the Defendant's legal position.

5. 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. 

.............as per template

Coupon-mad

I'd explain in para 2 how you know you were not the driver on these occasions.  And say that you will rely on persuasive cases such as Jopson v Homeguard [2016] B9GF0A9E, where on appeal it was found that the parking company could not override the right of residents (and specifically, mention was made of authorised traders) to temporarily stop near the building entrance for loading/unloading.  Such activity was not 'parking' - held by HHJ Harris sitting at Oxford County Court, in a persuasive appeal finding.

and add a point (maybe as a new para 4) that:

- The claimant will concede that no financial loss has arisen (a permit was purchased).  The charge imposed, in all the circumstances is a penalty (notwithstanding Beavis) since the sums are punitive in nature, and it is not open to a resident or authorised managing agent to park elsewhere, such that there is an imbalance of contractual position. 

I'd also point out that those earlier claims have ruined your credit rating (or threatened to, so you were forced to pay them under protest despite the claims not being served.

Then I'd drop the Template's paragraph 4 (not needed. - replace it with what I suggested above) and remove some of the narrative lower down in the template such as the bits about Will Hurley and what he thinks, just to reduce its length a bit.

Then what about that £6000 counterclaim?

Surely you want to try?

You have to go to a hearing about this anyway so why not argue that the other three claims were also an abuse (multiple claims) and resulted on monies obtained under false pretences for exactly the same matters which were not 'parking' but were a case of a fully authorised agent & staff unloading and the charges arose due to the Claimant breaching the Code of Practice by taking photos by stealth and not allowing the mandatory grace period as a fair observation time.

LionsShare

Thankyou Coupon-mad you are amazing. 

Yes I do want to try to counterclaim but will need guidance. Do I add anything into this defence or is it just a case of making a counterclaim on MCOL?

B789

LionsShare said:

3.4. It is my the Defendants strong belief that the Claimant is purposefully abusing the court process to their own ends by submitting multiple claims for same circumstance PCN’s all of which they would have been aware. The defendant believes they do this to bombard any defendant with multiple claim forms to have to acknowledge service, submit defence statements, witness statements and prepare cases for, in the hope that defendants, who mostly have no knowledge of civil law, will give up or that claims will ‘slip through the net’.

Everything in the Defence should be written in the third person.

Try and avoid complex numbering. Keep it simple and just use sequential integers.

Coupon-mad

Eeek - slow down.  If you have done the AOS using MCOL then after that it's 'read only'.  You do not submit anything else on MCOL and it's redundant now for you except as a date 'history' record.

A counterclaim must be pleaded properly; written in as much detail as the defence and it tags on the BOTTOM of the same document (both are signed and dated).  Both submitted as one PDF attachment headed

DEFENCE AND PART 20 COUNTERCLAIM

For examples of the level of detail to argue counterclaims (albeit these will be very different from your facts) see the completed threads by

@ellaro9  

@Nosy

and read HenryHippo's successful pepipoo thread.  I helped him as did other posters there (I am SchoolRunMum on pepipoo) and he succeeded with his residential counterclaim:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=114450

It was years ago but gives you a steer!

For your money they've ripped from you without even properly serving a single claim to the right address, it MUST be worth the punt!

Coupon-mad

Have you paid DCBLegal in full for claims 2 and 3 and avoided being corralled to DCB Ltd High Court Enforcement who would have added more money?

in fact you might keep your CC to £5000 exactly to minimise your counterclaim fee:
https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/court-fees

UP TO YOU!

LionsShare

ok I will carry on researching and start putting together my CC. I clearly have some work to do and I'm also very mindful of dates as I don't want to make the same mistake as before. Claim was issued 7th June, acknowledged 15th June so I have until 5th July ....that's correct right?

I am in the process of gathering the money together to pay claims 2 & 3 - I am still within the 30 days as the judgements are both dated 9th June. Hoping to pay them both in the next few days. No sign of bailiffs yet ....

KeithP

LionsShare said:

Claim was issued 7th June, acknowledged 15th June so I have until 5th July ....that's correct right?

You have a few more days than you think.

With a Claim Issue Date of 7th June, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 10th July 2023 to file your Defence.

That's over two weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence, but please don't leave it to the last minute.

To create a Defence, and then file a Defence by email, look at the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Don't miss the deadline for filing a Defence.

Do not try and file a Defence via the MoneyClaimOnline website. Once an Acknowledgment of Service has been filed, the MCOL website should be treated as 'read only'.