Claim Form Issued 8 Sep 23 QDR Solicitors - One Parking Solution, Vantage Point Brighton

GherkinInTheGarden

Hello, here are the particulars -

11/08/22, the Defendant with their 13 year old child entered the Vantage Point Brighton parking lot and attempted to pay for parking via the Just Park app but was unsuccessful due to a weak cell phone signal.  After 18 minutes, they gave up and left the parking lot without another thought.   

18/08/22, a PCN was received in the mail for the typical £100 but reduced to £60 if accepted and paid in full.

7/09/22, Online appeal submitted  but was unsuccessful. 

29/06/23 Formal Letter of Claim received from QDR Solicitors who were instructed by ZZPS Limited on behalf of the Car Park Operator, One Parking Solution.

08/09/23  Claim Form received from QDR Solicitors for County Court, Northampton

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I am in the process of formulating a defence for the Defendant using the recently updated template posted by CouponMad.  I will be asking for an additional 14 days to prepare by filing an acknowledgment of service online within the next few days, again using the information provided on a previous thread.

Here is what we currently have for points 2 & 3 on the template - which I think is the only thing we would adapt -

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.  The POC is devoid of any detail and even lacks specific breach allegation(s), making it very difficult to respond. However, it is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper and driver of the vehicle.

3. The Defendant, along with their 13-year-old child, drove 1.5 hours from their home to Brighton for a ‘day out’ ultimately pulling into Vantage Point Brighton BN1 4GW parking lot off a busy and unfamiliar street.  The signage at the entrance was too small to read and/or decipher from the car for the Defendant to realise they were ‘on the clock’ upon entering nor did the Defendant know there would be narrow payment options to pay for parking at this site.

The Defendant pulled up alongside the single Parking Payment Meter and, with the motor still idling and child inside the car, got out to pay.  The only coinage accepted was a £1 coin and, after a search of the car for change, this was unavailable to the Defendant.  There was no cash machine on site to change bank notes into the coinage required.

Upon further inspection, the Defendant noted the car park would accept payment via a mobile phone application ‘JustPark’.  The Defendant spent some time attempting to download the application as the cell phone reception in the car park was weak.  After moving around the car park to find ‘one-bar’ reception, the application ‘JustPark’ finally downloaded.  The Defendant then tried unsuccessfully to connect to their bank to use the application and make a payment.  The Defendant’s bank, at any rate, would have required a security code to be sent to the Defendant’s phone as this was a new application and hadn’t been used by the Defendant before.  As the cell phone reception was so poor, almost non-existent, the Defendant gave up in frustration and left the lot 18 minutes after entering.

At no time was the car parked, nor did the Defendant leave the lot and someone was always in the car whilst idling.

The Defendant will strongly maintain that they did not use the parking lot for parking and the only time spent in the lot was to attempt to pay.  This was ultimately unsuccessful due to a weak mobile signal within the parking lot.  The Defendant could not leave the lot on foot to find a better signal as they had a Child in their car and they felt the area unsafe, even for a short time.

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Are we on the right track?  and what might be our chances to have this thrown out or be successful?

Many thanks for any assistance given.

B789

Welcome. Please don't call it a "parking lot". It is a "car park". You can get some old fuddy-duddy judges who could be irritated by the use of Americanisms.

Your defence paragraphs (each paragraph should be numbered sequentially) read more like a Witness Statement. You are answering the PoC in your claim form. If they are vague and/or sparse on information, don't be doing the claimant's work for them by providing War & Peace.

All you need is the reason you were there and what happened in the simplest terms. Eg. You were visiting for the day. Due to frustration of contract, you were unable to make a payment and left once you'd exhausted all options for making payment. Leave all the rest for WS where you can expand on everything that happened.

GherkinInTheGarden

Ah, I am an American so there will be some differences.  Let's hope I don't get a 'fuddy-duddy' judge that will be irritated by that fact alone.  But thank you for pointing this out to me.

I will number the defence paragraphs as you suggest.  I was using my own words as instructed by CouponMad's template and, yes, it does resemble a Witness Statement.  If a WS will be necessary later, then I can adapt the defence to simpler format.

Stay tuned for updated Facts Known to the Defendent.....

GherkinInTheGarden

See updated text - should it be even more succinct?

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.  The POC is devoid of any detail and even lacks specific breach allegation(s), making it very difficult to respond. However, it is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper and driver of the vehicle.

3. The Defendant visited Brighton for the day and entered Vantage Point Brighton BN1 4GW car park.

4.  Due to frustration of contract, the Defendant was unable to make payment using either the mobile application required and did not have the change required by the parking meter.

5.  The Defendant left the car park after 18 minutes elapsed once they had exhausted all options for making a payment.

Le_Kirk

You might like to expand upon the reason for the frustration of contract being failure of the claimant's systems (Just Park) due to poor phone signal and lack of alternative means to pay such as contactless/debit card.

Coupon-mad

This is a notorious scam site in Brighton that you should NEVER use.   No-one local - who has any sense - uses Vantage Point!

There are loads of better options, e.g. the NCP car park in Terminus Road, or the Churchill Square car park (both reliable, non-scammery pay & display)  or parking FREE on-street on a single yellow line on a Sunday.  If it was.

Or (as long as you DON'T park at Asda) it's FREE to use the multi-storey car park at Brighton Marina for up to 4 hours and walk along the prom.  You can get to the pier & back, get an ice-cream, dip in the sea and still have time to use a nice cafe back at the Marina before driving home.

Why not search the forum for:

vantage point defence

There are 16 results. All useful.

KeithP

GherkinInTheGarden said:

08/09/23  Claim Form received...

You say you received the Claim Form on 8th September (I note you are American, so hopefully that doesn't say 9th August    ).

Can you please now tell us the Issue Date on the Claim Form?

GherkinInTheGarden

Issue date is 8 Sept, received a few days after that.  Quite a bit of semantics on this forum, I need to be more specific.  I’ve lived here many years so have the day/month figured out.

KeithP

GherkinInTheGarden said:

Issue date is 8 Sept, received a few days after that.

With a Claim Issue Date of 8th September, you have until Wednesday 27th September to file an Acknowledgment of Service but there is nothing to be gained by delaying it. 

To file an Acknowledgment of Service, follow the guidance in the Dropbox file linked from the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Wednesday 11th October 2023 to file your Defence.

That's almost four weeks away. Plenty of time to produce a Defence and it is good to see that you are not leaving it to the last minute. 

To create a Defence, and then file a Defence by email, look again at the second post on the NEWBIES thread - immediately following where you found the Acknowledgment of Service guidance.

Don't miss the deadline for filing an Acknowledgment of Service, nor that 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'.

Coupon-mad

Can you show the POC (cover your VRM)?

I think QDR do specify the 'alleged breach' in the POC so you will have to edit paragraph 2 at least, and the slightly lower one in the Template Defence that talks about woeful POC.

GherkinInTheGarden

Thank you, KeithP, I am filing the Acknowledgment of Service tomorrow afternoon, giving me, as you say, until 11th October to form a Defence.  I’ve downloaded and printed how to file the Defence online so ready there, too.  I have a holiday coming up 2nd week October so will file the Defence prior to 6 October.  I’m doing my best to to sift through all the information on the forum.  Any idea how quickly a court date is set after sending in the Defence?  Is it weeks, or months?