Excel Parking Charge

turtlefeet23

Sent it off yesterday, thanks very much for the help guys. Will keep you updated on what happens 

turtlefeet23

Hi all,

Just wanted to ask - within what kind of time frame should I expect a response to my LBC response? I sent it to excel's litigation email and have not heard back.
Cheers!

Coupon-mad

Anytime. There are no rules except they have six years to sue.

turtlefeet23

Hi all, update:

I have just received a "Notification of Instruction" from ELMS Legal giving me a deadline of 02/12/23 to pay the charge.

I sent my response to the LBC to litigation@excelparking.co.uk on 29/10/23, as well as an SAR to dataprotection@excelparking.co.uk on 23/10 to which I have received no response to either.

In the LBC I demanded that the case be put on hold for 30 days, as per the usual robust response that I see everywhere on the forum. Does this mean that they have ignored this demand? Or should I send the response to ELMS as well?

Will be working on the next steps in the meantime, but is there anything I can do other than that?

Thank you!

Coupon-mad

Just ignore it.

Search the forum for it!  Normal for Excel, then once you defend the claim, Elms will drop out.

turtlefeet23

Hi all,

I have today received a Court Claim form. The issue date is 29/12/23, so 5 days ago.

Reading the newbies and template defense threads, it says not to do the acknowledgement until after day 5. What's the benefit of this out of curiosity?

Also, I eventually received my SAR on the final day of the 1 month period (typical) and I've discovered that after my first appeal they assumed that I was the driver just because the appeal was written in first person and used "I".

Will be doing my acknowledgement tomorrow (day 6) and then following the 12-steps on the template defense forum.

Any tips would be great,

Cheers!

KeithP

turtlefeet23 said:

I have today received a Court Claim form. The issue date is 29/12/23, so 5 days ago.

Reading the newbies and template defense threads, it says not to do the acknowledgement until after day 5. What's the benefit of this out of curiosity?

I'll address your 'curiosity' first...

The back of your County Court Claim Form tells you:

Note the last sentence there - "The day of service is taken as 5 days after the issue date shown overleaf".

It goes on to say:

This is confirmed in the Money Claim Online (MCOL) - User Guide, which also explains that a Defence is never due on a non-working day.

On page 14 of that document it says:

How long does the defendant have to respond to my claim?

The court will send out a claim pack to each defendant once the claim has been issued and allows 5 calendar days from the date of issue for the service of the claim. Therefore the 'date of service' is the 5th calendar day after issue.

The defendant has 14 calendar days from the 'date of service' to file a response. If the last day for filing the response falls on a day that the court is not open (i.e. a weekend or public holiday), the court will allow the next full working day for a response. The defendant can extend the time to respond to 28 calendar days by filing an acknowledgment of service (AOS).

  Now, on to the real stuff...

With a Claim Issue Date of 29th December, you have until Wednesday 17th January 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 31st January 2024 to file your Defence.

That's four 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 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'.

turtlefeet23

Thanks for that response. I filed AOS yesterday morning and will now proceed with drafting a defense.

Luc1fer

Hi all,

I'm a friend of the OP and am helping them with a defence, I've got good experience with criminal law but not a lot of civil law so bare with me here - I'm summarising the car park and bullet pointing the defence topics below and would be interested to know whether you would advise them to be relevant to rely on/include in the defence?

Particulars of the car park: (Excel, Copeland Street, Derby)
Multiple entries to the site, some with better signage than others as per Google Maps (the entrance the vehicle used DOES NOT advertise it as private land before you enter and instead calls it a "Public Car Park")
There is only ONE terms and conditions sign in place visible external to the premises which is affixed next to a presumably old, closed off entranceway (fenced off) and nowhere else is the driver referred to the terms and conditions signage.
Upon reading the terms, the car park has a requirement that payment be made within 5 minute "consideration period" which begins the moment the vehicle is registered on ANPR (the bare minimum?)

Points of defence/argument:

• Excel are claiming that no "Pay & Display" ticket was purchased for the duration of the stay in the car park.
  
  This is categorically untrue and there is evidence to the contrary that a ticket was purchased via the prescribed parking payment app. (so, nothing to display either)
  
  It should be noted though that this was made LATE after the "5 minute" requirement to make full and frank payment and was entirely down to human error and nevertheless the payment was made (complying with the consideration element of the contract?) and the entire duration that the vehicle was in the car park was less than the period of cover purchased.
  
  
  
• The app in which payment was made has its own set of terms and conditions (of which screenshots have been taken to prove as such) - I argue that to be able to use this app, you'd be expected to agree to the terms and conditions and as any contractually conscious person should, you'd like to read them in full before agreeing?
  
  This would take a reasonable person longer than the 5 minute consideration period (moreso in the case of people who may have disabilities etc) and as such, this is an unfair condition to apply.
  
  

• The signage is not IPC compliant - (Code_of_Practice_v8.pdf (cdn-website.com)
  
  On page “31” is a list of requirements for “Entrance Signs” 

“Entrance Signs should:  
a) make it clear that the Motorist is entering onto private land;  
b) refer the Motorist to the signs within the Car Park which display the full terms and conditions. 
Signs should, where practicable, be placed at the entrance to a Car Park. Otherwise the signage  
within the Car Park must be such as to be obvious to the Motorist.  
Signs at the entrance to Controlled Land or Private Car Parks should not infer an invitation to park.” 

• The car park in question has a total of 3 entranceways as visible from Google Maps Street View, two of which are open with a small pedestrian barrier to the border and one which is fenced off with high fencing and is closed off and only the closed off entrance shows that it is private land.
  
  
• The NTK is not POFA compliant as pointed out previously in this thread, and it was received well AFTER the relevant period (14 days)
  

Side note: The driver has not been identified formally as "I was the driver" however the now useless appeals to the IAS did include "I am a user of the car park" etc - does this still apply for the POFA RK clause?

Any thoughts from those better in the know? Anything I've blatantly missed or misunderstood?

We'll be drafting a full defence by the end of this week.

Many thanks

Coupon-mad

All of the above is relevant.  The only thing I'd disagree with is this (below) because the time taken to download an app is likely to be more than5 minutes and is entirely reasonable, not:

"entirely down to human error"

You can either use the Template Defence or parts of it if you can confidently word it better.   We would recommend not removing chunks of it which are all there for a reason.

Does the POC state the breach?

Is the claim filed by Elms Legal or VCS or Excel themselves?