PS24 LTD, Gladstones court claim, WS stage 2025

azqw204

KeithP said:

azqw204 said:

KeithP said:

azqw204 said:

I have received a claim from the county court with Gladstones as the claimant...
Received on 21 January - I have already acknowledged using the online service as instructed.

You tell us you received the Claim on 21st January, but what is the Issue Date on your Claim Form?

Upon what date did you file an Acknowledgment of Service?
Your MCOL Claim History will have the definitive answer to that.

Apologies, the claim is dated the 21st January. I received it on 26th January. I submitted my Acknowledgement Of Service on 30 January 2024.

Hope this helps

With a Claim Issue Date of 21st January, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Friday 23rd February 2024 to file your Defence.

That's over three 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'.

Thanks for this. I have already got the defence ready as per the template on the thread you have posted and the paragraphs above which I have edited accordingly. 

I'll get it all done this week via email and post as advised.

azqw204

Coupon-mad said:

azqw204 said:

Not_A_Hope said:

I have received a claim from the county court with Gladstones as the claimant

Gladstones are not the claimant. They are the money grabbing solicitors acting on behalf of the actual PPC claimant. Who is the claimant?

Further to this, no letters have been received regarding the alleged PCN’s by the defendant before the claim form.

If you did not receive the original NTK or reminders it is likely your V5C logbook for the vehicle has a former address. You need to check and update this with the DVLA. Gladstones have probably done a 29p search to find your current address. You can submit a SAR to the claimant and this should provide more information of the alleged event including photos of the vehicle. You can then check whether it looks anything like yours. A well known fault with ANPR cameras is they often get registration number wrong. They don’t actually take photos of the VRM. Just a computerised guess from a digital image.

Sorry for the confusion here.

You are correct. Gladstones are the money-grabbling acting solicitors. The claimant is Parking Solutions 24 Ltd.

The logbook is still addressed to my parent's address but that's because I haven't changed any of my paperwork over. There may have been letters from UCS if I remember correctly that said 'Final demand for payment' and if unpaid they'll instruct their solicitor to start court proceedings. But that's it. 

I will submit a subject access request at some point today to get the photos of the vehicle etc. 

Other than that, is the wording okay?

No you won't - a SAR IS NOT ADVISED. 

Better to defend using theTemplate Defence.  Show us the Particulars of Claim on the left.

thanks for your comment, I've not done a SAR yet - and won't do now. the defence is ready as per the newbies thread so I'll sign and date that once updated.

The particulars of claim are as follows:

"The driver of the vehicle with registration XXXX XXX (the 'Vehicle') parked in breach of the terms of parking stipulated on the signage (the 'Contract') at XXXX ADDRESS XXXXXX on 21/06/23, 22/06/23, thus incurring the parking charges (the PCN's).

The PCN's were not paid within 28 days of issue. The claimant claims the unpaid PCN's from the Defendant as the driver/keeper of the Vehicle. Despite demands being made, the Defendant has failed to settle their outstanding liability.

THE CLAIMANT CLAIMS £60 per PCN, £70.00 per PCN contractual costs pursuant to the Contract and PCN terms and conditions, together with statutory interest of £7.98 pursuant to s69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at 8.00% per annum, continuing at £0.06 per day."

KeithP

Having now seen your Particulars of Claim, it is clear that the Claimant has not stated what the Defendant is accused of doing wrong.

Stating "the driver [...] parked in breach of the terms" simply isn't good enough.

Suggest you need to include the Chan paragraphs in you Defence.

Do not rush to file your Defence. Best to get it right and you still have three weeks to do that.

Coupon-mad

Yep - the Template Defence includes a link to a version with CEL v Chan. Easy as pie.

azqw204

KeithP said:

Having now seen your Particulars of Claim, it is clear that the Claimant has not stated what the Defendant is accused of doing wrong.

Stating "the driver [...] parked in breach of the terms" simply isn't good enough.

Suggest you need to include the Chan paragraphs in you Defence.

Do not rush to file your Defence. Best to get it right and you still have three weeks to do that.

Coupon-mad said:

Yep - the Template Defence includes a link to a version with CEL v Chan. Easy as pie.

thank you both kindly for your immense help. Having included the Chan paragraphs and split my facts of the case into multiple paragraphs, for readability, my defence now looks as follows:

Preliminary matter: The claim should be struck out

1.    The Defendant draws to the attention of the court that there is now a persuasive Appeal judgment to support striking out the claim (in these exact circumstances of typically poorly pleaded private parking claims, and the extant PoC seen here are far worse than the one seen on Appeal).  The Defendant believes that dismissing this meritless claim is the correct course, with the Overriding Objective in mind. Bulk litigators (legal firms) should know better than to make little or no attempt to comply with the Practice Direction.  By continuing to plead cases with generic auto-fill unspecific wording, private parking firms should not be surprised when courts strike out their claims based in the following persuasive authority.

2.    A recent persuasive appeal judgment in Civil Enforcement Limited v Chan (Ref. E7GM9W44) would indicate the POC fails to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4 and Practice Direction Part 16.  On the 15th August 2023, in the cited case, HHJ Murch held that 'the particulars of the claim as filed and served did not set out the conduct which amounted to the breach in reliance upon which the claimant would be able to bring a claim for breach of contract'. The same is true in this case and in view of the Chan judgment, the Court should strike out the claim, using its powers pursuant to CPR 3.4.

3.    Similarly, at the Wakefield County Court on 8th September 2023, District Judge Robinson considered mirror image POC in claim K3GF9183 (Parallel Parking v anon) and struck the Claim out without a hearing.

4.    Likewise, in January 2023 (also without a hearing) District Judge Sprague, sitting at the County Court at Luton, struck out a similarly badly-pleaded parking claim with a full explanation of his reasoning.

5.    Furthermore, at Manchester District Judge McMurtrie and District Judge Ranson also struck out a claim (again without a hearing) on the grounds of POC’s lacking clarity, detail, and precision. As stated in the final image below, the Claimant’s solicitors confirmed they would not file an amended POC, demonstrating again the reliance of a number of firms on robo-letters and illegitimate practices.

6.    The Defendant believes the Claim should be struck out and should not have been accepted by the CNBC due to a represented parking firm Claimant knowingly breaching basic CPRs.  The specifics of this case lack clarity, as no explicit statement has been provided to indicate which specific term of the alleged contract was purportedly breached. This lack of specificity places me, the Defendant, at a distinct disadvantage, as I find myself in the position of having to mount a defence without a clear understanding of the precise nature of the alleged violation.

7.    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 appear to be in breach of CPR 16.4, 16PD3 and 16PD7, and fail to "state all facts necessary for the purpose of formulating a complete cause of action". The Defendant is unable, on the basis of the POC, to understand with certainty what case, allegation(s) and what heads of cost are being pursued, making it difficult to respond. However, it is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper but not the driver at that time.

The facts known to the Defendant:

8.    The alleged parking breach occurred on 21st and 22nd of June in 2023. On the date of 20 June 2023, the defendant and their family had boarded a flight to Antalya in Turkey. They returned from vacation on 24th June 2023. The defendant was not in the country during that time and, to the defendant’s knowledge, vehicle in question was parked outside the family home.

9.    The defendant does not recognise the mentioned car park, the area or the town in which the alleged parking breach occurred. The defendant has never used this car park and they are unsure why it would appear that their car has been parked in the Salford area at all.

10. No letters have been received regarding the alleged PCN’s by the defendant before the claim form.

11. At witness statement stage, the defendant will provide copies of boarding passes as proof of being out of the country.

Le_Kirk

azqw204 said:

6.    The Defendant believes the Claim should be struck out and should not have been accepted by the CNBC due to a represented parking firm Claimant knowingly breaching basic CPRs.  The specifics of this case lack clarity, as no explicit statement has been provided to indicate which specific term of the alleged contract was purportedly breached. This lack of specificity places me, the Defendant, at a distinct disadvantage, as I find myself due to being in the position of having to mount a defence without a clear understanding of the precise nature of the alleged violation.

Adjustments as above due the defence having to be written in the third person, therefore no "I", "me" etc but "the defendant" as you have done through the rest.

Coupon-mad

You could add what I advised this person:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80573503/#Comment_80573503

And you could add that you do not believe that the requirements for 'keeper liability' have been met.

azqw204

There email address provided to submit a defence in my OP is CCBCAQ@justive.gov.uk. I cannot find this anywhere online. My only option appears to use the GOV MCOL service. The defence here is limited to 122 lines. 

The only email I can see here is ccbc@justive.gov.uk but that is only for help.

Is it advisable to send my defence via post to the Northampton court address listed on the claim form? (NN1 2LH)

Debszzzz2

OP... try entering the correct email address which is ccbcaq@justice.gov.uk. Just for clarity... you have shown us "ccbcaq@justiVe.gov.uk" instead of "ccbcaq@justiCe.gov.uk".

You don't have to "find" this anywhere on line. It IS the email address to use when submitting a defence as a PDF attachment by email to the CNBC.

Coupon-mad

azqw204 said:

There email address provided to submit a defence in my OP is CCBCAQ@justive.gov.uk. I cannot find this anywhere online. My only option appears to use the GOV MCOL service. The defence here is limited to 122 lines. 

The only email I can see here is ccbc@justive.gov.uk but that is only for help.

Is it advisable to send my defence via post to the Northampton court address listed on the claim form? (NN1 2LH)

Trust us. It's correct but you spelt it wrong.

DO NOT USE MCOL FOR THE DEFENCE.

Sending it by post to that massive (several floors) multi-service general 'admin centre', who lose stuff at the best of times, would be like throwing it into a black hole.  Please stop looking for alternatives that you don't need.