[Successful] Court Hearing v VCS in Residential Car Park - Permission from space owner

Coupon-mad

Looks v good to me.

GropplerZorn

Thank you! 

GropplerZorn

Coming back here for advice, as I am drafting my WS which is due in just over a week’s time, with the court hearing in February. I have spent many hours looking at cases and all the invaluable advice here, and I am already hugely grateful for the help I’ve received so far. 

I have a few questions, before I post a draft of the Witness statements, in case anyone is willing to cast an eye over it, while getting in the holiday cheer… 

Any help with the questions below would be much appreciated. Apologies for the very lengthy post!

My defence: 

• I was permitted to park in the residential car park by the leaseholder of that specific parking space, I have a witness statement from the owner to prove this and the lease document detailing the leaseholder’s parking rights. 
• I will argue that the lease gives the owner primacy of contract, which has been demonstrated in several cases. By authorising me to park in his space, the owner is extending or devolving his “exclusive right to park one private motor vehicle on the parking space” to me, without needing to obtain further permission from a parking company, that has no standing, and no authority to form a contract with the owner regarding his space
• I will also challenge the £60 DRA add-on fee, which has been added to both PCNs issued on the same date. Also challenging two £100 PCNs in less than 24 hrs, which is also ridiculous, although this is stated in the IPC terms (12 hour intervals or leaving and entering the car park counts as a new parking event). I won’t be sure if I left and parked again until I receive their bundle. I will also challenge the 8% interest added to the DRA fee from the date of the PCN. 

My questions are: 

1. Is this sort of verbal agreement with the owner, substantiated by a witness statement from the owner and the lease document likely to hold water? Can anyone think of any similar cases?
2. I was a tenant in that building at the time, although I wasn’t parked in the space allocated to my flat, as this was used by my flatmate. However, the last tenancy agreement extension I have kept was expired a couple of months before the PCNs were issued. From my point of view there is nothing to be gained from saying I was a tenant, which might even confuse the Judge. It seems simpler to say that I was visiting my friend and using their parking space. My tenancy agreement only gives parking rights for the specific space allocated to my flat. Would it help in any way to say I was a tenant, even though I can’t prove that for the exact date?
3. I haven’t added anything about the signage in my defence, and I don’t really have photos from 6 years ago, but I have visited the site and taken some pictures in the meantime. Not sure how useful these would be (see below) if I didn’t have any points about this in my Defence? The signs are NOT immediately visible upon entry, but there was a sign right in front of where I parked. I can’t spot anything immediately wrong with the sign, although there is no mention of ‘damages’ or ‘DRA’ of £60 as I’ve seen on others. 
4. Do I say anything about finding the PCNs and why I ignored them and the following letters thereafter? The real reason is that my flatmate had been issued nearly 50 PCNs for not displaying a permit (lost) while using the parking space for our flat. Despite trying to communicate with them many times and appeal his many PCNs, they denied his appeals, carried on issuing PCNs and he ended up in court (thankfully he did win). I knew that any attempt to appeal would be a waste of time and if they decide to pursue it, it will end up in court sooner or later anyway. Can I say this to the Judge if asked why I didn’t try to appeal? I also read about similar behaviour from VCS here including the quoted redacted Appeal in VCS vs Unkown, which I’ve found here: Not sure I can quote this if it’s redacted, however? 

Appeal to VCS vs [unknown] 
Summary Case Details for CA-2024-001179
10. The starting point of the analysis must be that the defendant, who at all material times lived at the property where his car was parked, was being served with parking enforcement notices by the claimant because through no fault of his own and despite making every effort to get one, he could not display a parking permit to prove to them that he had the right to park his car in that space. He had tried without success to ‘explain this to the claimant, who in substance said it was not their problem and he should take it up with the letting agent/landlord. The claimant then obtained a default judgment for a sum in excess of £10,000 in respect of the accumulated parking charges after they had sent all relevant correspondence to and served the proceedings at an address where the defendant no longer lived. The Circuit Judge rightly found that he could not be criticised for failing to respond to a claim form which he never in fact received.

Coupon-mad

Have a look at the WS by @imulsion which was a winning residential case recently.

GropplerZorn

Thank you, it’s a great example, which I will be following in my WS. Any thoughts on any of my other questions? 

Fruitcake

GropplerZorn said:

My questions are: 

1. Is this sort of verbal agreement with the owner, substantiated by a witness statement from the owner and the lease document likely to hold water? Can anyone think of any similar cases?
2. I was a tenant in that building at the time, although I wasn’t parked in the space allocated to my flat, as this was used by my flatmate. However, the last tenancy agreement extension I have kept was expired a couple of months before the PCNs were issued. From my point of view there is nothing to be gained from saying I was a tenant, which might even confuse the Judge. It seems simpler to say that I was visiting my friend and using their parking space. My tenancy agreement only gives parking rights for the specific space allocated to my flat. Would it help in any way to say I was a tenant, even though I can’t prove that for the exact date?
3. I haven’t added anything about the signage in my defence, and I don’t really have photos from 6 years ago, but I have visited the site and taken some pictures in the meantime. Not sure how useful these would be (see below) if I didn’t have any points about this in my Defence? The signs are NOT immediately visible upon entry, but there was a sign right in front of where I parked. I can’t spot anything immediately wrong with the sign, although there is no mention of ‘damages’ or ‘DRA’ of £60 as I’ve seen on others. 
4. Do I say anything about finding the PCNs and why I ignored them and the following letters thereafter? The real reason is that my flatmate had been issued nearly 50 PCNs for not displaying a permit (lost) while using the parking space for our flat. Despite trying to communicate with them many times and appeal his many PCNs, they denied his appeals, carried on issuing PCNs and he ended up in court (thankfully he did win). I knew that any attempt to appeal would be a waste of time and if they decide to pursue it, it will end up in court sooner or later anyway. Can I say this to the Judge if asked why I didn’t try to appeal? I also read about similar behaviour from VCS here including the quoted redacted Appeal in VCS vs Unkown, which I’ve found here: Not sure I can quote this if it’s redacted, however? 

Answers to some of your questions.

1) Yes, it will hold a lot of water. You will need to search for other similar cases yourself, but I see C-m has already pointed you to one.

2) Perhaps say you were a tenant, with rights as per your tenancy agreement, using another tenant's parking space with both their and the landowner's permission, as per their tenancy agreement.

3) Are there any Google streetview images that might help? Has VCS shown you images of contemporary signs? You should get to see them at the WS stage, so need to pre-empt what they might show. Certainly, the one shown in your post clearly states, "If a valid permit/ticket is required ..." Well, as a resident with pre-existing rights, and/or the rights of the tenant friend whose space you used, then no permit/ticket was required, therefore there was no breach of parking contract.

4) You can honestly tell the judge, if asked, that you didn't respond to the PCNs because as a tenant, you had a pre-existing right to park as per your/your friend's tenancy agreement, and therefore did not need to display a permit/ticket. You assumed therefore that the PCNs were issued incorrectly since your/your friend's tenancy agreement had primacy of contract over anything an unregulated private parking company said, the parking terms breached your right to quiet enjoyment, and did not offer you anything you did not already have.
You are/were also aware that the whole private parking industry, referred to as rogues, scammers, and bloodsuckers by MPs across all parties in open parliamentary debate, is/was unregulated and therefore any attempt to override your existing rights would be a derogation of grant.
In addition, no application as required by the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, Part IV, Section 37 to change your tenancy agreement had ever been made, therefore your existing tenancy agreement that did not include the involvement of an unregulated private parking company still stood.
You are/were also aware that there is/was no independent appeals process, since the current process is funded entirely by the unregulated private parking companies themselves, and biased towards serving the interests of these unregulated private parking companies, not the motorist. Consequently, you knew that appealing was pointless because you knew you had a 96% chance of losing.

How much of that you put in your defence, or simply save as crib-notes for a hearing is up to you.

imulsion

@Coupon-mad @GropplerZorn
Not to pour water on the bonfire but just wanted to point out my case wasn't residential but did in fact take place in a commercial car park. Be careful how you adapt my WS and make sure it applies to your case

GropplerZorn

Thank you, @fruitcake - some very useful points! 

I have now received their WS, which is basically a copy of another post here by @paddyposh in a case involving Spring Parking, represented by …surprise… DCB Legal, who now seem to be back in the loop representing VCS in my case, despite their lack of involvement in the original Court Claim. They are ironically accusing me of using a ‘template defence’ while theirs is an outdated template, which includes an accidental reference to the Independent Parking Committee, which has been renamed in 2016. @LDast, thank you for providing a very robust rebuttal to this, which I would love to use. 

2) It seems I had already said I was a tenant in my Defence so I will have to continue including this in my WS. 

3) The pictures they sent are exactly the same sign as I posted above, so your point about the wording ‘If a ticket/permit is required’ is completely valid!

4) Very good, again very thankful to see this response formulated by @LDast

Firstly, the Claimant's assertion that I did not engage with their appeals process does not affect the substance or merit of my Defence. There is no requirement under the Civil Procedure Rules to pursue an internal appeal before defending a claim in court. My right to challenge the claim remains intact regardless of whether I engaged with the Claimant's appeals process, and this has no bearing on the validity of my Defence. The court is concerned with the merits of the legal arguments, not the extent of my prior engagement with the Claimant’s appeals procedures.

I think the crux of my defence will be whether the Management Company has a standing to enter contracts with the Claimant involving leaseholders parking spaces without their written consent. They are relying on the contract below, which I am looking to find holes in: 

Coupon-mad

Nothing much wrong with their agreement per se. It's the derogation from grant that it causes:
http://parking-prankster.blogspot.com/2016/11/residential-parking.html?m=1

Read the latest WS by @Buffalo18 which is current today. Always skim-read the day's posts because you'll miss really similar cases if you don't.

GropplerZorn

Hurray!! 

I am delighted to have won my case a couple of days ago, thanks to a sympathetic judge, who seemed to have had experience with parking cases and had prepared for my case in detail. The whole hearing lasted over 90 minutes and arguments between the Judge and Claimant’s solicitor got quite technical. After the solicitor finished his preamble, the Judge started tearing into his arguments, each of them gradually crumbling to pieces. The Judge upheld my version of the story as valid - what he called “an alternative explanation as to my right to park in that space”. Namely, that I had permission from the leasehold owner of said space, written in a Witness Statement, which the Judge was happy to accept as proof. The Lease document was also instrumental in proving the rights granted to the Lessee (and extended to me through his agreement). 

The icing on the cake: I also succeeded in securing £190 in costs, as I was able to demonstrate that the Claimant has behaved unreasonably, issuing two PCNs in the same calendar day, and refusing to address this or provide any explanation in their WS. 

Thank you all for providing feedback on my defence and for the invaluable information found on this forum. I would have stood no chance defending against it without the many examples and reports on this forum. Special thanks to: @Fruitcake @Coupon-mad @imulsion

For those interested in details of the proceedings, do read the next post.