Court claim

parkingcowboysbegone

Firstly, massive thanks for this resource and all the valuable advice provided.

I received 2 seperate parking charge notices from VCS in September last year. Both for parking in a car park next to my work. I purchase my tickets via an app RingGo, in both instances I purchased the tickets within an hour of parking. These PCN's are based on not purchasing a ticket within a permitted 10 minute period. My parking tickets more than covered the time spent in the car park and the car park is usually pretty empty.
We are a small company, 4 of us have received these all for the same reason. 1 paid, 1 has paid through mitigation.
I've followed all the advice so far with regards to the original response etc. My defence letter was slightly different (my boss has a solicitor friend with parking experience who helped prepare for free) and i'm now at mitigation stage.

My question is around mitigation this week. I was going to approach it in the following negotiation stages, 1. VCS pay my company 1 days wages for defending the claim. 2. VCS pay my company an hours wage for the call 3. VCS drop everything at zero cost 4. I offer to pay a nominal sum of £1 to end this process. Can I demand money from them at mitigation or will I be seen as not willing to negotiate? I'm happy to play along if needs be, don't want anything to count against me in court.
My stance for mitigation is to simply state I had a valid parking ticket for the day shown, more than covering the time period and that this whole business model is a scam. I don't propose going into details during mitigation.

In my case I am having to defend each case seperately, they haven't combined them so I face 2 seperate costs of £255. (Amount claimed £170, court fee £35, legal rep costs £50).
My case was originally being pursued by Elms Legal. VCS have now removed Elms and stated they will be representing themselves.

After mitigation I will continue to follow the steps with regards to the witness statement etc. Interested on thoughts for the mitigation and any advice in general. Thanks!

1505grandad

Mitigation  -  do you mean mediation?

parkingcowboysbegone

1505grandad said:

Mitigation  -  do you mean mediation?

Sorry, yeah I mean mediation

Gr1pr

I expect that you will or should have asked them to be consolidated into one single claim, with only one set of costs in play. , if not, you should be, in writing  (. Estoppel. ?  Henderson versus Henderson. )

You definitely want the court to deal with it, not mediation 

Coupon-mad

parkingcowboysbegone said:

1505grandad said:

Mitigation  -  do you mean mediation?

Sorry, yeah I mean mediation

You are NOT meant to agree to Mediation. The advice in the NEWBIES thread is clear.

Unless the date of your claim is after 22 May in which case it is now compulsory. 

Cancel it.

Grizebeck

Or just don't take part.

Coupon-mad

Grizebeck said:

Or just don't take part.

As long as the claim was filed before 22 May,

parkingcowboysbegone

My claim was after May I believe. I got the new N180 form stating that mediation was mandatory. I will play along but I will be stating mediation isn't suitable and I won't be paying anything. 

With regards to the 2 seperate cases. Is this something I should write to the courts about now? Or shall I bring it up in court, hoping that is a good reason for the judge to throw the cases out?

Coupon-mad

Depends if they are both at court claim stage.

I will play along but I will be stating mediation isn't suitable and I won't be paying anything.

Correct. Read the thread discussion this today. Search the forum for:

Compulsory mediation waste time good day

parkingcowboysbegone

Yes, both are at court claim stage.

Thanks, i've had a read of that and the mediation Mary thread. I don't think my mediation will last long!

I'll report back on how it goes.

Coupon-mad

Yes please. It will help us advise others! This is new and not something we wanted.