DCBL - Court Hearing

Fiiii

Hi all, I would like to give a quick summary of my case and would appreciate some advice please.

1. It all started in 2023, I am a resident of the apartment and we all are allocated designated bays for our parking.
2. Many a times other vehicles were parked in our Bays so we had no choice but to park in next available ones. 

3. I was issued 4 tickets by the private company handling our residence car park - 3 of them are for ‘Valid permit does not may Bay number’ and 1 is for ‘no permit displayed’ (as my permit had fallen off once)
4. National Parking control sent me these PCNs which I internally disputed first but lost so they sent the cases to DCBL who started chasing me which I refused and stopped answering.
5. Fast forward to today, the case was filed in court, my defence has been submitted, now the court hearing is announced by end of this month.

I would like to get some help on finding my correct angle and arguments for the witness statement as the Claimant’s form does mention ‘breach’ of contract terms. 

I will post more info about the signage and other parties witness statement in the comments below. 

Fiiii

The signage has 2 parts 
the one they included in witness document has no mention to Bay Area matching the number on permit 

however they have included another photo of the actual sign in the area where there is a small print saying ‘permit should match Bay Area’ in fine print.

so can I base my witness on there is no breach as no mention of bag area matching permit and the other line being v small print? 

Pictures attached 

Fiiii

Secondly, here attached the wording on claim form and some pages from their witness statement 

Fiiii

@Coupon-mad please advise on my witness statement angle?

Gr1pr

Post a redacted copy of the defence, plus a redacted picture of the terms and conditions on the lease or tenancy agreement that relates to parking etc, especially if no restrictions are mentioned 

Its worth noting that primacy of contract or lease usually beats these cases involving these types of issues, the right to peaceful enjoyment etc

Plus it seems that they think you mentioned the word Penalty, but these are NOT penalties and NOT fines either, just invoices for the alleged breach of the parking contract on that private property or site, so just Parking Charge Notices 

4 £100 PCNs is £400, not the £620 they are claiming 

When is the deadline date for submitting your bundle to both parties. ?  Must be soon, its usually 2 weeks before the hearing date 

There are half a dozen witness statement exemplars in the newbies sticky thread in announcements, I suggest that you check those, especially any tenancy ones

Fiiii

Hi @Gr1pr thanks for looking into it

my defence I had filed taking a template from newbies thread here:

Fiiii

However their witness statement seems to counter my defence very well 

they said it’s very generic widely available template 
and they also said if I am claiming another vehicle parked in my bay is wrong and should be fined then I am correctly fined as well because I parked in someone else’s bay 

Fiiii

Re my tenancy agreement 
it only mentions this about parking nothing else 

Gr1pr

It definitely doesn't mention that you have been fined, private parking companies are not allowed to issue fines, magistrates issue fines 

At this crucial stage you should not be using incorrect legal words like Fine, Fined or Penalty, they stated that they issued 4 Parking Charge Notices 

They are correct, it is a widely known boiler plate generic template, both sides are using templates,  so what !   Is our response 

As for the rest of my reply, including the parking section picture of your lease or tenancy agreement, you should be addressing the other points I made, documents are crucial here, hence why I asked you to post them, plus I mentioned that you check the exemplars for a tenancy example 

Fiiii

Thanks @Gr1pr
so just to form the basis of my witness should I focus on no breach ‘as permit displayed’ and tenancy agreement clause? 

Because I’m thinking not to include that part about other vehicle parked in my bay as it could backfire on me - unless I can get a statement from the other Bay resident of him allowing me to park?

Gr1pr

At the moment I don't think that you have shared enough information because you have not answered all the questions nor have we seen the tenancy agreement parking section ( well I didn't spot it or couldn't read it. )

However, I do believe that you should be obtaining a written WS from the other resident etc , as an Exhibit , plus you should ideally take them with you as well, as the first hand second witness. ( You are the first witness. )

I won't be giving advice on the content of your WS, but I know from experience of reading threads on here what exhibits tend to be important for anyone advising you on your case or bundle, same as a solicitor would require all the documentation to pour over, residential cases tend to be very complicated, IMHO probably the most complex of any private parking cases

I do know that you should NEVER mention the words FINE or PENALTY,  use the correct words, Parking Charge Notice and the word Invoice to describe them, especially in legal proceedings. ( Same as Cider is a liquid but not discussed when dealing with types of Lager. )

Your current tasks are to provide all the relevant information required and answer all the reasonable questions like deadline dates etc, so that interested parties on here can study your case over the next few days or weeks, whilst you spend the time researching other recent tenancy cases on here, plus checking those exemplar witness statement bundles that are listed in the newbies sticky thread over the next few days, and obtaining that other WS too

Eventually you can try putting your bundle together , but pointless asking us for inclusion advice an hour or two after opening the thread, it would take a week to process everything. 😇👍