Moorside Legal / PCM - Claim form received

PartyPops

Hey guys, 

Received a claim form from Moorside legal acting on behalf of Parking Control Management for a ticket from the end of 2020.
The Particulars of Claim only says the date of the PCN and no PCN reference number.
Crappy POC:
1. The Defendant(D) is indebted to the Claimant(C) for a Parking Charge issued to the vehicle #### at .......
2. The PCN was issued on ...... on land managed by C.
3. The vehicle was parked in breach of Terms on C's signs (the contract), thus incurring the PCN. 4. The driver agreed to pay within 28 days but did not. D. is liable as the driver or keeper.
Despite requests the PCN is outstanding and has escalated. AND THE CLAIMANT CLAIMS 1. 160.00 behind the total of the PCN. 2. Costs and Court fees. The claimant claims interest under section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at the rate of 8% a year from .... to ..... on £160 and also interest at the same rate up to the date of judgment or earlier payable at a daily rate of £0.04

Claim form was received on 23/10/24
Acknowledgement made on 28/10/24

Currently going through the updated defence template on sticky to edit it against my case.
I think the only defence I have is the crappy signs and confusion with two different parking restrictions.. 

I located the PCN number from old letters I kept when I matched the date and accessed the PCN online and went to view images and downloaded the photos they have so I know exactly where I parked and where it happened and why. Sainsburys employee told me car park is here so I went and parked there but assumed at the time the whole car park belonged to sainsburys. - obviously can't put that in my defence but that's why I parked there.

Context: The vehicle was parked on a road parking spot, the claimant claims the "road" is managed by the private parking company, the parking space is shared with a sainsburys local customer parking.. i.e. there are a number of bays and bays marked 1 - 14 are for sainsburys customers. I parked here to pop into sainsburys and the signs weren't clear enough for me to understand the parking system. I assumed all the bays were for sainsburys customers however since the PCN it was clear that some of the land is managed / owned by residential I guess.

Here's a photo of the layout / restrictions explained


PCM Sign behind vehicle towards the left 

Sainsburys sign behind vehicle towards right


Road entrance PCM sign on main road entering this road


Road layout

KeithP

PartyPops said:

Received a claim form from Moorside legal acting on behalf of Parking Control Management for a ticket from the end of 2020.
The Particulars of Claim only says the date of the PCN and no PCN reference number.
Crappy POC:
1. The Defendant(D) is indebted to the Claimant(C) for a Parking Charge issued to the vehicle #### at .......
2. The PCN was issued on ...... on land managed by C.
3. The vehicle was parked in breach of Terms on C's signs (the contract), thus incurring the PCN. 4. The driver agreed to pay within 28 days but did not. D. is liable as the driver or keeper.
Despite requests the PCN is outstanding and has escalated. AND THE CLAIMANT CLAIMS 1. 160.00 behind the total of the PCN. 2. Costs and Court fees. The claimant claims interest under section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at the rate of 8% a year from .... to ..... on £160 and also interest at the same rate up to the date of judgment or earlier payable at a daily rate of £0.04

Claim form was received on 23/10/24
Acknowledgement made on 28/10/24

With a Claim Issue Date of 23rd October, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 25th November 2024 to file a 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'.


You need to be aware that those Particulars of Claim are totally inadequate.

It is alleged that the driver 'breached the terms on the signs (the contract)', but nowhere in those Particulars is there any explanation of what the driver is alleged to have done wrong.

This will be an easy win.

Fruitcake

The signage is inadequate as well. There are no surface markings or wall signs to delineate between the area covered by the Sainsbugs signs, and any other entity. Just because some bays have numbers, does not mean the Ts and Cs apply to parking areas without surface numbers.

There are no maps, site boundary markers, nor a description of the relevant land on the signs, so there is no way a motorist would know if they were within or without the relevant land to which the claim relates. A motorist cannot agree to a contract if they do not know where the contract applies.

The PCMUK sign includes a prohibited premium rate 'phone number.

The 0845 number breaches Regulation 41 of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013. These regulations took effect on 13 June 2014. This can be reported to Trading Standards (via the Citizen's Advice national Consumer Helpline on 0345 404 0506).
The omission of call costs from the sign breaches Ofcom regulations that took effect 1 July 2015.

It can therefore be argued that since the information on the signs are over ten years out of date, and all service providers had I think two years to change them, it can be argued that the signs cannot have been in place at the time of the alleged event.

Coupon-mad

You'll be using the alternative defence linked in paragraph 3 of the Template Defence. Easy.

PartyPops

Fruitcake said:

The signage is inadequate as well. There are no surface markings or wall signs to delineate between the area covered by the Sainsbugs signs, and any other entity. Just because some bays have numbers, does not mean the Ts and Cs apply to parking areas without surface numbers.

There are no maps, site boundary markers, nor a description of the relevant land on the signs, so there is no way a motorist would know if they were within or without the relevant land to which the claim relates. A motorist cannot agree to a contract if they do not know where the contract applies.

The PCMUK sign includes a prohibited premium rate 'phone number.

The 0845 number breaches Regulation 41 of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013. These regulations took effect on 13 June 2014. This can be reported to Trading Standards (via the Citizen's Advice national Consumer Helpline on 0345 404 0506).
The omission of call costs from the sign breaches Ofcom regulations that took effect 1 July 2015.

It can therefore be argued that since the information on the signs are over ten years out of date, and all service providers had I think two years to change them, it can be argued that the signs cannot have been in place at the time of the alleged event.

Hey thanks allot for taking the time to write this, excellent points that will be added to my defence. 

PartyPops

Drafted defence: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/i9gn6g2zfk3izl122ov3q/Defence-CENSORED.docx?rlkey=vrtanqhlp83lyv1hubj3oplsf&st=kcfx497x&dl=0

I would appreciate any feedback, highlighted in yellow my wording used outside the template from this thread. 
Para 3 -9 is mine, 10 & 12 is hharry100 about PoC not stating alleged breach and 11 is similar from Charles Akande case.

@Coupon-mad
@Fruitcake
@KeithP

I would appreciate your review of para 3 - 12 please and also confirm if I should include the screenshots of both Akande & CEL transcripts as these take up quite a few pages and would be in my WS anyway.

Thanks!

Coupon-mad

Coupon-mad said:

You'll be using the alternative defence linked in paragraph 3 of the Template Defence. Easy.

As above.  You have used the wrong one.

Bazarius

What does the yellow sign in middle say ? . It is possible you chose to accept Euro Car Parks terms instead of PCM because it as more prominently displayed because it’s bright yellow .  

I assisted  a similar case where 2 parking companies signs were on top of  each other . One offered £60 and the other one was £100 .  Driver opted for the cheapest. (The cheapest went out of business but still a valid offer ) WY Parking lost in court . 

PartyPops

Coupon-mad said:

Coupon-mad said:

You'll be using the alternative defence linked in paragraph 3 of the Template Defence. Easy.

As above.  You have used the wrong one.

Paragraph 9-12 are from the defence your referring to. I just double checked it and I think its just missing the following right?

The Particulars of Claim ('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 is being pursued.  The POC are entirely inadequate, in that they fail to particularise:

(a) the contractual term(s) relied upon;
(b) the details of any alleged breach of contract
(c) how many 'PCNs' are being pursued in this claim, exactly when the alleged conduct occurred (dates and times) and how much each of these charges were;

Coupon-mad

No.  The linked version has a completely different paragraph 2 through to 5, where 5 are your facts under the Chan transcript image (and ideally the Akande transcript image too).  

@FluffySocks25 did a perfect example yesterday, in the end.

PartyPops

Coupon-mad said:

No.  The linked version has a completely different paragraph 2 through to 5, where 5 are your facts under the Chan transcript image (and ideally the Akande transcript image too).  

@FluffySocks25 did a perfect example yesterday, in the end.

Thank you for highlighting this, I've now bought those points earlier in the defence give it more priority by making them the first points.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/kg6fs7pxue15nyuqiiqrp/Defence-CENSORED.docx?rlkey=xkxx3ckll3eoxq7lwzbhtot4x&st=vp8syvav&dl=0

I've highlighted in yellow the bits I've added to the regular template.

Thanks