DCB legal court claim

ClaretFozzy

Good morning and thanks for the valuable knowledge you all contribute to this site.

Ive been lurking in the background but am currently at the court claim stage with DCB legal - issue date 22/11/2024. I’ve file an acknowledgment of service and am in the process of drafting my defence as per the template letter.

The background was that the driver of the car, which wasn’t myself, attended an evening college course and found the parking charge terminals weren’t working. They mentioned this to the college staff who assured them that Euro Car Parks were aware of the non-functioning devices and to proceed as park as normal as no action would be taken.

Lo and behold a parking charge notice arrived, which I initially tried to get cancelled with the college, only to be told to contact Euro Car Parks who I wasn’t going to engage with knowing how corrupt this lot are. Baring in mind they’d been attending this course for 12 months purchasing parking tickets without issue, previously, so I decided to go down the ‘ignore’ route, so here we are.

My defence in paragraph 3 is going to consist of:

3. The vehicle was at the address on the day of the alleged breach as the driver was attending an evening college course, but the parking charge terminals weren’t functioning. This was brought to the attention of the college staff who informed the driver that Euro Car Parks Limited were aware of the issue with the parking terminals and to park the vehicle as normal without a ticket and no action would be taken, which the driver did in good faith.

I realise this is going to fall on deaf ears and mitigation isn’t an argument but is this paragraph sufficient, before I send the defence off?

Kind regards and thanks in advance.

ClaretFozzy

Apologies for the few typos above!

HungryCaterpillarNomNom

Morning All,

Hi ClaretFozzy,

Sorry to piggyback on the back your post, I thought it might bump your thread and save the experts repeating themselves...  I suspect we'll have a similar defence.  If you'd like me to remove this post and start fresh please say so, these court claims are a minefield and I don't want to confuse things. (Your car park isn't in a Lincolnshire market town like mine is it?)

I have also received a claim form from Euro Carparks/DCB dated Nov, date of offence 2021.  Parked up, parking machine was being worked on by engineer, waited a bit and then left the car park in my car as no ticket was coming out.  Total time 14mins.  Euro claim no engineer visited site that and day/time.  I tried to appeal but failed.

I asked to see the transactions on the machine before and after my time window, they are on average every 2 minutes before and after the event.  There is a 17min window where no tickets are sold that corresponds with the same time frame for the penalty received which would indicate the ticket machine was out of action - I know that other people will have received tickets at this time as some just walked off and left their car as couldn't wait for the engineer to finish.

What is interesting, based on ticket data, the car park in question takes approx £30/hr peak time on a Saturday.  My £60 fine is probably how they generate any serious return.  

So, I guess I save this extra detail for the witness statement when required?

Do me and ClaretFozzy have a similar defence response?  Is it best not to declare too much information on why we were there and save it for the witness statement?  Just something like:

3.  Parking machine was inoperable.  No ticket was purchased.  Got back in vehicle and left site to park elsewhere.

Any help is appreciate.  

Gr1pr

People seem to overlook the fact that paragraph 2 needs an ending, as well as paragraph 3

It seems to me that if the landowner or their agents say that they know about faulty machines and to park there anyway, promissory estoppel applies 

But yes use the template, keep the defence as concise as possible, addressing the POC on the claim form, keeping the stories for the Witness statement in several months time 

ClaretFozzy

Gr1pr said:

People seem to overlook the fact that paragraph 2 needs an ending, as well as paragraph 3

It seems to me that if the landowner or their agents say that they know about faulty machines and to park there anyway, promissory estoppel applies 

But yes use the template, keep the defence as concise as possible, addressing the POC on the claim form, keeping the stories for the Witness statement in several months time 

Thanks for your reply, Gr1pr.

Can I just confirm you were replying to me, HungryCaterpillar or both?

Gr1pr

If the cap fits. !  Then both of you 

But Hungry Caterpillar should be using a thread of their own, otherwise confusion reigns

Car1980

ClaretFozzy said:

I realise this is going to fall on deaf ears and mitigation isn’t an argument but is this paragraph sufficient, before I send the defence off?

Kind regards and thanks in advance.

Mitigation is very much an argument. This is contract law over a private company's invoice at the end of the day, not an offence.

If a person claiming to be a representative of the landowner gives you instructions are you supposed to just ignore them? Comes down to the reasonable man argument. The alternative would be that they close down to entire college for the evening because the parking machine wasn't working. Who would do that?

All arguments for the witness statement (even if it gets that far). But what you have sounds fine.

They'll discontinue at the eleventh hour as usual anyway.

ClaretFozzy

Thanks again for all your help so far.

One last question for the time being, hopefully. Should I drop the sentence below from paragraph 2, seeing as I do know the what the costs are being pursued?

“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.”

Car1980

What were the POC on the form?

KeithP

ClaretFozzy said:

I am currently at the court claim stage with DCB legal - issue date 22/11/2024. I’ve file an acknowledgment of service and am in the process of drafting my defence as per the template letter.

Please tell us the date that you filed an Acknowledgment of Service. For the moment I'll assume you filed an Acknowledgment of Service sometime after 26th November. Please confirm.

With a Claim Issue Date of 22nd November, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 30th December 2024 to file a Defence.

That's four 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'.

KeithP

@HungryCaterpillarNomNom, it really would make good sense if you were to start your own thread.

Trying to progress the different issues of two different people in a single thread can only lead to confusion.