Defence Statement - DCB Legal

Joeb147

Good Afternoon, I am looking for some assistance with defending a claim made by DCB Legal. I have completed an AOS 
And I am know working on a defence, however some of the charges are from over 5 years ago and I cannot remember the particulars for each alleged charge. The car park in question was near to my place of work at the time and I would use the car park frequently. 

I remember I had issues with the parking app and being unable able to top up parking but not in enough detail to defend each claim. The car park is now a building site so I am unable to get any photos of the signage e.t.c to help in any defence.
 
At the time I foolishly didn't contest any of the charges as I believed I could just ignore the letters I received having got out of date advise !

 The Particulars of the claim are below 

Thankyou in advance

Gr1pr

And the parking company is. ?

Study the advice in the following thread, especially if those dates are incorrect 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81139187/#Comment_81139187

13 pcns at probably £100 a Pop, they were always going to pursue you, in court if necessary 

Joeb147

Parking company is Euro Car Parks. 

Yeah I was very naive in how I dealt with it at the time and 100% hold my hands up that I should have appealed each of them back when it happened. 

Gr1pr

ECP DCB Legal, deadline is probably 23 December at 4pm 

Even if you lost in court, you wouldn't owe that much on the claim 

Joeb147

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly @Gr1pr

Please see the draft of paragraph 3 of my defence. Should i even bother to include the first section about being unable to provide specific details due to the age of the claims? 


3  Owing to the fact that the Defendant used this car park on frequent occasions over an 18 month period and eight of the alleged breaches occurred over 5 years ago the remaining five alleged breaches over 4 years ago the Defendant is unable to provide specific details regarding each alleged breach. The Claimant has failed to provide photographic evidence or any other proof that the Defendant's vehicle was parked in breach of terms, or that a Parking Charge Notice was issued and visible on the vehicle. Without adequate evidence, the Defendant cannot verify the validity of the claim. Furthermore, the Claimant has not demonstrated that sufficient signage or terms were clearly displayed and visible to the Defendant on the days to create a binding contractual obligation. The Defendant also questions the Claimant's right to recover the alleged sums in light of unclear evidence of their legal standing or authority to operate on the land in question.

3.1 Referring to the POC: paragraph 1 is denied. The Defendant is not indebted to the Claimant. Paragraph 2 is denied. No PCN was "issued” on the dates of the visits.  Whilst the Defendant was the keeper and driver, the rest of paragraphs 3 and 4 are denied. The Defendant is not liable and has seen no evidence of a breach of prominent terms.  The claim is hugely exaggerated (no PCN can be £170 on private land) and there were no damages incurred whatsoever. The Claimant is put to strict proof of all of their allegations.

KeithP

Joeb147 said:

With a Claim Issue Date of 20th November, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, then as @Gr1pr says, you have until 4pm on Monday 23rd December 2024 to file a Defence.

That's two 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'.

Coupon-mad

You will need to change para 4 of the Template Defence a bit. because it won't be common ground that 'no loss' occurred.  Their case is that the small fee/tariff was owed from the outset.

I would add 3 more paragraphs:

3.2. The Claimant has not stated in this generic claim how long the Defendant did pay for on each occasion, or how many minutes they suggest were unpaid and what the landowner's required 'grace period' was at the time. These could even include 'keying errors' (a typo in the VRM or paying for the wrong car on the app). It is as clear as mud and the POC deliberately give the impression that the car was not paid for at all, which is denied. The Defendant was a paying patron of this car park in 2019/2020 and the Claimant is put to strict proof of all allegations.

3.3.  In an attempt to narrow the issues, the Defendant recalls that there were always issues with the parking app and a specific problem of sometimes being unable able to top up paid-for parking. It was hit-and-miss that the payment methods would work from one day to the next, and there was no term requiring drivers to leave the site if the operator's system failed. And in the case of failed top-up attempts, the driver leaving the car park would not have avoided a PCN anyway, because it took so long to try and fail to top up that affected drivers would have incurred PCNs already. The car park is now a building site so the Defendant is unable to now get any photos of the signage, nor can any records of very old app transactions be found five years later, which would have shed light in possible VRM errors and payments, and assisted the defence.

3.4.  To disingenuously bring this parking case to court so late is a cynical move and has caused extreme detriment to the Defendant, who feels almost powerless to prove their case. The Defendant submits that to sit on their hands for 5 years is extremely unreasonable conduct, and further, adding thirteen lots of the supposedly capped 'debt recovery fee' (which in itself as a single £70 bolt-on charge was said by the DLUHC Minister Neil O'Brien in 2022 as 'extorting money from motorists') was never part of the contract on the signs. As for the attempt to claim five years interest at 8% as some sort of reward for doing nothing, this beggars belief and is not something that a court will go along with, the Defendant trusts.
 

Joeb147

Thanks all for your assistance, i will keep this thread updated as i continue onwards with the proceedings. 

Joeb147

@Coupon-mad I have made a slight adjustment to Para 4 in order to acknowledge the initial parking tariff owed in question. 

4. The Claimant will concede that only the initial parking tariff is owed and that in order to impose an inflated parking charge, as well as proving a term was breached, there must be:

(i). a strong 'legitimate interest' extending beyond mere compensation for loss, and

(Ii). 'adequate notice' of the 'penalty clause' charge which, in the case of a car park, requires prominent signs and lines.

Coupon-mad

Yep! All done for now.

You can follow the first 12 steps in the Template Defence thread to take you through the early letters, so that you don't need to ask about the DQ questions or the laughable Mediation phone call.

We hope that we are only needed again by Defendants at WS & evidence stage (next year). The 'first 12 steps' advice saves us all time.