Court Claim received, appeal not responded too, and potentially my mistake....

MadAsHell24

Please can someone help?

I have this Claim for arriving in a car park at 16:57 and not paying for parking.  My understanding when getting to the ticket machine was that parking payments were needed up to 5pm. Having found a space, grabbed my bag, and walked to the machine, it was gone 5pm, so I didn’t buy a ticket.

I did appeal (don’t berate me!) as this felt like such as simple thing that would be dropped.  I never heard from the appeal, and the letters kept coming.  Now I have this Court Claim which is freaking me out.  I have checked Civil Enforcement portal and the appeal is still on there, no closure or rejection. 

I called DCBLegal, they say the appeal was rejected and I was written to. I don't have this letter in my pile of letters relating to this parking fine - I don't believe I have received one.

Claim letter issue date 27 Nov 24.  I have made an Acknowledgement of Service yesterday (8.12.24).

I am further concerned as I have done web research on the car park, and found a picture of a parking sign that shows evening tariff of 50p – so I am now worried about whether I did need to pay after 5pm after all and I have made a monumental mess up.

I have been reading the forum – I am guessing it is too late to appeal to the shopping centre that own the car park at this point.

Any advice please?  Do I just keep going with defence (aware I am now questioning my own defence!)  or should I just pay up and put it behind me (I feel so resentful to do this when they didn’t even have the audacity to respond to my appeal).  If I had had a rejected appeal I would have been in a situation of only having £60 or £100 at that point!

 

Particulars of Claim:

1.      The Defendant is indebted to the claimant for a Parking Charge issued to vehicle xyz at Car Park <address of car park>

2.      The PCN(s) were issued on 3.3.23

3.      The defendant is pursued as the driver of the vehicle for breach of the terns on the signs (the contract). Reason: Payment Not Made in Accordance With Notified Terms.

4.      IN the alternative the defendant is pursued as the keeper to POFA 2012, Schedule 4 .

AND THE CLAIMANT CLAIMS

1.      £170 being the total of the PCN(s) and damages

2.      Interest at a rate of 8% per annum pursuant to x.69 of the County Courts Act 1984 from the date hereof at a daily rate of £.03 until judgement or sooner payment.

3.      Costs and court fees.

Thank you for any wise words on this.

KeithP

MadAsHell24 said:

Claim letter issue date 27 Nov 24.  I have made an Acknowledgement of Service yesterday (8.12.24).

With a Claim Issue Date of 27th 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 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'.

Coupon-mad

There's a template defence where you only write one paragraph. And it doesn't even matter what you put because DCB Legal will discontinue before the hearing, regardless.

Honestly, this is easy.  Easier than appeal.

Just add brief info about the circumstances but also deny the allegations. As seen in every thread like this. We win 99% of the time!

I hate providing links to threads because it stops people seeing how to hop around and finding & reading threads for themselves. But in the spirit of the Season, here's one showing what to put for para 3, but please look around and read more (saves us from having to reply with the same stuff on thread after thread):

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

That shows you some 'deny the POC' wording to include in your para 3. Just add a line about the circumstances & facts that you know.

And of course use the whole Template Defence but we don't want to be shown it ... please!

Then follow the first 12 steps in the Template Defence thread 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.

Umkomaas

As DCB Legal are involved, hope the following thread is on your 'to read' list. 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6377263/dcb-legal-record-of-private-parking-court-claim-discontinuations/p1

MadAsHell24

Thank you for this advice.  Based on the other threads and advice, I am planning para 3 as follows - 

3. The Defendant entered Five Valley car park at 16:57 according to the Claimant’s letter of 10.3.23.  Having found a parking space, parked, and then walked to the ticket machine, the time was just gone 17:00. Local signage indicated that parking charges ended at 17:00, hence no ticket was purchased. 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. Furthermore, the Claimant has not demonstrated that sufficient signage or terms were clearly displayed and visible to the Defendant or any driver of the vehicle on that day 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.  Having received the letter from the Claimant dated 10.3.23, the Defendant lodged an Appeal on 18.3.23 to which they are still awaiting a response. The defendant checked on the Claimant’s web portal on 2.12.24 and the appeal is still showing as Open. 

 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 03/03/2023” (the date of the alleged visit).  Whilst the Defendant is the registered keeper, paragraphs 3 and 4 are denied. The Defendant is not liable and has seen no evidence of a breach of prominent terms.  The quantum 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

MadAsHell24 said:

3. The Defendant entered Five Valley car park at 16:57 according to the Claimant’s letter of 10.3.23.

How sure can we be that the Civil Enforcement ANPR clock was not a few minutes slow and the real time of the vehicle's arrival was actually just after 5pm?
In other words, are the ANPR and payment machine clocks synchronised?

Perhaps a rhetorical question, but that is more likely to catch people out than the clock being fast and catch no-one at the start of the day.

Gr1pr

Too much info in 3, just use a short concise sentence,  if at all,  stick to making the point 

Personally I would swap them around and have less than half of the narrative , losing all of the middle section