Letter before claim

Delpierrot

Hi all,
I have received a PCN for not parking exactly in the middle of the parking bay at my own residence's car park.
There is not even a proper marking on the car park and at night, the small 2 marks on the floor is barely visible.
I have appealed the PCN unsuccessfully and then ignored the letters from debts recovery companies.

But now I have received this letter below which seems to be a letter before claim. Can you please let me know what shall I answer?
I have already contacted the company managing the facilities at our residence but not sure they will be of much help.

Any advice would be welcomed. Thanks in advance.

Nellymoser

No that's not the Letter before Claim. Read the letter's last paragraph 2nd sentence "and the next letter from us would be a Letter of Claim"

Have a read of NEWBIES Announcement thread 2nd Post Small Claim.

Delpierrot

OK thank you for the clarification.
So I should ignore this letter for now and hope they won't go any further, correct? 

Coupon-mad

Doesn't matter if they do. Perfectly defendable.

Did you read this thread? Read it ALL...

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6499026/pcc-in-leasehold-space-court-claim-started-against-mc-ppc/p1

And today's update confirms that the leaseholders' Claim against the parking firm was written by Jackson Yamba of Contestor Legal.

If I tell you that JY's personal story is a heartwarming case of 'poacher-turned-gamekeeper' ... take a guess which 'Legal' firm he used to work for?

Delpierrot

Thank you for the link. Very useful information!
I guess Jackson Yamba used to work for BW legal ... which is the same entity who wrote the letter to me!

Coupon-mad

Delpierrot said:

Thank you for the link. Very useful information!
I guess Jackson Yamba used to work for BW legal ... which is the same entity who wrote the letter to me!

You guessed it!

He must have learned from them... saw the light, IMHO.

Delpierrot

Nellymoser said:

No that's not the Letter before Claim. Read the letter's last paragraph 2nd sentence "and the next letter from us would be a Letter of Claim"

Have a read of NEWBIES Announcement thread 2nd Post Small Claim.

Thank you for your comment but I can't find the NEWBIES Announcement thread 2nd Post Small Claim, Would you know how I could find it please?

Nellymoser

There are 7 Announcement threads situated top of page 1. To get there scroll down under Leave a Comment there's a white box with the sentence Parking tickets, fines & parking (one at the top of every page too). Clicking on this white box takes you back to page 1.
The NEWBIES thread will open at last post so you'll have to scroll quite far upwards until you see Small Claim (lettering is red)

Coupon-mad

Delpierrot said:

Nellymoser said:

No that's not the Letter before Claim. Read the letter's last paragraph 2nd sentence "and the next letter from us would be a Letter of Claim"

Have a read of NEWBIES Announcement thread 2nd Post Small Claim.

Thank you for your comment but I can't find the NEWBIES Announcement thread 2nd Post Small Claim, Would you know how I could find it please?

You replied directly under my signature.

Look:

Delpierrot

Ok thank you for the help.

To this date, I still haven't received any letter before claim but I did complain about the PCN to our managing company and this is the answer I got:

Following on from this previous email, please see below email from the parking director regarding your concerns of the company breaching clauses: 

We do have a valid contract for the site and the PCN was correctly issued, so our PCN is valid. I can see they also appealed the PCN with the independent appeals service who also agreed that the PCN was correctly issued. They would have since received multiple debt recovery letters before it reached a legal stage and the costs reached this stage. They can choose to not accept the offer our legal team has provided and fight the PCN in court, however due to the above reasons I wouldn’t advise this as their costs stand to rise substantially higher and become court enforced. Unfortunately at this stage as the PCN is with our litigation agents, it’s out of my hands so £120 is the best offer I can provide. I’ve looked at the PCNs issued for the past year – 89% have been issued for permit related reasons suggesting the majority are for either non-residents abusing the site or, if they are to residents, they’re to residents that are not displaying permits or incorrectly displaying permits – so the vast majority of PCNs issued should not be issued to residents as long as they hold a permit (the rest are for parking outside of bays, but this amounts to 13 PCNs in a year)I hope this provides more clarification on the situation. Please let me know how you would like to proceed. 
and here is my answer, hoping it will stop them from taking any further action:

Good afternoon,

It is quite obvious that the IAS (Independant Appeal Service) only protects the companies issuing PCN.

Since October 2012 private parking companies have been required to provide an independent appeals service for motorists who disagree that the ticket has been validly issued. Initially, the British Parking Association offered the POPLA service. Statistics show that around 50% of appeals are upheld by POPLA.  They created their own appeals arm, called the Independent Appeal Service, which was run on entirely different lines. Parking Review reported that only 20% of appeals were upheld.

CPM mention that 89% of PCN have been issued for permit related reasons, this must be correct information, and I am sure it was mostly addressed to residents just like me who already had to pay 2 PCN because my permit was hidden by documents twice but now it is enough and I refuse to pay any other unfair PCN.

At some point, the managing agent contracted with the CPM to enforce parking conditions at the estate as a contractor but they are strangers to the lease and in common with other residents, I was led to believe that the regime was intended to deter trespassers. No 'relevant contract' or 'relevant obligation' was communicated to residents, nor would I have accepted a contract foisted upon me with onerous terms and charges. It is not enough to put signs up and ride roughshod over the rights of residents that already exist and which take precedence, given the leasehold title held.
Trying to re-offer a parking/loading (in or out of the allocated bay) right or easement that I already enjoy by express or implied right under my lease, lacks any aspect of consideration.

There is no licence to park that this Claimant can possibly offer me that I do not already have as an unfettered right. CPM is trying to run our residence car park like a commercial site, on the same punitive terms as a trespasser would be charged. This would clearly be a derogation from grant and I wish to make clear that I did not agree to contractual terms, just because a permit was foisted upon me with no opt out offered.

I am well ready to take it further to court on the following basis:
The Claimant, or Managing Agent, in order to establish a right to impose unilateral terms which vary the terms of the lease, must have such variation approved by at least 75% of the leaseholders, pursuant to s37 of the Landlord & Tenant Act 1987, and I am unaware of any such vote having been passed by the residents.

Regards,

Coupon-mad

Delpierrot said:

Ok thank you for the help. 

To this date, I still haven't received any letter before claim but I did complain about the PCN to our managing company and this is the answer I got:

Following on from this previous email, please see below email from the parking director regarding your concerns of the company breaching clauses: 

We do have a valid contract for the site and the PCN was correctly issued, so our PCN is valid. I can see they also appealed the PCN with the independent appeals service who also agreed that the PCN was correctly issued. They would have since received multiple debt recovery letters before it reached a legal stage and the costs reached this stage. They can choose to not accept the offer our legal team has provided and fight the PCN in court, however due to the above reasons I wouldn’t advise this as their costs stand to rise substantially higher and become court enforced. Unfortunately at this stage as the PCN is with our litigation agents, it’s out of my hands so £120 is the best offer I can provide.

 I’ve looked at the PCNs issued for the past year – 89% have been issued for permit related reasons suggesting the majority are for either non-residents abusing the site or, if they are to residents, they’re to residents that are not displaying permits or incorrectly displaying permits – so the vast majority of PCNs issued should not be issued to residents as long as they hold a permit (the rest are for parking outside of bays, but this amounts to 13 PCNs in a year)

I hope this provides more clarification on the situation. Please let me know how you would like to proceed. 

Your reply won't stop UKCPM, but they usually use Gladstones to actually file claims. Easy to defend.

And I hope you've opted your bay out of the scam regime now (if you have an actual bay)? You do not have to display a permit for anyone nor park square within your bay, not if your lease provides you with rights to that bay.

Interesting that UKCPM state that almost 90% of PCNs issued at Wadham Mews London are for 'permit related issues' which will likely ALL be PCNs sent to residents. Shocking!

AND we know that the IPC has said that a THIRD of PCNs from their (IMHO) horrible group of ex-wheelclamper chancers are for what they call 'repeat offenders' and by that they mean residents just like you, trapped as a captive audience of repeat victims by an unwanted permit scheme at home.

Your group (i.e. residents) is far and away the most common victim group who receive multiple PCNs. It's always residents. 

If the MHCLG crack down properly on PCNs issued to genuine residents for jumped up reasons like this, that'll be 90% of most IPC PCNs (issued at residential car parks) ended in one fell swoop!

Yesss MHCLG. Sort it please. Protect residents.