Euro Car Parks Claim Form & Legal Defence

MonkeyBalls2

Hello All,

I've just received this Claim Form today which I will in due course reply to via email which I assume is the best way to respond.
My main request is for help in regards to the wording of my defence & of course any other helpful advice would be gladly appreciated. 

So here's the history of the parking incident concerned.
I was the driver of of the parked vehicle on the evening of 19/11/22 & was going for a meal with a friend. It was dark & the signage was poorly lit with neither myself nor my colleague being able to read the small print but we could read the larger top print which stated 2 hours free parking & that's what we went by. Unfortunately we overstayed by 14 minutes although the time we spent parking, getting ready to leave, trying to read the signage & then leaving on our return should surely count as reasonable time & not count towards the 2 hour limit? 

Anyway the first letter I received was from Euro car parks on 31/12/22 stating that I now owed £100 because I hadn't replied to a previous letter, a letter I never received presumably due to the Royal Mail postal strikes which occurred at that time. I appealed which they rejected & later even offered to pay the initial charge as a good will gesture but they were not interested saying it was to late for that. 
The rest is the usual badgering/threatening letters from their debt collecting sister company & then they stopped for over a year before recently passing it onto DCBL to pursue.

Thanks in advance

Gr1pr

Read a few recent similar ECP DCB LEGAL cases on here and plagiarise their paragraphs 2 & 3 where it's the same allegation 

Browsing03

“I've just received this Claim Form today which I will in due course reply to via email which I assume is the best way to respond”

- nope AOS and defence is now recommended to be completed via MCOL. Please read the newbies thread and see the template response for MCOL

Coupon-mad

Everyone (hundreds of posters in the first half of 2025 alone) with a single PCN claim from DCB Legal, have easily beaten these.

DCB Legal will discontinue by the New Year.

No hearing, no costs, nowt scary.

But it is a national disgrace and a drain on Society, in terms of money and anxiety.

If you want to be part of the push to change things in future, it's very important that people like you tell the Government that:

a) you have no faith in POPLA or the IAS and that there must be the SINGLE APPEALS SERVICE that the Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 *almost* promised. As long as it is independent and impartial (and only ONE appeals service, not two involved in a race to the bottom) that will give a real option to resolve disputed cases out of court.

b).  THAT THE ENRICHMENT OF 'DEBT RECOVERY FEES' MUST BE COMPLETELY BANNED. DISPUTED CASES ARE NOT SOLVED BY DEMANDING MORE MONEY AND OFFERING A 'PAYMENT PLAN' THAT ONLY DUPED VICTIMS PAY. DRAS LIKE DCB LEGAL MAKE NO MONEY IF THEY HANDLE DISPUTES IN THE SPIRIT OF THE APPEALS CHARTER, WHICH IS WHY THEY ALWAYS PLOUGH ON TO COURT CLAIMS AND CCJs, RATHER THAN OFFERING REAL RESOLUTION AT PRE-ACTION STAGE.

c). Tell them about your experience and the complete and utter waste of court resources caused on a grand scale by DCB Legal,

Responses are invited to the Consultation now:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6617396/parking-code-of-practice-consultation-8-weeks-from-11th-july-2025/p1

Do it this month pleeease! We will discuss it on that thread next week if you want ideas.

MonkeyBalls2

Thanks for the advice guys, I'll use MCOL & could someone kindly send me a link to these paragraphs 2 & 3 that I should use for my defense? 😬

Gr1pr

Its Defence 

Look at the top of this forum, above your thread,  click on the defence template thread,  usually first or second from the top  ( the newbies sticky thread is usually 4th from the top   )  there are half a dozen announcements up there

Coupon-mad

MonkeyBalls2 said:

Thanks for the advice guys, I'll use MCOL & could someone kindly send me a link to these paragraphs 2 & 3 that I should use for my defence? 😬

No because my signature (under every post I make) already tells new posters where to click. Did you miss it?

MonkeyBalls2

Thanks I've found your info now, very helpful.
So I'll add paragraphs 2 & 3 to my defence, what about mentioning reasonable time to arrive/read signage/leave is there any useful template for that as I would've thought in my case that alone would be a winner?

Coupon-mad

No templates for the one paragraph we ask posters to write themselves! But by all means, show us your draft para 3 for critique.

You don't need a detailed winning point because DCB Legal will discontinue by the New Year.

MonkeyBalls2

Thanks, will make a start after the weekend.

MonkeyBalls2

So replied to the AOS via MCOL yesterday 11/08/25 & here's my defence for any critique..

1. The defendant acknowledges parking his vehicle GU63AOY in a totally unfamiliar car park, Bell Walk Shopping Centre, Uckfield on 19/11/22 to attend a birthday meal at a local venue but denies being indebted to the claimant. 

2. If an initial penalty charge was posted to the defendant it was certainly not received & the first correspondence received was on 31/12/2022 being a disproportionate full penalty charge of £100. Presumably the prolonged multiple Royal Mail strikes during this period is what caused the claimants breakdown in communication.

3. The defendant denies any contractual obligation was given or entered into due to the signage at Bell Walk Shopping Centre being inadequate. The defendant recalls the car park being dark & the sign being poorly illuminated & dirty even returning to his car to ask his passenger to also examine the sign. The only information that could be clearly ascertained was that two hours free parking was in operation. A two hour window that the defendant complied with & the mere few minutes either side of that time are deemed a reasonable grace period to enter the car park, find a suitable space, read the signage, unpack & secure the vehicle & on return open & pack the vehicle & leave in an orderly fashion. 

4. Two recent persuasive appeal judgments in Civil Enforcement Limited v Chan (Ref. E7GM9W44) and Car Park Management Service Ltd v Akande (Ref. K0DP5J30) would indicate the POC fails to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4(1)(e) and Practice Direction Part 16.7.5. On the 15th August 2023, in the Chan case, HHJ Murch held: 'the particulars of the claim as filed and served did not set out the conduct which amounted to the breach in reliance upon which the claimant would be able to bring a claim for breach of contract'. The same is true in this case and the Defendant trusts that the Court should strike out the extant claim, using its powers pursuant to CPR 3.4.