PCN Court Claim DCBL

Coupon-mad

122 lines I think

Le_Kirk

From reading other posts, I thought that you "saved" your defence on the MCOL defence submission page, which then informed you if there was an issue, then, after correcting it, pressed "submit".  Never used it myself so could be interpreting other posters' suggestions incorrectly.

Humanoid85

I've tested the updated defence on the MCOL website (122 lines) and it does fit.  Here is the current update (please check that the relevant sub-sections are cited correctly): -

1.  The Claimant’s sparse case lacks specificity and does not comply with CPR 16.4, 16PD3 or 16PD7, failing to 'state all facts necessary for the purpose of formulating a complete cause of action'. The added costs/damages are an attempt at double recovery of capped legal fees (already listed in the claim) and are not monies genuinely owed to, or incurred by, this Claimant. The claim also exceeds the Code of Practice (CoP) £100 parking charge ('PC') maximum. Pursuant to Sch4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, the claim exceeds the maximum sum and is unrecoverable: see Explanatory Note 221. Attention is drawn to (i) paras 98, 100, 193, 198 of  Beavis (an £85 PC comfortably covered all letter chain costs and generated a profit shared with the landowner) and also to (ii) the binding judgment in ParkingEye v Somerfield Stores ChD [2011] EWHC 4023(QB) which remains unaffected by Beavis and stands as the only parking case law that deals with costs abuse. HHJ Hegarty held in paras 419-428 (High Court, later ratified by the CoA) that 'admin costs' inflating a £75 PC (already increased from £37.50) to £135 were disproportionate to the minor cost of an automated letter-chain and 'would appear to be penal'.  Exaggerated claims for impermissible sums are good reason for the court to intervene.

2(a).  The Claimant's Parking Charge Notices that were received by the Defendant in 2022, made no provision for informing the Claimant of the driver's details in writing so that liability could be passed to the driver.  For this reason, it is believed by the Defendant that the Parking Charge Notices were not POFA 2012 compliant.  The Defendant received a Letter of Claim on the **th June 2025, from Claimant's solicitor, DCB Legal.  The Defendant transferred liability in accordance with POFA 2012, by providing the name and address of the driver by the email address stated on the Letter of Claim to DCB Legal on 30th June 2025, therefore there is no cause of action against the Defendant.  On the ** July, the same email was sent again to the same address, with the additional note that no reply had been received.  Both emails only received an automated email to say that the emails had been received.  Approximately a week later, the same information was added and submitted on DCB Legal's “response web page”, as given on their letter of claim. No response was received at all, not even an automated email to acknowledge that details had been received by their response web page. The phone number provided on the Letter of Claim, was an automated service for making payment only, so it wasn't possible for the Defendant to speak with someone to provide driver's details by phone. Every possible means was exhausted to provide the driver's details to prevent a claim being issued by the Claimant against the Defendant.

2(b).  The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. Schedule 4, paragraphs 4(1)(2) and  5(1)(2) states:

Right to claim unpaid parking charges from keeper of vehicle

4(1) The creditor has the right to recover any unpaid parking charges from the keeper of the vehicle.

(2) The right under this paragraph applies only if—

(a) the conditions specified in paragraphs 5 are met

Conditions that must be met for purposes of paragraph 4

5(1)The first condition is that the creditor—

(a) has the right to enforce against the driver of the vehicle the requirement to pay the unpaid parking charges; but

(b) is unable to take steps to enforce that requirement against the driver because the creditor does not know both the name of the driver and a current address for service for the driver.

(2) Sub-paragraph (1)(b) ceases to apply if (at any time after the end of the period of 28 days beginning with the day on which the notice to keeper is given) the creditor begins proceedings to recover the unpaid parking charges from the keeper.

Due to the fact that a name and address of the driver was provided by email prior to issue of the court claim, it follows that there is no basis upon which Claimant may pursue keeper liability. The 28 day time period is not a time limit for transferring liability, but a time limit on the Claimant before they can begin proceedings. Proceedings is not defined in the POFA 2012, however, CPR 7.2(1) states ‘Proceedings are started when the court issues a claim form at the request of the claimant.’  As such, adopting the interpretation from the CPR, it is sufficient under the Act for the Defendant to name the driver and provide an address at any point prior to the Claim Form being issued. By providing the name and address of the driver of the vehicle on **/06/2025, and as the Claimant as had plenty of time to make changes before their claim was issued, any obligations as keeper have been discharged. The keeper in fact has the option to provide the name and address of the driver at any time up until proceedings are issued.  Therefore the Defendant believes there is no contractual obligation for the Defendant to pay the charges in the claim. The fact that the efforts of the Defendant to inform the Claimant through the means given on the Letter of Claim have been ignored seems very unreasonable.

 

3.  The Claimant has misused personal data under the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR, by naming the wrong defendant when they were in possession of the drivers details before beginning proceedings. The Claimant is at all material times the data controller and the Defendant is a consumer, and as such, the Defendant is protected from loss and may claim damages arising from a data controller's breaches of the data protection principles. 

4.  Allowing for the claim to be treated in the most expedient manner, rather than the Defendant making a counter-claim, the Defendant simply and respectfully requests the court to strike out the claim using its powers under CPR 3.4 for all of the material facts raised in the previous paragraphs.

Coupon-mad

You have a paragraph there with no number so you should re number it all to make sense.

And change this:

"by providing the name and address of the driver by the email address stated on the Letter of Claim"

to this:

by providing the name and address of the driver to the email address stated on the Letter of Claim

Humanoid85

Coupon-mad said:

You have a paragraph there with no number so you should re number it all to make sense.

And change this:

"by providing the name and address of the driver by the email address stated on the Letter of Claim"

to this:

by providing the name and address of the driver to the email address stated on the Letter of Claim

Do you think I need to quote the paragraphs of the Data Protection Act also?

Coupon-mad

No that can wait until WS stage.

Humanoid85

The changes are done.  Should I submit the defense now?  What happens next?

Gr1pr

The 8 steps in the defence template thread in announcements tell you what happens after step 1