PCN x 2 from NCP

Le_Kirk

With an issue date of 26/05/26 and providing you complete(d) the AoS before or on 14/06/26 your defence deadline date is 4.00 p.m. on 29/06/26

Did you submit the AoS before 14/06/26?

Nylamummy

Yes I did, thank you @ Le_Kirk.

I am going to submit the Defence today, just to get it out of the way, as I am on annual leave today and busy with work all of next week.

Thank you

Nylamummy


Hello, I was wondering if someone would kindly read my witness statement and let me know if any amendments are suggested? I have two NCP parking tickets for the same overnight stay, which they are taking me to court for…..




I, xxxxxxxxxxxxx, am the defendant in these proceedings. I make this witness statement from matters within my knowledge, except where otherwise stated. Where I refer to documents, I intend to rely upon those documents as exhibits to this witness statement. 




Background and my use of NCP Autopay

1. I parked my vehicle, registration xxxxxx, at the claimants xxxxxxxx Car Park between the 24th September 2025 and 25th September 2025. The parking gave rise to PCN xxxxxx and PCN xxxxxxxxx.




2. I was a registered user of the NCP App and had previously used its AutoPay feature. My understanding and experience of AutoPay was that the appropriate parking charge would be automatically debited from my registered payment card when I exited an NCP car park.




3. I had successfully used AutoPay before. In particular, I have records of AutoPay payments of £5.90 at Manchester Palace on 12 June 2023 and £13.80 at Manchester Spinningfields on 24 October 2023. I will rely on those receipts as evidence of my previous use of, and reliance upon, the service.

4. I understand that NCP now says that AutoPay was discontinued in or around October 2023. I was not aware of that at the time I parked at xxxxxxxx

5. I did not receive, or at least I have been unable to locate, any email from NCP telling me that AutoPay had been discontinued. I have searched my email records for such a notification and found none.

6. I had not parked at an NCP car park between October 2023 and the parking events in September 2025. I therefore had no previous parking occasion on which I would have discovered that the service I had previously relied upon was no longer operating.

7. I did not see any signage at the entrance to, or within, the xxxxx car park warning me that AutoPay had been discontinued or that a customer who had previously relied upon AutoPay needed to take a different action in order to pay.

8. I have also taken a screenshot showing that the NCP App and/or Help Centre continued to contain AutoPay-related FAQs or guidance after the date on which NCP says the service had been discontinued. That continued reference to AutoPay reinforced my belief that the service remained part of NCP's system.

9. For those reasons, when I parked at xxxxxxxx I genuinely believed that AutoPay remained active on my account and that the parking charge would be taken automatically, as it had been on my previous uses of the service.

The Overnight Stay and the Two Parking Events

10. On the relevant dates I was staying overnight at a hotel adjacent to the car park. My intention was to park for what I regarded as one overnight/approximately 24-hour stay.

11. During that stay I briefly left the car park to obtain food and returned later the same evening. I did not appreciate that this would be treated by NCP as two separate chargeable parking events.

12. Because I believed AutoPay was operating, I expected any parking charges generated by my use of the car park, including any consequence of leaving and re-entering, to be dealt with automatically through the app and my registered payment card.

My Contact with NCP and attempts to pay

13. On 10 October 2025, I noticed that no parking payment had been taken from my account. I therefore contacted NCP's customer service department by webchat to find out what had happened and to arrange payment. I did this before I had received either PCN.




14. During that webchat I explained that I had stayed overnight near the car park, had left and re-entered during the stay, had expected AutoPay to process the payment automatically, and was contacting NCP because I was concerned that no payment had been taken.




15. During the same webchat, the NCP representative told me that two PCNs had already been issued and that the matter was 'outside the time to pay'. The representative also said that customers had been emailed about the change to AutoPay, but was unable to confirm to me the date of the alleged notification or whether any notification had been provided through the app.




16. I subsequently appealed both PCNs.




17. On 28 November 2025, NCP partially upheld my appeals by resetting the payment timescales and reducing each charge to £20.

18. On 5 December 2025, I offered to pay the ordinary parking tariff of approximately £10, which was the parking cost I had always expected and intended to pay. NCP did not accept that offer.




19. On 10 January 2026, I made a further written offer to settle both PCNs for a total of £20, expressly without admission of liability. That offer was not accepted.




20. Throughout this matter I have never sought to avoid paying the genuine parking tariff. My conduct on 10 October 2025 is particularly important to me because I contacted NCP myself, before receiving either PCN, specifically because I realised no payment had been collected and wanted to resolve it.




Why I dispute the claim


21. I dispute the Claimant's claim because I was not given clear notice that the AutoPay service on which I had previously relied had ceased to operate. I had no reason, based on my previous experience and the information available to me, to believe that I needed to use a different payment method.

22. I also did not see any clear warning at the car park that leaving and re-entering during my overnight stay would result in two separate parking events and, in my circumstances, potentially two separate parking charges.




23. Had I known that AutoPay was no longer operating, I would have paid the applicable parking tariff by another available method. My subsequent attempts to pay the tariff were consistent with what I had intended to do from the outset.

24. I respectfully ask the Court to consider the contemporaneous evidence of my previous AutoPay use, my email search, the NCP webchat, the appeal correspondence, my payment and settlement offers, and the continuing AutoPay references in NCP's own app and/or Help Centre.




25. I therefore ask the Court to dismiss the Claimant's claim. If the Court nevertheless finds that a sum is due, I respectfully ask the Court to take into account that I always intended to pay the ordinary parking tariff, acted promptly once I realised no payment had been taken, and repeatedly attempted to resolve the matter.

Gr1pr

Name the actual claimant on the top left of the claim form below

Name the lawyers involved too ( Moorside Legal. ? )

Check the company number on the original pcns and post it below

Post a verbatim copy of the original defence that you submitted, word for word

I assume that you know that NCP are in receivership ? Which may need more paragraphs?

We are playing catch-up here due to radio silence

Or

If this relates to your previous 2026 threads, in which case report them to the admins here for merging into one continuous thread ( not 3 or more, thank you. )

MSE_ForumTeam5

Two threads merged

Coupon-mad

"I will rely on those receipts as evidence"

Not if you don't attach it as an exhibit and refer to it by number.

In fact none of the things you refer to have been given an exhibit number (your ininitals plus sequential numbers as your WS mentions them).

You can't just rock up on the day with things, that would be an ambush.

And you don't seem to have re-read the NEWBIES thread post 2, the whole section on WS and evidence stage. I say this because you've just written 'your story' and haven't used a single one of the recommended exhibits I painstakingly listed there.

And you haven't added a statement of truth. Have a look at the good example by @JackR1

🙂

Nylamummy

Thank you, I will take a look now.

Nylamummy

Hello, I am back with some further details…..many thanks in advance for your guidance….

The Claimant is : NCP Car Parks (National Car Parks Ltd) x 2 PCN's - totalling £448.32 (a 24 hours stay, but as I nipped out to get food, they have regarded it as two separate parking stays).

Company pursuing the claim: Moorside Legal Services Ltd

Company number on original PCN's from NCP - 253240 (Showing as In Administration at Companies House)

AOS and Directions Questionnaire have been submitted. Mediation booked for mid October.

My defence, which has already been submitted, is below:

CLAIM NUMBER: XXXXXXXX
ISSUE DATE: 21ST MAY 2026
CLAIMANT: NATIONAL CAR PARKS LTD
DEFENDANT: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

PARTICULARS OF CLAIM:

The Defendant(D) is indebted to the Claimant(C) for a Parking Charges issued to vehicle xxxxxx. 2. Charges were issued between 24/09/2025 and 25/09/2025 on land managed by C. 3. The vehicle was parked in breach of the Terms on Cs signs (the contract), thus incurring the charges. 4. The driver agreed to pay within 28 days but did not. D is liable as the driver or keeper. Despite requests, the charges remain unpaid and have escalated. AND THE CLAIMANT CLAIMS 1. £340.00 being the total of the PCNs.

Costs and Court fees. The claimant claims interest under section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984 at the rate of 8% a year from 22/10/2025 to 19/05/2026 on £340.00 and also interest at the same rate up to the date of judgment or earlier payment at a daily rate of £0.04.

Amount Claimed: £348.32, Court Fee: £50, Legal Representatives Costs: £50, Total Amount: £448.32

DEFENCE:

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'. Further, the Claimant has improperly added a false 'fee' or damages to the original Parking Charge (PC). This sum is not legally recoverable and constitutes an attempt at double recovery, which is unreasonable conduct under CPR 27.14(2)(g). The binding Supreme Court judgment in ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 held that an £85 parking charge more than covered all the 'costs of enforcement' which HHJ Moloney had listed as the pre-action work of a DVLA look-up and a simple automated letter chain, including a LBC. The same heads of cost cannot lawfully be counted twice and interest should also be disallowed. Exaggerated claims for impermissible sums are good reason for judges to intervene and the court is invited to strike out the claim using its powers under CPR 3.4.

2. The allegation(s) are vague; £340 is thrown into boilerplate pleadings without even explaining how many parking charges are being pursued. Liability is denied for the sum claimed, or at all. The Defendant has little knowledge of events but admits that they were the registered keeper. The Claim fails to plead and specify any term/breach, thus the binding authority of Liberty Homes (Kent) Ltd v Rajakanthan & Ors (2022) EWHC 2201 (TCC) applies, where the High Court found the Particulars to be deficient and struck them out due to lack of required detail.

3. With regards to the POC in question, 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. The second recent persuasive appeal judgment also held that typical private parking case POC (like this) fail to comply with Part 16. On the 10 May 2024, in CPMS v Akande, HHJ Evans held: 'Particulars of Claim have to set out the basic facts upon which a party relies in order to prove his or her claim'.4. It is neither admitted nor denied that a term was breached but to form a contract, there must be an offer, acceptance, and valuable consideration (absent in this case). The Consumer Rights Act 2015 (s71) mandates a 'test of fairness' duty on Courts and sets a high bar for prominence of terms and 'consumer notices'. Paying regard to Sch2 (examples 6, 10, 14 & 18), also s62 and the duties of fair, open dealing/good faith, the Defendant notes that this Claimant reportedly uses unclear (unfair) terms/notices. On the limited information given, this case looks no different. The Claimant is put to strict proof with contemporaneous photographs.

5. DVLA keeper data is only supplied on the basis of prior written landowner authority. The Claimant (an agent) is put to strict proof of their standing to sue and the terms, scope and dates of the landowner agreement, including the contract, updates, schedules and a map of the site boundary set by the landowner (not an unverified Google Maps aerial view).

6. To impose a PC, as well as a breach, there must be: (i) a strong 'legitimate interest' extending beyond compensation for loss, and (ii) 'adequate notice' (prominence) of the PC and any relevant obligation(s). None of which have been demonstrated. This PC is a penalty arising as a result of a 'concealed pitfall or trap', poor signs and covert surveillance, thus it is fully distinguished from Beavis.

7. Attention is drawn to:

(i) paras 98, 100, 193, 198 of Beavis (an £85 PC covered all costs and generated a huge profit shared with the landowner); the court should also read paragraph 3.4 of the original judgment by HHJ Moloney in Beavis, confirming what that authority means by 'costs of the operation', and

(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 references costs abuse. HHJ Hegarty held in paras 419-428 (his judgment later ratified by the CoA) that 'costs' inflating a £75 PC (already increased from £37.50) to £135 were disproportionate to the very minor cost of a letter-chain and 'would appear to be penal'. The court should note that HHJ Moloney referenced this case in Beavis.

8. The Parking (Code of Practice) Act will curb rogue conduct by operators and debt recovery agents (DRAs). The Government launched a Public Consultation likely to herald a ban on double recovery 'fees', which the relevant 2022 Minister called ‘extorting money from motorists’. Both the previous and present Governments found that the high profits may be indicative of firms having too much control 'indicating that there is a market failure'.

9. Pursuant to Sch4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 ('POFA') the claim exceeds the maximum sum and is unrecoverable: see Explanatory Note 221: 'The creditor may not make a claim against the keeper ... for more than the amount of the unpaid parking related charges as they stood when the notice to the driver was issued (para 4(5))'. There is no keeper liability for added false fees and the POFA specifically states that 'double recovery' is not allowed if a creditor uses any other remedy.

10. The Defendant seeks fixed costs (CPR 27.14) and a finding of unreasonable conduct and further costs (CPR 46.5). Parking cases now make up a third of all small claims which has overburdened HMCTS, causing the most CCJs of all sectors yet almost invariably discontinuing defended cases before hearings, which indicates a deliberate business model of systemic abuse and makes Claimants liable for costs (r.38.6(1)). Whilst this does not 'normally' apply to the small claims track (r.38.6(3)) the White Book has this annotation: 'Note that the normal rule as to costs does not apply if a claimant in a case allocated to the small claims track serves a notice of discontinuance although it might be contended that costs should be awarded if a party has behaved unreasonably (r.27.14(2)(dg))'.

11. The Defendant notes that National Car Parks Limited entered administration on 16 March 2026, with Joint Administrators appointed from PwC, and was therefore in administration when this claim was issued on 21 May 2026. On entering administration, the directors' powers to act on the company's behalf are suspended, and the conduct of litigation in the company's name falls to the Joint Administrators. The Defendant puts the Claimant to strict proof that the Joint Administrators have authorised the bringing and continuation of this claim and have expressly instructed Moorside Legal Services Ltd to pursue it on the company's behalf, failing which the Defendant invites the Court to find the claim is not properly constituted.



I have written/amended my witness statement as follows, which hasn't been submitted as of yet, I would like to get it sent before the Mediation in October….. if anyone has a moment to cast their eyes over it, that would be amazing - thank you in advance…


I, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, am the defendant in these proceedings. I make this witness statement from matters within my knowledge, except where otherwise stated. Where I refer to documents, I intend to rely upon those documents as exhibits to this witness statement.

I am a litigant in person with no formal legal training. I have done my best to present my evidence clearly, and I respectfully ask the court to take this into account.

I note for the Court that, at the time of writing, I have yet to receive the Claimant’s Witness Statement.

Background and my use of NCP Autopay

1. I parked my vehicle, registration XXXXXXX, at the claimants Bromley Mall Car Park between the 24th September 2025 and 25th September 2025. The parking gave rise to PCN xxxxxxxxx and PCN xxxxxxxxx.

2. I was a registered user of the NCP App and had previously used its AutoPay feature. My understanding and experience of AutoPay was that the appropriate parking charge would be automatically debited from my registered payment card when I exited an NCP car park.

3. I had successfully used AutoPay before. In particular, I have records of AutoPay payments of £5.90 at Manchester Palace on 12 June 2023 (Exhibit HA1) and £13.80 at Manchester Spinningfields on 24 October 2023 (Exhibit HA2). I will rely on those receipts as evidence of my previous use of, and reliance upon, the service.

4. I understand that NCP now says that AutoPay was discontinued in or around October 2023. I was not aware of that at the time I parked at Bromley Mall.

5. I did not receive, or at least I have been unable to locate, any email from NCP telling me that AutoPay had been discontinued. I have searched my email records for such a notification and found none. Neither was the discontinuation advertised on their app.

6. I had used the AutoPay feature at an NCP car park between October 2023 and the parking events in September 2025. I therefore had no previous occasion on which I would have discovered that the service I had previously relied upon was no longer operating.

7. I did not see any signage at the entrance to, or within, the Bromley Mall car park warning me that AutoPay had been discontinued or that a customer who had previously relied upon AutoPay needed to take a different action in order to pay. I did request evidence of signage at the location, but NCP were unable to provide this.

8. I have also taken a screenshot showing that the NCP App and/or Help Centre continued to contain AutoPay-related FAQs or guidance after the date on which NCP says the service had been discontinued. That continued reference to AutoPay reinforced my belief that the service remained part of NCP's system. (Exhibit HA3)

9. For those reasons, when I parked at Bromley Mall I genuinely believed that AutoPay remained active on my account and that the parking charge would be taken automatically, as it had been on my previous uses of the service.

The Overnight Stay and the Two Parking Events

10. On the relevant dates I was staying overnight at a hotel adjacent to the car park. My intention was to park for what I regarded as one overnight/approximately 24-hour stay. (Exhibit HA4)

11. During that stay I briefly left the car park to obtain food and returned later the same evening. I did not appreciate that this would be treated by NCP as two separate chargeable parking events.

12. Because I believed AutoPay was operating, I expected any parking charges generated by my use of the car park, including any consequence of leaving and re-entering, to be dealt with automatically through the app and my registered payment card.

My Contact with NCP and attempts to pay

13. On 10 October 2025, I noticed that no parking payment had been taken from my account. I therefore contacted NCP's customer service department by webchat to find out what had happened and to arrange payment. I did this before I had received either PCN. (Exhibit HA5)

14. During that webchat I explained that I had stayed overnight near the car park, had left and re-entered during the stay, had expected AutoPay to process the payment automatically, and was contacting NCP because I was concerned that no payment had been taken.

15. During the same webchat, the NCP representative told me that two PCNs had already been issued and that the matter was 'outside the time to pay'. The representative also said that customers had been emailed about the discontinuation of AutoPay, but was unable to confirm to me the date of the alleged notification or whether any notification had been provided through the app. Neither of which I had received.

16. I have visited the NCP website for Bromley Hall Car Park, most recently on 16 September 2026. The payment options displayed on the website include a column headed “Pay via the NCP App”, under which the 24-hour parking charge is listed as £10.00. As NCP’s AutoPay facility operates through its App, my understanding of this payment option is that the £10.00 charge applies where payment is made via the NCP App, including through the AutoPay facility. (Exhibit HA6 and HA7)17. I subsequently appealed both PCNs.

17. On 28 November 2025, NCP partially upheld my appeals by resetting the payment timescales and reducing each charge to £20. (Exhibit HA8)

18. On 5 December 2025, I offered to pay the ordinary parking tariff of approximately £10, which was the parking cost I had always expected and intended to pay. NCP did not accept that offer. (Exhibit HA9)

19. On 10 January 2026, I made a further written offer to settle both PCNs for a total of £20, expressly without admission of liability. That offer was not accepted. (Exhibit HA10)

20. Throughout this matter I have never sought to avoid paying the genuine parking tariff. My conduct on 10 October 2025 is particularly important to me because I contacted NCP myself, before receiving either PCN, specifically because I realised no payment had been collected and wanted to resolve it.

Why I dispute the claim

21. I dispute the Claimant's claim because I was not given clear notice that the AutoPay service on which I had previously relied had ceased to operate. I had no reason, based on my previous experience and the information available to me, to believe that I needed to use a different payment method.

22. I also did not see any clear warning at the car park that leaving and re-entering during my overnight stay would result in two separate parking events and, in my circumstances, potentially two separate parking charges.

23. Had I known that AutoPay was no longer operating, I would have paid the applicable parking tariff by another available method. My subsequent attempts to pay the tariff were consistent with what I had intended to do from the outset.

24. Regarding the inflation of fees per PCN, I rely on the judgment of HHJ Moloney QC in the initial Beavis hearing (ExhibitHA11). HHJ Moloney held that the parking charge itself was intended to cover the costs of the automated letter-chain and generate a profit.

The addition of these arbitrary fees is a clear attempt at "double recovery". As held in ParkingEye v Somerfield Stores [2011] EWHC 4023(QB), inflating a parking charge with "admin costs" appears penal.

25. I respectfully ask the Court to consider the contemporaneous evidence of my previous AutoPay use, my email search, the NCP webchat, the appeal correspondence, my payment and settlement offers, and the continuing AutoPay references in NCP's own app, website and/or Help Centre.

26. I therefore ask the Court to dismiss the Claimant's claim. If the Court nevertheless finds that a sum is due, I respectfully ask the Court to take into account that I always intended to pay the ordinary parking tariff, acted promptly once I realised no payment had been taken, and repeatedly attempted to resolve the matter.27. Furthermore, I request costs for my attendance (1 day of paid annual leave) at the rate of £115.00, and Litigant in Person preparation costs (CPR 27.14(2)(g)).

Claimant - National Car Parks Ltd (#253240) – Trading Status

28. I have also checked the claimant's status on the Companies House register. The claimant, National Car Parks Limited (company number 00253240), entered administration on 16 March 2026. Companies House records the company as being “In Administration” and identifies the appointed administrators. I understand that the present court proceedings were commenced after that date. (Exhibit HA12)

29. In those circumstances, I respectfully invite the Court to consider whether the proceedings were properly authorised and pursued on behalf of the claimant following its entry into administration. In particular, I have not been provided with any evidence establishing whether the proceedings were commenced or subsequently authorised, adopted or continued by the appointed administrators, or whether the claimant's representatives had authority to conduct the proceedings on the claimant's behalf following the commencement of the administration.

Documents relied upon:I intend to rely on the following documents, subject to the evidence available when the witness statement bundle is finalised:

1 (Exhibit HA1) AutoPay receipt - Manchester Palace - 12 June 2023.
2. (Exhibit HA2) AutoPay receipt - Manchester Spinningfields - 24 October 2023.
3. (Exhibit HA3) Screenshot of the NCP App / Help Centre referring to AutoPay.
4. (Exhibit HA4) Hotel booking confirmation / receipt.
5. (Exhibit HA5) Webchat transcript with NCP - 10 October 2025.
6. (Exhibit HA6 and HA7) A Screenshot of the NCP website for Bromley Hall Car Park showing the App is still advertised as in use as of 16/09/2026
7. (Exhibit HA8) Appeal outcome correspondence - 28 November 2025.
8. (Exhibit HA9) Email offering payment of the standard tariff - 5 December 2025
9. (Exhibit HA10) Written settlement offer - 10 January 2026
10. (Exhibit HA11) Parking Eye v Beavis Case Notes
11. (Exhibit HA12)Companies House profile for National Car Parks Ltd (#253240)


Statement of Truth
I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true. I understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought against anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest belief in its truth.

Le_Kirk

Have you received a Notice of Allocation yet? This normally happens after mediation is reported as
Not Settled.

Nylamummy

Not received a Service of Allocation yet, but I was told by the attendant at the Court that I should try and get the Witness Statement submitted before the Mediation in October.