DCB legal Euro Car Parks Claim form Nov. 25

36Rebel03

Hello all, received the below last week.  I've completed the acknowledgement of service online, I'll be looking to draft and submit my defence in the next week.  Will post on here for views when completed

Gr1pr

Use this prime example as a basis for your defence 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6640055/claim-form-nov-2025-smart-parking-via-dcb-legal#latest

Coupon-mad

Except not paragraph 4 which is Smart Parking only.

Le_Kirk

With an issue date of 06/11/25 and having completed the AoS in a timely manner your defence deadline date is 4.00 p.m. on 09/12/25

36Rebel03

Afternoon all...can I have your views on the following paragraphs for my defence.  Thanks!:

3. On the 28th October 2024 at 13:44, the defendant, as acknowledged by the claimant, paid (their primary obligation) £2.90 to park for two hours at the North Place car park in Cheltenham operated by Euro Car Parks.  The defendant did not overstay or park in multiple bays or obstruct the operation of the car park (their secondary obligation). The defendant did, however, make an error when keying in their number plate details. The Claimant was immediately alerted to this with an early appeal by the Defendant. However, the Claimant is still seeking £170 despite there being no commercial loss to them or the landlord. The Beavis case is also authority that a PPC cannot charge whatever it likes in any circumstances. 

4. A professional parking operator would have cancelled the parking charge because an incorrect vehicle registration plate is not a valid or lawful justification to penalise motorists.  There is no legitimate interest in pursuing a motorist for a mere typo and the Government confirmed this fact in February 2022.  Euro Car Parks is a member of the British Parking Association (BPA), the BPA’s own sector Single Code of Practice states the following about ‘keying errors’ – ‘Where the terms and conditions require the driver to supply their vehicle registration mark at an on-site machine…the parking operator must have and follow a documented policy and procedure to avoid issuing or enforcing a parking charge in respect of accidental keying errors. This should include the adoption of technologies that reduce keying errors’

Coupon-mad

"The defendant did, however, make an error when keying in their number plate details."

Are you sure it was your fault? Not the system?

36Rebel03

From what I recall, there was no way on the machine of seeing how much of your registration you had already entered.  I lost track and only entered the first 4 digits which is what was showing on the ticket when printed

Le_Kirk

I think you will find that is a machine failure!

36Rebel03

Thank you, I've altered paragraph 3 as below then, for your views again please:

3. On the 28th October 2024 at 13:44, the defendant, as acknowledged by the claimant, paid (their primary obligation) £2.90 to park for two hours at the North Place carpark in Cheltenham operated by Euro Car Parks.  The defendant did not overstay or park in multiple bays or obstruct the operation of the car park (their secondary obligation). The ticket machine used did not display the registration when it was entered, hence there was no way to confirm that the correct details had been inputted before purchasing the ticket – which showed that only the first 4 digits of the registration had been entered. The Claimant was immediately alerted to this with an early appeal by the Defendant. However, the Claimant is still seeking £170 despite there being no commercial loss to them or the landlord. The Beavis case is also authority that a PPC cannot charge whatever it likes in any circumstances. 

Coupon-mad

I am toying with a new defence for DCB Legal cases, so you can try this:

1. The allegation(s) and supposed heads of cost are denied; no charges, fees or damages were incurred and the claim exceeds both the Code of Practice £100 cap and the maximum sum set in law. Pursuant to Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 ('the POFA') the claimed sum is exaggerated and unrecoverable; ref: 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))'.

2. DVLA keeper data is only supplied on the basis of prior written landowner authority. This Claimant (a mere agent) is put to strict proof of their standing to sue and a copy of their signage and their landowner agreement, including hours of operation, tariffs, grace periods, schedules and a verified map of the site signed by the landowner, not just a mocked up Google Maps aerial view.

3. Further, 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 uses wordy terms and notices with no damages specified. To form a contract, there must be an offer and agreement but it was the Claimant's own keypad system which caused the unfair Parking Charge ('PC'). There was a frustration of contract and no agreement to pay more than the tariff.

4. The Defendant was the driver and it is common ground that they paid (their primary obligation) £2.90 to park for two hours at the North Place car park in Cheltenham. The ticket machine used did not display the registration when it was entered, making it impossible to see that the correct details had been inputted before purchasing the ticket – which showed that only the first 4 digits of the registration had been recorded. The Claimant was alerted to this fault (caused by their system) in an early appeal but the Defendant received a template rejection. There is no legitimate interest to support this Parking Charge ('PC') and the fake 'damages' and improper interest bolt-ons are a well known feature of systemic abuse.

5. The Claimant seeks false 'damages' and improper interest with the object or effect of unjustly enriching them - and/or DCB Legal - in every undefended case. This bulk litigation model appears to seek most of its profits (a) from high sums paid out of fear before litigation due to the aggressive demands, and (b) from enhanced default CCJs.

6. These claims represent abuse of the court process on a grand scale. It cannot be right that this rogue industry makes more money from later stage cases than the face value of a PC if paid in full earlier. The courts should not allow the situation to continue whereby bulk litigators exaggerate the quantum in every boilerplate claim, by:

(i) pre-loading fixed interest as if it was part of the alleged debt. S69 of the County Courts Act 1984 grants courts a discretionary power to award simple interest but these claims from DCB Legal seek 8% (calculated on an unconscionably high sum from an unspecified date) pre-loaded on the top line of claims. This means improper interest is being automatically granted for every default CCJ (the vast majority of cases);

(ii) adding a fake sum layered on top of the PC, pleaded vaguely as 'damages'. This is double recovery but these sums are granted in every default CCJ case. The costs of a typical ANPR business model are address traces (DVLA plus a later 'soft' trace) and an automated letter chain. All minor, standard costs already accounted for in the PC itself, according to binding case law.

7. Attention is drawn to the binding judgments in: (i) ParkingEye v Somerfield Stores ChD [2011] EWHC 4023(QB) which remains as the only parking case law that addressed false 'admin costs'. HHJ Hegarty (High Court, later ratified by the CoA) held that hiking a £75 PC - already increased from £37.50 - to £135 'would appear to be penal' (ref: paras 419-428);

(ii) ParkingEye v Beavis [2015] UKSC67:

At para 98: The £85 PCs 'provided an income stream to enable ParkingEye to meet the costs of operating the scheme and make a profit.'

At para 99: ParkingEye 'sells its services as the managers of such schemes and meets the costs of doing so from charges for breach...'

At para 100: 'None of this means that ParkingEye could charge overstayers whatever it liked. It could not charge a sum which would be out of all proportion to its interest. [...] But there is no reason to suppose that £85 is out of all proportion to its interests. The trial judge...found that the £85 charge was neither extravagant nor unconscionable having regard to the levels imposed by local authorities'.

At para 193: The scheme 'covered Parking Eye’s costs of operation and gave their shareholders a healthy annual profit.'

At para 198: 'The charge has to be and is set at a level which enables the managers to recover the costs of operating the scheme. It is here also set at a level enabling ParkingEye to make a profit.'

8. So, contrary to misinformation spread by the private parking industry, the truth is that the costs of an automated ANPR business model were considered by the Supreme Court who allowed £85 as a self-financing (PC to LBC) acceptable business model from ANPR 'specialists'. In fact, the invoices generated such a huge profit that a surplus of £1000 per week was paid to the landowner. The minor costs covered by the PC included DVLA look-up (£2.50) and a Credit Reference Agency trace (under 30 pence in bulk) and all 'letter chain' costs: i.e. the reminders set as mandatory since 2012 in the BPA Code of Practice and a template Letter before Claim (current total cost using ZatPark software: £1.88 per letter). The vast majority of cases involve reminder letters because - for various reasons - most people do not immediately pay private PCs. Thus, these are standard costs within the PC model, not extra 'damages' to be layered on top.

9.  Exaggerated claims for impermissible sums are good reason for the court to intervene. The parking sector has been getting away with counting these costs twice for years and it is up to the MoJ and/or the MHCLG to stop this abuse. In 2022 a Government Minister called this double recovery aspect: ‘extorting money from motorists’. The pre-action stage is neither an extraordinary, remote or extra unexpected cost and nor is it 'enforcement'. Template pre-action letters do not fall outside of the usual work; whether issued by the operator or by a third party, these are the equivalent of the 5 letter-chain seen by the Supreme Court. Yet this Claimant seeks more than twice the sum in Beavis.

10. If a court was misled about that, it would render the PC itself unrecoverable. A PC that was cut adrift from the costs arising from a breach (by repackaging them as separate added 'damages') would leave the PC as 'all charge and no substance'. A £100 PC is already disproportionate at twice the level of a Local Authority PCN, so if it were stripped of another Supreme Court pillar (that the PC worked by covering costs and profit) it would have no legs to stand on except a bare deterrent value. That would make the PC extravagant and unrecoverable under the CRA 2015, the POFA Sch4 maximum sum and by applying the pillars of Beavis correctly.

36Rebel03

Amazing thank you, I will submit as above.