Defence para 3 for ParkingEye court claim

daffodil83

Hi all,

Here is my paragraph 3 for the template defense for a money claim from ParkingEye, please could I receive any constructive feedback?

The situation was a car park in Manchester, no affiliation to next door hotel or other businesses, with an online only payment system. The 23 minute stay was attempting to connect to the website and register/make a payment which was taking a very long time due to an old phone which has slow processing time. I'm not sure I can say that without admitting who was driving? 

I have complained to the hotel to no avail, sent a late appeal to PE which was rejected and they have since sent the LBCCC and now I've received the money claim forms from HMCTS. 

lmk any further info which would help.

3a. Parking Eye claims to allow due consideration to mitigating circumstances for drivers issued with parking charges, however they did not consider or engage in discussion about the defendant’s mitigating circumstances relating to the belated response to the parking charge notice. I contacted Parking Eye as soon as I was able, appealing the charge and explained the following:

“The lateness of my appeal is due to mitigating circumstances of health and employment difficulties which meant I was unable to respond in a timely manner. I was struggling with my mental health at work and handed my notice in on the 10/06, and left on the 10/07, having been through a difficult grievance process earlier in the year due to unfair treatment. I’ve since been applying for jobs which has been extremely stressful. I will be able to evidence this if required to resolve this matter.”

Unfortunately Parking Eye did not wish to discuss or consider this and proceeded to ignore my request to be referred to POPLA for further appeal.

3b. “The BPA’s guidance specifically says that there must be sufficient time for the motorist to park their car, observe the signs, decide whether they want to comply with the operator’s conditions and either drive away or pay for a ticket. No time limit is specified. This is because it might take one person five minutes, but another person 10 minutes depending on various factors, not limited to disability.”

Parking Eye shows the vehicle entering the car park at 13:52:10 and leaving at 14:15:40, which is a total stay of 23 minutes and 50 seconds. As above, there is no time limit upon observing the signs and deciding whether the driver wishes to comply with the parking conditions. Given that the Wood Street car park operates on an entirely online payment system, relying on a smart phone with sufficient internet connection, Parking Eye should consider that additional time may be needed to establish the internet connection, for the website to load correctly, the individual to input their details, complete multiple steps to register an account including email verification and for the driver to make a decision about parking. Many of these steps are potential points of failure relying on the driver’s personal phone operating properly and internet connections which are often overloaded in central Manchester.

Without having a payment option for cash or card as most car parks do, Parking Eye should accept that many drivers will require more than 10 minutes to attempt payment and change their mind about parking. This makes the parking charge notice unreasonable.

Coupon-mad

Depends if this is from DCB Legal for PEye or a claim filed by PEye themselves. Which?

Show us the POC. How much have they added on the left, on top of the £100 PCN? (Not on the right, I'm not asking about fixed court fees).

Le_Kirk

What is the date of issue of the N1SDT claim form?  Have you done or when are you planning to do the AoS.

daffodil83

Hi both,
Thank you, I've attached the claim form pics, and done the acknowledgement of service on 25th so I believe I have 33 days from issue date 17th Nov, which is until 20th Dec - though I hope to put it in sooner.

Parking Eye seem to have done the claim themselves, no mention of another agent.

Le_Kirk

With an issue date of 17/11/25 and providing you complete(d) the AoS after 22/11/25 and before 06/12/25 your defence deadline date is 4.00 p.m. on 22/12/25

Your calculation is correct but a defence will never be due on a week-end or bank holiday.

Coupon-mad

daffodil83 said:

Parking Eye seem to have done the claim themselves, no mention of another agent.

Search the forum for this or some words from this phrase:

defence new tactic £25 not on signs

They've claimed for a parking charge but that parking charge was £100. That's the stated PCN sum on their signs.

Yet they've claimed £130, despite the binding case law ruling against them for doing exactly this, in ParkingEye v Somerfield where the Court of Appeal upheld the High Court decision (which exposed the added fee as unrecoverable at para 419 onwards).

Adding money for the same letter-chain seen in ParkingEye v Beavis (the £85 PCN was held to cover ALL COSTS AND PROFITS...) is, by any reasonable interpretation, double recovery.

Clearly, IMHO, PEye are content these days to ignore case law and hope nobody remembers Somerfield or interprets Beavis properly. Shameful.

Sadly, the hopelessly tone deaf Options Assessment in the recent Public Consultation (with no option put forward to ban what the last Government realised and openly stated was 'extorting money from motorists' sounded a massive alarm bell that the MHCLG just don't get it.

Coupon-mad

By the way, could you be kind enough to show us the full letter chain you received since June? Every letter please. I'd like to compare it with my copies of the letter chain they used in Beavis.

Urgent please. It's for the MHCLG.

daffodil83

First letter:

daffodil83

Second letter after 29 days appeal deadline was missed:

daffodil83

I then submitted a complaint as l couldn't do an appeal online after the deadline - this on 21st July:


They responded by email on 25th July:



My response on 28th July - there was no appeal button.



Their response 29th July - they must have done something to the website or my page to allow a late appeal - I believe the button is not there automatically

daffodil83

Their response to my appeal:



I then received the LBCCC around 9-10th August: