CPP, Parking Eye , CEL , DCB Legal Group Thread

Stuberry

Dear Forum,

I have been dealing with my parking ticket myself for the last 3 years, using advice and templates from MSE. But things have now escalated to the point that I have received a HMCTS claim form. So I would like to get some advice where I stand.

The PCN was dated 89 days after the alleged contravention.

The recipient of the PCN has never admitted to being the driver.

The latest email from DCBL legal said:

"In order to identify the Registered Keeper of the vehicle, our client submitted a request for details to the DVLA. Your details were provided and thereafter notices were sent to you by our Client at your serviceable address. Those notices asked you to either make payment or, if you were not driving, nominate a driver by providing their name and full address. You did neither and as such you are now pursued on the basis that you were driving. On the balance of probabilities, if you were not the driver, you would have nominated.

When parking on private land, the contractual terms of the site are set out on the signs. You are entering a contract and agreeing to the terms by parking and staying on the site. Parking in breach of the terms as stipulated on the signage means that you are then breaking the terms of the contract. In this instance, the parking charge was issued because the Vehicle Remained On Private Property In Breach Of The Prominently Displayed Terms and Conditions.

Our client will ensure that there are signs clearly displayed on the land, outlining the terms of the parking. These will generally be displayed at the entrance and exit of the land/ car park, as well as being positioned at various points throughout the land. Our client does not need to prove that you read and understood the terms of those signs and will rely on the fact that the signs were situated on the land and that a reasonable person would have seen them. You should always be vigilant when entering any land that you are not familiar with or that you know is privately owned and there are parking terms in place.

Please note the timeframe in which to appeal the Parking Charge has expired. You were given the opportunity to lodge an appeal when the initial Notice was issued to you. Given that the case has been escalate to this firm for recovery action, the time to appeal has now elapsed and payment of the PC is now required.

You now have 30 days from the date of this email to make payment of £170.00. Failure to make payment may result in a Claim being issued against you without any further reference."

I responded to say:

To be clear: My dispute is that your client has no lawful right to pursue me, the registered keeper, for this charge at all, because the statutory conditions for transferring liability from driver to keeper under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 have not been met.

Specifically:
- The parking period ended on 10 August 2023.
- Paragraph 9(5) of Schedule 4 requires a Notice to Keeper to be given within 14 days of that date for the "second condition" (paragraph 6) to be satisfied.
- Your client's own Parking Charge Notice records a "Date Issued" of 7 November 2023 - 89 days after the parking period ended.

This is not a matter of appeal timing. It is a statutory bar. If the second condition is not met, your client has no right under Schedule 4 to pursue the keeper as if they were the driver - regardless of whether the keeper nominates a driver, responds, or appeals. Failure to nominate a driver does not, and cannot, create liability where the statutory scheme for keeper liability was never validly engaged in the first place. The burden remains on your client to establish liability; it does not shift to me by virtue of my silence.

Your email states that "on the balance of probabilities, if you were not the driver, you would have nominated one." I do not accept this as a valid basis for liability. There is no statutory or common-law presumption that failing to respond to a defective notice proves the identity of the driver, and I am under no obligation to respond to a Notice to Keeper that does not meet the requirements of Schedule 4. No evidence has been produced establishing I was the driver at the time  .

Please confirm, specifically and in writing, whether your client accepts that the Notice to Keeper was issued 89 days after the parking period ended. If this is disputed, please provide evidence of when the Notice to Keeper was actually posted. If it is accepted, please explain the legal basis on which your client nonetheless considers itself entitled to pursue me as registered keeper.

I remind you again that under the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims, a creditor is expected to engage properly with points raised by the debtor before proceedings are issued. This point has now been raised in writing on multiple occasions since January 2024 and has not once been substantively answered. Should a claim be issued without it being addressed, I will rely on the full correspondence trail, including this email, in relation to costs.

I do not accept liability for this charge and will not be making payment.

Then I received the official court claim form.

Please help me. I'm way deeper in to this than I ever thought I would be.

Le_Kirk

What is the date of issue of the N1SDT claim form? What do the POC state?

HoneydewLemon

This will never make it as far as a hearing, and even if it did they would have to pursue you as driver (and it sounds like they have no proof of that.)

*DCB Legal will almost certainly discontinue when the hearing fee is due (check out Umkomaas DCB Legal discontinuance thread of shame, if you haven't already!)

Edit: *So long as you defend the claim! They thrive on undefended claims & default judgements.

Stuberry

This is the claim form:

https://postimg.cc/0MsckcHr

Does this count as the alleged breach being specified in the claim form?

Coupon-mad

Please search the forum for NEWEST posts by me with the word 'fifth'.

Read the results from today and last week.

Do the same as on those exact same ParkingEye threads. See you when you get your Notice of Discontinuance in 2027.

It really is that easy.

(Yours is about the tenth one this month yet no threads are needed).

We need a group thread. Literally no advice is needed on any ParkingEye DCB Legal thread.

Stuberry

I read that and I understand that has worked numerous times in the past.

The defence statement you refer to is on page 4 of this thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6618133/horizon-gladstones-court-claim-2025

In my case, I have a very strong argument on POFA because the PCN was dated 89 days after the purported breach. They haven’t provided any evidence who was the driver but neither have I. Obviously it is for them to prove their case. But I want to include that POFA point in my defence statement.

I was thinking something like this:

1. It is admitted that the Defendant is the registered keeper of vehicle registration xxxxx ("the Vehicle"). Save as expressly admitted herein, the Claimant is put to strict proof of each and every allegation in the Particulars of Claim.
2. With regard to the Particulars of Claim, two recent persuasive appeal judgments in Civil Enforcement Limited v Chan (Ref. E7GM9W44) and Car Park Management Services Ltd v Akande (Ref. K0DP5J30) indicate that the Particulars of Claim fail to comply with CPR 16.4(1)(e) and Practice Direction 16, paragraph 7.5. On 15 August 2023, in Chan, 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 invites the Court to strike out the claim pursuant to its case management powers under CPR 3.4. In the second persuasive appeal judgment, on 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." The Claimant has not specified which term of the alleged contract was breached, nor produced the signage said to constitute the contract terms, and is put to strict proof of the terms allegedly displayed and of the specific breach relied upon.
3. As to paragraph 3 of the Particulars of Claim, it is not admitted that the Defendant was the driver of the Vehicle at the material time. The Claimant's enforcement method was by Automatic Number Plate Recognition camera, which captures no image of any individual and provides no evidence as to the identity of the driver. The burden of proving the Defendant's identity as driver rests with the Claimant, who is put to strict proof of this allegation. The Defendant further notes that the events in question occurred more than three years ago, on 10 August 2023, and that the delay in bringing these proceedings lies entirely with the Claimant. This delay has made it significantly more difficult for the Defendant to gather or recall evidence relevant to these events, which is highly prejudicial to the Defendant.
4. In relation to paragraph 4 of the Particulars of Claim, pleaded in the alternative, the Defendant denies that she is liable as registered keeper pursuant to Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 ("POFA 2012"), for the following reasons:
   a. Keeper liability under Schedule 4 POFA 2012 can only arise where both the "first condition" (paragraph 5) and the "second condition" (paragraph 6) are satisfied.
   b. The second condition requires, among other things, that a compliant Notice to Keeper be given in accordance with paragraph 9, including that it be given "not later than the period of 14 days beginning with the day after that on which the specified period of parking ended" (paragraph 9(5)).
   c. The parking period in this matter ended on 10 August 2023. The Claimant's own Parking Charge Notice, served as the Notice to Keeper, records a "Date Issued" of 7 November 2023 — 89 days after the parking period ended, and considerably outside the mandatory 14-day period.
   d. In the premises, the second condition in paragraph 6 of Schedule 4 was not satisfied, and no liability for the parking charge was capable of transferring to the Defendant as registered keeper, regardless of the identity of the driver.
5. The Defendant notes that the Claimant's agents, DCB Legal Ltd, having been notified of this precise point by letter dated 29 January 2024 and by subsequent email correspondence dated 3 December 2024, 30 January 2025 and 22 April 2025, have at no stage disputed the date on which the Notice to Keeper was issued, nor otherwise provided any substantive answer to this point.
6. For the avoidance of doubt, the non-admission in paragraph 3 above does not give rise to any presumption or inference that the Defendant was the driver, nor does any failure to respond to a Notice to Keeper, or to nominate a driver, create any liability where the statutory conditions in Schedule 4 POFA 2012 have not been met. The burden of proving the Defendant's liability, whether as driver or as keeper, rests with the Claimant throughout.
7. Further and in the alternative, even if (which is denied) the conditions for keeper liability under Schedule 4 POFA 2012 were satisfied, liability would in any event be capped by paragraph 4(5) of Schedule 4, which provides that a creditor may not recover from the keeper more than the amount of the unpaid parking charge as it stood when the notice was issued to the driver. Accordingly, the sum of £50.00 described as "legal representative's costs", together with any other sum beyond the original parking charge, is not recoverable from the Defendant as keeper in any event.
8. As to the sum claimed generally, the Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to recover £50.00 described as "legal representative's costs", or any sum beyond the parking charge, court fee and permitted statutory interest. The Supreme Court in ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 held that a parking charge of £85 already covered the full costs of operating a parking control scheme, including DVLA lookups and a standard letter chain; the same heads of cost cannot lawfully be recovered twice. In ParkingEye Ltd v Somerfield Stores Ltd [2011] EWHC 4023 (QB), the court held that inflating a parking charge from £75 to £135 to reflect alleged "costs" was disproportionate and penal. No order for the costs of legal representation is ordinarily appropriate on the small claims track pursuant to CPR 27.14, and no explanation or evidential basis has been provided by the Claimant for this charge; its inclusion is an attempt at double recovery and unreasonable conduct under CPR 27.14(2)(g).
9. The Claimant is a third-party agent and not the landowner of the site in question. The Defendant puts the Claimant to strict proof of its standing to issue parking charges and to bring these proceedings, including the existence, terms, scope and dates of any written authority granted to it by the landowner.
10. The Defendant further relies on the correspondence between the parties since January 2024 — including her letter dated 29 January 2024 and subsequent emails dated 3 December 2024, 30 January 2025 and 22 April 2025 — as evidence that the points raised in paragraphs 4 and 7 above were raised with the Claimant's agents at the earliest opportunity and have never been properly answered. The Defendant will invite the Court to take this into account in respect of costs and the conduct of these proceedings, pursuant to the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct and the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims.
11. In the premises, the Defendant denies that she is liable to the Claimant in the sum claimed, or at all, and invites the Court to dismiss the claim with costs.

Coupon-mad

"I read that and I understand that has worked numerous times in the past.

The defence statement you refer to is on page 4 of this thread"

No it isn't. That's from 2025 and has nothing to do with ParkingEye. Don't write any words about your case.

Use the one the Template Defence tells you to use for ParkingEye /DCB Legal claims.

The forum's stupid search defaults to 'best match' which feeds people old threads. No. You must override that, which is why I said you must change your search to find NEWEST first, then 'copy from those ParkingEye threads' in your results. I mean the ones from days ago!

You can add a denial of POFA liability at the end of para 2 of the 'Chan and Akande' version of the Template Defence.

Le_Kirk

With an issue date of 07/10/26 and providing you complete(d) the AoS before or on 26/10/26 your defence deadline date is 4.00 p.m. on 09/11/26

Stuberry

This is going off-topic… but just for info. I have searched for the term ‘fifth’, filtered the results to be from user ‘coupon-mad’ and then ordered the results by newest.

The most recent result is this thread with you instructing me to search for fifth.

The next is another thread giving someone else the same instructions.

The 3rd most recent is the thread I’ve linked to above.

I am keen to follow your advice and benefit from your experience. But I don’t understand where you are directing me to.

Coupon-mad

I'm showing you other exact same threads. Those first two results are both the same as yours and both have had advice. They are all the same.

None of you even need advice! The Template Defence thread gives you the entire defence for your cases.

There is nothing to ask about and nothing needs drafting, just do what the Template Defence thread tells you for DCB Legal ParkingEye threads where the breach isn't specified.

I'm trying to persuade yet another poster with yet another exact same claim today, to let their thread become the exemplar Group Thread to stop all this!

Stuberry

I’m happy to make this the group thread if you like. Just let me know what you want me to do? Change the title?