UKPCM (UK) Court date

The judge has ordered my draft defence to stand as my defence at court so suppose i'm stuck with it...

this is what I have written - might be able to expand on points in a skelton argument?


1. I am .......................................

2. This is my statement of truth and my defence.

3. It is denied that the defendant owes the claimant £276 as entered in default judgement on *****.

4. As an unrepresented litigant-in-person I seek the Court's permission to amend and supplement this defence as may be required upon disclosure of the claimant's case.

5. For the avoidance of doubt on the relevant date I was the registered keeper of a ********

6. The claimant was engaged to manage a residential parking area to stop non-residents from parking on the residential estate '********'.

7. It is believed that it will be a matter of common ground that the purported debt arose as the result of the issue of a parking charge notice in relation to an alleged breach of the terms and conditions by the driver of the above vehicle when it was parked at ****** on *******.

8. The defendant was a resident at the time and has been issued a ticket which the claimant has refused to cancel.

9. It appears, based upon the scant and deficient details contained in the Particulars of Claim that the claimant's case purports to be:

a. That there was a contract formed by the defendant and the claimant on ***********

b. That there was an agreement to pay a sum or parking charge.


The Defence

10. The claim is denied in its entirety.

11. The issues still to be decided by the court are the following.

12. The Claimant is put to strict proof that it has sufficient proprietary interest in the land, or that it has the necessary authorisation from the landowner to issue parking charge notices, and to pursue payment by means of litigation.

13. Primacy of contract applies; the lease gives residents the right to park (temporarily or otherwise) which cannot be unilaterally overridden by a third party.

14. There is a large body of case law which establishes this.

15. In Jopson v Homeguard [2016] B9GF0A9E, on appeal HHJ Charles Harris QC found that the parking company could not override the tenant's right to temporarily stop near the building entrance for loading/unloading. The judge awarded £3,000 in costs against the parking company under the 27.14(2)g unreasonableness provision for refusing to cancel the charge and bringing the claim to court.

16. In Pace v Mr Noor [2016] C6GF14F0 [2016] it was found that the parking company could not override the tenant's right to park by requiring a permit to park.

17. In Link Parking v Ms Parkinson C7GF50J7 [2016] it was also found that the parking company could not override the tenant's right to park by requiring a permit to park.

18. In Pace v Mr Noor [2016] C7GF51J1, PACE came back again, this time claiming that clause 6.3 of the lease allowed the terms of the lease to be varied. The judge ruled that this clause required a month's notice to be given, and as this had not occurred, the point was moot. The claim, and 7 others relying on this, were dismissed.

19. If there is not primacy of contract then the signage comes into play. The wording on the signage is forbidding and does not make any offer to park. Therefore no contract is in place.

20. It is submitted that if these notices are attempting to make a contractual offer, then as they are forbidding they do not fulfil the basic requirement of a contract, which is that each party to the contract must offer valuable consideration to the other party, on clear terms capable of acceptance. In this case neither the Claimant, nor their principal the landowner, is offering anything to motorists. The notices cannot, therefore, reasonably be construed as having created a contractual relationship between the Claimant and the Defendant.

21. The above point was tested in the County Court at High Wycombe, in the case of Parking Control Management (UK) Ltd v Bull & 2 Others (B4GF26K6, 21 April 2016), where District Judge Glen dismissed all three claims, stating in his judgment that:

22. “If the notice had said no more than if you park on this roadway you agree to pay a charge then it would have been implicit that PCM was saying we will allow you to park on this roadway if you pay £100 and I would agree with Mr Samuels’ first analysis that essentially the £100 was a part of the core consideration for the licence and was not a penalty for breach. The difficulty is that this notice does not say that at all. This notice is an absolute prohibition against parking at any time, for any period, on the roadway. It is impossible to construct out of this in any way, either actually or contingently or conditionally, any permission for anyone to park on the roadway. All this is essentially saying is you must not trespass on the roadway. If you do we are giving ourselves, and we are dressing it up in the form of a contract, the right to charge you a sum of money which really would be damages for trespass, assuming of course that the claimant had any interest in the land in order to proceed in trespass.”

23. The exact signage used by UKPC was examined in UKPC v Masterson B6QZ4H3R. The case transcript shows the wording of the signs is almost identical to the signs in this case.

24. DDJ Ellington dismissed the claim, finding that as this was a trespass case the level of charge was not valid and the parking company had not cause of action.

25. While this is a County Court decision and therefore not binding, it is on all fours with the present case and may be considered as persuasive.

26. If there is a contract then the charge is a penalty and an unfair consumer contract.

27. In Jopson v Homeguard [2016] B9GF0A9E, on appeal HHJ Charles Harris QC found that the ParkingEye v Beavis judgment did not apply in residential cases. In UKPC v Masterson B6QZ4H3R DDJ Ellington also found that Beavis did not apply in residential cases.

28. This means the penalties rule are in play. As it was established in Beavis that the charge was not a genuine pre-estimate of loss, the charge is a penalty.

29. If the charge is valid, then only the amount of £100 is valid.

30. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, sch 4, para 4(5) provides that only the amount on the notice to keeper under paragraph 8(2)(c) or (d) or, as the case may be, 9(2)(d) may be claimed from the vehicle keeper. This is to protect keepers from the well-known tactic of parking companies of artificially inflating the claim.