Claim Form (Seel St, Liverpool)

I am not sure how to address the fact that my husband may have not paid the full £3 due for the extra time. Should I just leave out the numbers? I have bolded that bit. He did pay an extra amount but admits that he may have been short of the change and the machine does not take cards.

Also, can I quote the Cargius case?

This is the defence from the other thread with the relevant information changed.

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I am XXXX, the defendant in this matter and I assert that the claimant has no cause for action for the following reasons.
1. It is admitted that the defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle in question at the time of the alleged incident.
2. It is believed that it will be a matter of common ground that the claim relates to a purported debt as the result of the issue of a parking charge notice in relation to an alleged breach of the terms and conditions (the contract) by the driver of the vehicle XXXXXX when it was parked at Seel Street, Liverpool.
3. The parking charge notice stated that the contravention as ‘Entering and Leaving the car park, parking without a valid paid parking ticket’. This cannot be a contravention when a driver uses the option to pay the attendant who is there until 6pm.
4. It is denied that;
a. A contract was formed, and it is further denied that any contravention of ‘Parking without a valid paid parking ticket’ occurred or can have occurred when using the option to pay the attendant, who works at the car park until 6pm. £3.00 was paid to the attendant who stated that if additional time was required, to pay at the payment machine before leaving the car park. I then paid a further amount of £3 before leaving the car park to cover the additional costs. The signage at the car park clearly states ‘Between 6pm and 8am you can purchase additional time (if required) at the payment machine/by phone before leaving’. It also states ‘Outside of these hours please pay for parking via the attendant only’. This is what the defendant did. The signage also states ‘£1.50 for one hour or over 1 hour £3.00’. The defendant paid £6.00.
b. That there was any agreement to pay a parking charge.
c. That there were terms and conditions prominently displayed around the site. By contrast these terms and conditions are in very small print, contrary to Lord Denning’s ‘Red hand rule’ and contrary to the requirements of the consumer rights act 2015.
d. That, in agreements to the parking charge, there was any agreement to pay additional sums, which in any case are unsupported by the Beavis case and unsupported for cases on the small claims track.
5. Rebuttal of claim.
The defendant made all reasonable efforts to make payment for parking using an approved payment channel and by following the signage in the car park.
a. On arrival to the car park the parking attendant asked for £3.00 to cover the charges. He noted down the registration plate of the vehicle.
b. The attendant said before leaving the park pay additional fees at the payment machine.
c. On returning to the car park, the defendant inserted the car registration and inserted £3 to cover the car park fees. This is in line with the signage displayed around the car park.
d. £6.00 was paid in total, more than the £3 the sign states to park.
e. The failure of this payment to lead to a parking charge notice is not the defendant’s responsibility. It is not reasonable in these circumstances for the driver to assume any more obligations for making the payment. In Jolley V Carmel LTD (2000) 2-EGLR-154; it was held that a party who makes reasonable endeavours to comply with contractual terms, should not be penalised for breach when unable to comply with the terms.
6. The defendant denies that they would have agreed to pay the original demand of £100 to agree to the alleged contract had the terms and conditions of the contract been properly displayed and accessible.
a. The amount demanded is excessive and unconscionable and especially when the penalty charge notice issued by the council is set at £50 or £25 is paid within 14 days.
7. The signage of terms and conditions on this site was inadequate to form a contract with the motorist.
a. The terms and conditions in question are in extremely small font size, one sign being placed high up on a lamppost and another hidden behind the payment machines.
b. The font size of the prices advised for parking is much larger than that of the contract which is therefore not brought to the attention of the motorist sufficiently to satisfy Lord denning’s ‘Red Hand Rule’.
c. The signage does not state that you must have a parking ticket displayed as one is not given the same if payment is made to the attendant. Therefore there was no breach of any relevant obligation as required under schedule 4 of POFA.
d. If the claimant wanted to impose a condition to continuously display a ticket, then they should have drafted clear instructions to that effect, requiring specific terms of how to ‘Park with a valid parking ticket’ when a paper ticket has not been issued or when using the option to purchase additional time before leaving.
e. According to the sign, Parking Eye manages the car park from 6pm – 8am. I parked at 4:43pm, not under their management time and yet they have photographs and details about my car.
f. Where contract terms have different meanings, as in this instance a parking ticket was not issued due to the chosen method of payment, then section 69 of the CRA 2015 provides statutory form of the contra proferentum rule, such that the consumer must be given the benefit of the doubt. The term is fundamental to the contract and the defendant invites the court to find that it is not transparent and therefore unfair. If a fundamental term to the contract is deemed to be unfair, then the contract will cease to bind the parties. The defendant invites the court to take these issues into account in determining the fairness of the term.
8. The claimant’s representative has artificially inflated the value of the claim from £100 to £175.
a. The protection of freedom act para 4 (5) states that the maximum sum that may be recovered from the keeper is the charge stated in the Notice to Keeper.
9. Non-disclosure of reasonable grounds or particulars for bringing a claim.
a. Parking Eye LTD IS not the lawful owner occupier of the land.
b. The claimant is not the landowner and is merely an agent acting on behalf of the landowner and has failed to demonstrate their legal standing to form a contract.
c. The claimant is not the landowner and suffers no loss what so ever as a result of the vehicle in question.
d. The particulars of claim are deficient in establishing whether the claim is brought in trespass. If the driver on the date of the event was considered a trespasser if not allowed to park there, then only the landowner can pursue a case under the tort of trespass not this claimant. As the Supreme Court in the Beavis V Parking Eye (2015) UK SC 67 case confirmed such a matter would be limited to the landowner themselves for a nominal sum.
10. The defendant invites the court to strike out or dismiss the claim under the rule 3.4 (2) (a) of Practice direction 3A as having not set out a concise statement of the nature of the claim or disclosed reasonable grounds or particulars for bringing the claim. District Judge Cross of St. Albans County Court on 20.09.06 struck out a claim due to their ‘Robo claim’ particulars being incoherent, failing to comply with CPR 16.4 and ‘providing no facts’.
11. The defendant researched the matter online, and discovered that the claimants legal representative ‘Rosanna Breaks’ is Parking Eye’s in house solicitor. The defendant is being charged £50 for these solicitor fees. In 2014 Parking Eye filed over 30,000 claims. A total of £1,500,000 in solicitor filing costs. It is difficult to see how Parking Eye can justify this amount. This also means that Rosanna Breaks would have to file one claim every 4 minutes every day for an 8-hour working day, without a break. I believe that Parking Eye’s filings are almost completely automated. No signature is evident just a typed name. It is believed that R. Breaks has even filed claims when the defendant has replied to the letter before claim and she confirmed that she was powerless to stop the automatic filing.
12. The original letter to the defendant stated that the claim was due to ‘Insufficient time was paid for on the date of the parking event’. The Particulars of Claim states that the defendant ‘parked without a valid paid parking ticket’.
13. The defendant believes the terms for such conduct are ‘Robo Claims’ which is against the public interest and demonstrates a disregard for the dignity of the court and is unfair on unrepresented consumers. The defendant believes that this is a claim that will proceed without any facts or evidence until the last possible minute to their significant detriment as an unrepresented defendant.
14. The defendant respectfully suggests that parking companies using the small claims track as a form of aggressive, automate debt collection is not something the courts should be seen to support.
15. The defendant denies the claim in its entirety voiding any liability to the claimant for all amounts due to the aforementioned reasons. It is submitted that the conduct of the claimant is wholly unreasonable and vexatious.
16. The defendant invites the court to dismiss this claim as it is in breach of pre court protocols in relation to the particulars of claim under practice direction 16, set out by the ministry of justice and also civil procedure rules under 16.4 and to allow such defendants costs as are permissible under civil procedure rule 27.14.

I believe that the facts stated in this defence are true.
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I found this and quite like it. Could I add it under 8?

11.1 If the court believes there was a contract (which is denied) this is just the sort of 'simple financial contract' identified at the Supreme Court as one with an easily quantifiable loss (i.e. the tariff), identified as completely different from the complex 'free parking licence' arrangement in Beavis.

11.2 Where loss can be quantified, the 'complex' and 'completely different' Beavis decision is inapplicable, as was found in ParkingEye Ltd v Cargius, A0JD1405 at Wrexham County Court.

11.3 At the Court of Appeal stage in Beavis, pay-per-hour car parks were specifically held by those Judges (in findings not contradicted in the Supreme Court later) as still being subject to the "penalty" rule, with the potential for the charge to be held to be wholly disproportionate to the tariff, and thus unrecoverable. In other words, charging £100 for a period of time for which the 'agreed and published' tariff rate is £1/hour, would be perverse, contrary to the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and not a matter that the courts should uphold.

The additional parking charge of £3 for up to 14 hours works out to £.22/hr. So even if we paid £2 instead of the £3, the penalty charge of £100 is entirely disproportionate.

My MCOL account is all messed up (technical issues with the log in that they cannot seem to resolve) so I will just email the defence to them which I have read is preferable anyway.

Thank you!