Gladstones Letter Before Claim

Hi all,

After a long period of silence, I have received a County Court Claim Form, asking me to respond within 14 days. Any advice?

Thanks
Eni_Spaghetti

Hi all,

I have done the online AOS and have put together a draft defence. Please let me know what you think. I will try to post a picture of the claim particulars.

Thanks in advance


1. I, XXXXXXXXXXXXX, the defendant, deny that I am liable to the claimant for the entirety of the claim.

2. The defendant has previously written to the claimant informing them that the defendant is not the registered keeper of the vehicle or was the driver of the vehicle at the time of the incident.

3. The defendant does not know how the claimant has obtained their details, and has previously requested that the claimant update their records after informing them of the above in line with the data protection act, which the claimant has failed to do.

4. The defendant has previously informed the claimant in writing that they were not the driver of the car on the day and place in question. The defendant can prove that they were at work, approximately 40 miles away from the car park at the time of the alleged breach of contract.

5. The claimant has not complied with pre-court protocol (as outlined in the new Pre Action Protocol for Debt Claims, 1 October 2017). As an example as to why this prevents a full defence being filed at this time, a parking charge can be for trespass, breach of contract or a contractual charge. All these are treated differently in law and require a different defence.

6. The wording of any contract will naturally be a key element in this matter, and a copy of the alleged contract has never been provided to the defendant. The claimant failed to include a copy of their written contract as per Practice Direction 16 7.3(1) and Practice Direction 7C 1.4(3A).

7. No indication is given as to the claimants contractual authority to operate there as required by the claimants Trade Association's Code of Practice B1.1 which says; “If you operate parking management activities on land which is not owned by you, you must supply us with written authority from the land owner sufficient to establish you as the ‘Creditor’ within the meaning of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (where applicable) and in any event to establish you as a person who is able to recover parking charges. There is no prescribed form for such agreement and it need not necessarily be as part of a contract but it must include the express ability for an operator to recover parking charges on the landowner’s behalf or provide sufficient right to occupy the land in question so that charges can be recovered by the operator directly. This applies whether or not you intend to use the keeper liability provisions.”

8. This is a speculative serial litigant, issuing a large number of identical 'draft particulars'. The badly mail-merged documents contain very little information.

9. The Claim Form Particulars were extremely sparse and divulged no cause of action nor sufficient detail. The defendant has no idea what the claim is about - why the charge arose, what the alleged contract was; nothing that could be considered a fair exchange of information.

10. The particulars of claim do not meet the requirements of Practice Direction 16 7.5 as there is nothing which specifies how the terms were breached. Indeed the particulars of claim are not clear and concise as is required by CPR 16.4 1(a). The claimants are known to be serial issuers of generic claims similar to this one. HM Courts Service have identified over 1000 similar sparse claims. I believe the term for such behaviour is ‘robo-claims’ and as such is against the public interest. Practice Direction 3A which references Civil Procedure Rule 3.4 illustrates this point.

11. The claimant has added unrecoverable sums to the original parking charge. It is believed that the employee who drew up the paperwork is remunerated and the particulars of claim are templates, so it is simply not credible that £50 'legal representative’s (or even admin) costs’ were incurred.

12. It is submitted that (apart from properly incurred court fees) any added legal fees/costs are simply made up numbers. The claimant has at no time provided an explanation how the ‘parking charge’ has been calculated, the conduct that gave rise to it or how the amount has escalated from £100 to £160. This appears to be an added cost with apparently no qualification and an attempt at double recovery, which the POFA Schedule 4 specifically disallows.

12.1. The Protection of Freedom Act Para 4(5) states that the maximum sum that may be recovered from the keeper is the charge stated on the Notice to Keeper.

12.2. The driver did not enter into any 'agreement on the charge', no consideration flowed between the parties and no contract was established.

13. It is submitted that the conduct of the claimant is wholly unreasonable and vexatious. As such, the defendant is keeping a note of the wasted time & costs in dealing with this matter.

14. I request the court strike out this claim for the reasons stated above and due to Gladstones' template particulars for a private parking firm being 'incoherent', failing to comply with CPR16.4, and ''providing no facts that could give rise to any apparent claim in law.

15. I confirm that the above facts and statements are true to the best of my knowledge and recollection.