SCS Law letter received regarding outstanding fines. Please help!

IamEmanresu wrote: »

Is this a Letter before Claim or how is it titled?

You might want to reply to this and ask for all the information they have.

@OP - read up on the new Pre-Action Protocol (PAP) which tells you what you are entitled to receive, as suggested in IAE’s post above:

https://www.hilldickinson.com/insights/articles/new-pre-action-protocol-debt-claims

http://www.lpc-law.co.uk/news/latest-news/2017/april/pre-action-protocol-for-debt-claims/

Keep up the letter-tennis with them.

1. Since they are claiming familiarity with the CPR, point out to them that they should therefore know that:
a. Part 31 does not apply in small claims track cases - see R27.2
b. their claim that they do not have to provide any documentation to you at all is plainly wrong - see CPR Practice Direction - Pre-Action Conduct paras 3, 6(a) and 6(c).
c. The Practice Direction applied at the time they first started corresponding with you, and a new Protocol (The Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims) came into force on 1 October 2017 regarding debt claims - they are likewise obliged to make certain disclosure pursuant to paragraph 3

2. The identity of the landowner is public record and will be held at Land Registry. It is absurd to claim that this is confidential.

3. The managing agent will have liability to the public in respect of its management of the site. Again, to claim that this is commercially sensitive is absurd.


4. Insofar as demanding that you identify the driver, this is their claim and it is up to them to prove it. You are not obliged to identify the driver. You are obliged to tell them that your case is that you are not the driver and that is what you have done. It is up to them to produce evidence of who was driving. There is no case law giving rise to any presumption that you were driving (Elliott v Loake and CPS v AJH Films having been held countless times not to apply to civil private parking cases).

Ask them to identify both the landowner and the managing agent, and to provide an unredacted copy of the contract.


Note 1: this is a high value claim. Please amend your post so you do not indicate who was driving: they may search the forum and be able to use your posts to prove who was driving. Because of the high value of the claim, I think that they are more likely than not to search the forum.


Note 2: the disclosure obligations in the PD and new Protocol swing both ways. Parties are supposed to put their cards on the table. So if there is any documentation proving the RK was not driving, produce it. If that identifies the driver, you're entitled to redact their name (eg an insurance policy). Things that will provide you are not driving may be things like texts, a google map history that might show where you were on the day (no idea how that works, but one of the experienced posters regularly recommends it), an email from your boss saying you were in work all day at a location far from the car park.


Note 3: read claxtome's recent thread - a carpark notionally divided into 2 and managed by 2 different entities with no proper demarcation or signage at the dividing point - he worked hard to show how confusing it was and he won on the basis of inadequate signage (as did another poster, kezza-something - she posted on his thread and had her own thread) - but both claxtome and kezza had complied with the t&cs of the part they drove into, although they'd unwittingly parked in the other part and that would have helped them because it showed good faith and was evidence of the confusion (why would they have paid at the ticket in the wrong part if it had been obvious that the ticket machine didn't apply to the bit they'd parked in?).


Note 4: I understand your wish to take legal advice. However, this is quite an obscure area of the law and tbh I think you'll get better advice on this forum than in a solicitors office. Plus legal fees are not recoverable in small claims track cases.