Court Claim PCN

Hi all

I have a draft, does it look like a 2017 version?. Cant find which one I used as a template now !

Issue date on County Court Claim is 14 Aug and file acknowledgement of service not sure how many days left to amend draft etc.

In the County Court Business Centre
Claim Number: ___

Between:

.......Limited v ___

Preliminary matters.

1. 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). 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
“1.1 If the claimant is operating parking management activities on land which is not owned by them, they must supply the defendant with written authority from the land owner sufficient to establish the claimant 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.

2. The particulars of claim do not meet the requirements of Practice Direction 16. Indeed the particulars of claim are not clear and concise as is required by CPR 16.4 1(a). The Claimant are known to be a serial issuer of generic claims similar to this one. HM Courts Service have identified over 1000 similar sparse claims. The defendant believes the term for such behaviour is 'roboclaims' and as such is against the public interest.

Practice Direction 3A which references Civil Procedure Rule 3.4 illustrates this point.

3. The following are examples of cases where the court may conclude that particulars of claim (whether contained in a claim form or filed separately) fall within rule 3.4(2)(a):
(1) those which set out no facts indicating what the claim is about, for example ‘Money owed £5000’,
(2) those which are incoherent and make no sense,
(3) those which contain a coherent set of facts but those facts, even if true, do not disclose any legally recognisable claim against the defendant

4. The Claimant has not complied with the pre-court protocol
(1) No Letter of Claim was sent to the Defendant, instead, a letter stating next step would be a debt recovery agency.
(2) I'd refer the court to Para 4 on non-compliance and sanction, and the defendant also points out that there can be no reasonable excuse for the Claimant's failure to follow the Pre-action Conduct process, especially
bearing in mind that the Claim was issued by their own Solicitors so they clearly had legal advice before
issuing proceedings. The defendant sent the claimant documentation requesting further information, which the claimant did not reply.

On the basis of the above, we request the court strike out the claim for want of a cause of action.



Statement of Defence

I am XXXXX, defendant in this matter and deny liability for the entirety of the claim for the following
reasons:

(1).
It is admitted that the Defendant was the authorised registered keeper of the vehicle in question at the
time of the alleged incident.

(2).
The identity of the driver of the vehicle on the date in question has not been ascertained.
a) The Claimant did not identify the driver
b) The Defendant has no liability, as they are the Keeper of the vehicle and the Claimant must rely upon the
strict provisions of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 in order to hold the defendant responsible for
the driver’s alleged breach. The car has more than one insured driver and therefore on the balance of probabilities, there is nothing to tip the balance of evidence as to who was driving.
c) The Claimant's increasingly demanding letters failed to evidence any contravention or clear/prominent
signage.

(3)
The claimant has not provided enough details in the particulars of claim to file a full defence.
In particular, the full details of the contract which it is alleged was broken have not been provided.

a) The Claimant has stated that a parking charge was incurred for an overstay but do not state the small duration of overstay for which the claimaint is claiming £160.00.
(b) 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.

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.

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 Claimant has therefore disclosed no cause of action.
a) The Particulars of Claim contains no details and fails to establish a cause of action which would enable
the Defendant to prepare a specific defence.
It just states “parking charges” which does not give any indication of on what basis the claim is brought.
There is no information regarding why the charge arose, what the original charge was, what the alleged
contract was nor anything which could be considered a fair exchange of information.
The Particulars of Claim are incompetent in disclosing no cause of action.

b) On the 20th September 2016 another relevant poorly pleaded private parking charge claim by
Gladstones was struck out by District Judge Cross of St Albans County Court without a hearing
due to their ‘roboclaim’ particulars being incoherent, failing to comply with CPR. 16.4 and
‘providing no facts that could give rise to any apparent claim in law’.

c) On the 19th August 2016, DJ Anson sitting at Preston County Court ruled that the very similar
parking charge particulars of claim were deficient and failing to meet CPR 16.4 and PD 16
paragraphs 7.3 - 7.5. He ordered the Claimant in that case to file new particulars which they failed
to do, and the court confirmed the claim will now be struck out.

(4)
The Claimant has not complied with the pre-court protocol.
a) No Letter of Claim was sent to the Defendant and no initial information was sent to the Defendant.
b) I'd refer the court to Para 4 on non-compliance and sanction, and I'd also point out that there can be no
reasonable excuse for the Claimant's failure to follow the Pre-action Conduct process, especially
bearing in mind that the Claim was issued by their own Solicitors so they clearly had legal advice before
issuing proceedings.

(5)
The defendant wrote to the claimant on xxxxx asking for:
i) Full particulars of the parking charges
ii) Who the party was that contracted with HX Car Park Management Limited.
Iii) The full legal identity of the landowner
iv) A full copy of the contract with the landholder that demonstrated that HX Car Park Management Limited had their authority.
v) If the charges were based on damages for breach of contract and if so to provide justification of
this sum
vi) If the charge was based on a contractually agreed sum for the provision of parking and If so to
provide a valid VAT invoice for this 'service'.
vii) To provide a copy of the signs that HX Car Park Management Limited can evidence were on site and which contended formed a contract with the driver on that occasion, as well as all photographs taken of the
vehicle in question.

The claimant has not responded.
Withholding any legible photos of windscreen and dashboard, and no photos/infomation regarding the signage terms, despite being asked for by the Defendant at the outset, is against the SRA code as well as
contrary to the ‘overiding objective’ in the pre action protocol. As Gladsones are a firm of solicitors whose Directors also run the IPC Trade Body and deal with private parking issues every single day of the week there can be no excuse for these omissions.

The Defendant asks that the court orders Further and Better Particulars of Claim and asks
leave to amend the Defence.



(6).
HX Car Park Management Limited are not the lawful occupier of the land. I have the reasonable belief that they do not have the authority to issue charges on this land in their own name and that they have no rights to bring this case.
a) 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.
b) The claimant is not the landowner and suffers no loss whatsoever as a result of a vehicle parking at the
location in question
c) The Claimant is put to proof that it has sufficient interest in the land or that there are specific terms in its
contract to bring an action on its own behalf. As a third party agent, the Claimant may not pursue any
charge. I have the reasonable belief that they do not have the authority to issue charges on this land in
their own name and that they have no right to bring action regarding this claim.

(7)
a) The Claimant has at no time provided an explanation how the sum has been calculated, the conduct
that gave rise to it or how the amount has climbed from £100 to £150. This appears to be an added cost
with apparently no qualification and an attempt at double recovery, which the POFA Schedule 4
specifically disallows.
b) 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.

(8)
The signage was inadequate to form a contract with the motorist
a) The signage on this site is inadequate to form a contract. It is barely legible, making it difficult to read.
b) The sign fails because it must state what the ANPR data will be used for. This is an ICO breach and
contrary to the Code of Practice.
c) The sign does not contain an obligation as to how to ‘validly display’ the ticket in the windscreen,
therefore there was no breach of any ‘relevant obligation’ or ‘relevant contract’ as required under
Schedule 4 of POFA.
d) In the absence of ‘adequate notice’ of the terms and the charge (which must be in large prominent
letters such as the brief, clear and multiple signs in the Beavis case) this fails to meet the requirements
of Schedule 4 of the POFA.

(9)
The driver did not enter into any 'agreement on the charge', no consideration flowed between the
parties and no contract was established.

(a) The Defendant denies that the driver 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.

(10)
(a) The Claimant has sent threatening and misleading demands which stated that further debt recovery
action would be taken to recover what is owed by passing the debt to a recovery agent (which
suggested to the Defendant they would be calling round like bailiffs) adding further unexplained
charges of £25 to the original £100 with no evidence of how this extra charge has been calculated.
No figure for additional charges was 'agreed' nor could it have formed part of the alleged
'contract' because no such indemnity costs were quantified on the signs.
Terms cannot be bolted on later with figures plucked out of thin air, as if they were
incorporated into the small print when they were not.
b) The Defendant also disputes that the Claimant has incurred £50 solicitor costs.
c) The Defendant has the reasonable belief that the Claimant has not incurred £50 costs to pursue an
alleged £100 debt.
d) Not withstanding the Defendant's belief, the costs are in any case not recoverable.
e) the Claimant described the charge of £50.00 "legal costs" not "contractual costs".
CPR 27.14 does not permit these to be recovered in the Small Claims Court.

11). The Defendant would like to point out that this car park can be fully distinguished from the details,
facts, and location in the Beavis case. This site does not offer a free parking licence, nor is there
any comparable 'legitimate interest' nor complex contractual arrangement to disengage the penalty
rule, as ParkingEye did in the unique case heard by the Supreme Court in 2015. Whilst the Claimant
withheld any photos of the signs on site, the Defendant contends these are illegible with terms hidden
in small print, unlike the 'clear and prominent' signs which created a contract Mr Beavis was 'bound to
have seen'.
The defendant therefore asks that the court orders the case to be struck out for want of a detailed
course of action and/or for the claim as having no prospect of success.


I believe the facts stated in this defence are true.


(Name) (Signature) (Date)