parking notice for overstay Options

[anotheruser]

Hi all,

I have a NTK letter from when the driver of the car was parked in a car park longer than the maximum period (120 minute max stay, car was there for 162 minutes), their 'proof' is images of the car arriving/leaving the car park and no ticket was placed on the car. First there was a disabled person in the car at the time, and the car was parked in a disabled bay with blue badge displayed and secondly the NTK was sent on the 28th of Feb with the 'contravention' listed as the 12th of Jan.

I have subsequently received a second 'Final Reminder'.

Given that the first letter was nearly 6 weeks before they even sent it, can I just ignore it as invalid (I had read somewhere that they had to be issued within 4 weeks). Or failing that appeal on the fact that reasonable provision must be given to those with disabilities as the car was in a disabled bay with a valid blue badge displayed.

Appeals are through 'www.myparkingcharge.co.uk' with potential to go up through www.theIAS.org if that is unsuccessful.

Many thanks for reading.

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[Redivi]

Which parking company ?

Never appeal to the IAS
It guarantees to reject at least 85% of appeals

The Equality Act requires companies to take account of the needs of disabled persons who may need more time for tasks
An appeal system won't consider this requirement but include it anyway as a warning shot that you won't be rolling over



This post has been edited by Redivi: Tue, 16 Apr 2019 - 07:46

[ostell]

With no ticket on the windscreen then the NTK has to be delivered within 14 days tobe able to transfer liability from the driver to the keeper.

As you haven't appealed yet then:

Dear Sirs,

I have just received your Notice to Keeper xxxxx for vehicle VRM xxxx

You have failed to comply with the requirements of Schedule 4 of The Protection Of Freedoms Act 2012 namely, but not limited to, failing to deliver the notice within the relevant period of 14 days as prescribed by section 9 (4) of the Act. You cannot, therefore, transfer liability for the alleged charge from the driver at the time to me, the keeper.

There is no legal requirement to name the driver at the time and I will not be doing so.

Any further communication with me on this matter, apart from confirmation of no further action and my details being removed from your records, will be considered vexatious and harassment. This includes communication from any Debt Collection companies you care to instruct.

Yours etc

[anotheruser]

Many thanks,

Parking company is VCS (Vehicle Control Services LTD). I will kick off with @ostell suggestion. Thank you.

[Jo Carn]

Also, if they continue to write to you they are using your personal data inappropriately. Contrary to GDPR

[anotheruser]

Hello again,

So they have ignored my letter worded as above and have now sent a 'Letter before claim' with a reply form and debt advice inserts.

Do I just ignore this until they get a court date?

I was going to upload the redacted pictures of the document but even after shrinking it down it does't seem to want to upload.

[ostell]

No, respond to them pointing out that there has been a failure to comply with POFA and this has already been notified to them and why are they continuing.

[anotheruser]

So last week I received a claim form from 'County Court Business Centre"

I am going to respond by intending to defend all of the claim and with the wording of the letters already sent. Should I also put on here that the car was parked in a disabled bay and by trying to enforce the same time limit provision as non-disabled that they are also not making reasonable provision for disabled people?

Does anyone have the right legislation to quote for the bits I need?

Thank you.

[ostell]

You acknowledge the claim on line NOW using the details and password on the form. Nothing in the defence, nothing. This gives you 33 days from date of issue to get your defence to court.

[nosferatu1001]

Tell us the DATE OF ISSUE

No, you dont just send the same as youve already sent his is a legal process and, guess what, there are more "legal" things you have to do

Go ONLINE and acknowledge the claim. Do NOT delay. Confirm you have done this

THEN you go and research how to write a defence, which is a series of *arguments* as to why you are not liable. It does nto contain evidence.
Equality Act 2010.

[anotheruser]

Hi There,

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

The Date of Issue is 16 July 2019. I have now acknowledged the claim and put that I intend to defend all of this claim.

Any suggestions as to the best places to get started to write some arguments?

[ostell]

Search for defences in other threads to get some idea of the format

This post has been edited by ostell: Fri, 26 Jul 2019 - 07:47

[nosferatu1001]

On just the front page theres about 6 defences you could have looked at already.
There si no short cut here. This is work. Actual real work.

MSE forum -> Newbies thread -?> post two. READ it. BOOKMARK it. READ it again. Has example *concise* defences for you to read.

[anotheruser]

Hi all,

Just wanted to put up what my defence was.

IN THE COUNTY COURT
CLAIM No: xxxxxxx
BETWEEN:
Vehicle Control Services Limited (Claimant)
-and-
xxxxxxx (Defendant)
________________________________________
DEFENCE
________________________________________
1. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all.
2. Accordingly, it is denied that the driver breached any of the Claimant's purported contractual terms, whether express, implied, or by conduct.
3. Further and in the alternative, it is denied that the terms on the Claimant's signage are clearly displayed. The font, which is too small to be read from a passing vehicle, is in such a position that anyone attempting to read the tiny font would be unable to do so easily. It is,therefore denied that the Claimant's signage is capable of creating a legally binding contract.
4. The Defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle {CAR REGISTRATION} in question at the time of the alleged incident. The vehicle entered {LOCATION} and parked in a disabled bay. An occupant of the vehicle is a disabled person. Disabled people need more time to go about daily life, which means the claimant had a legal duty under statute (the Equalties Act 2010 itself, and the statutory EHRC Code of Practice) to make a reasonable adjustment, which does not stop at just painting a disabled bay or removing physical barriers to access, but also includes making adjustments to fixed time limits that would cause a disabled person loss, disadvantage or detriment. The vehicle was parked in a disabled bay and had a clear and valid disability parking permit displayed in the windscreen.
5. By only having cameras at the ingress/egress of the car park, and not monitoring the rest of the car park by having staff physically attend, or sufficient cameras to compensate, the Claiment is failing in their legal duty to identify disabled persons utilising the car park and subsequently make reasonable adjustments.
6. No charge notice was placed on the vehicle and the first notice to keeper has an ‘issue date’ of {DATE} . Even if this was delivered on the same day it would have been 47 days and so signifcantly still fail to comply with section 4 of the Protections of Freedoms Act 2012 namely, but not limited to, failing to deliver the notice within the relevant period of 14 days as prescribed by section 9 (4) of the Act.
7. As such the defendant cannot, therefore, transfer liability for the alleged charge from the driver at the time to me, the keeper. Despite being advised of this on 08/05/2019 and 26/05/2019 by letter, the defendant failed to acknowledge these letters or enter into any kind of dialogue.
8. The Claimant is put to strict 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. The Claimant may not pursue any charge, unless specifically authorised by the principal. The Defendant has the reasonable belief that the Claimant does not have the authority to issue charges on this land in their own name, and that they have no right to bring any action regarding this claim.
9. The Defendant has the reasonable belief that the Claimant has not incurred £60 costs to pursue an alleged £100 debt. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, in Schedule 4, Para 4(5) states that the maximum sum that may be recovered from the keeper is the charge stated on the Notice to Keeper, in this case £100.00
10. Costs on the claim - disproportionate and disingenuous
CPR 44.3 (2) states: ''Where the amount of costs is to be assessed on the standard basis, the court will –
(a) only allow costs which are proportionate to the matters in issue. Costs which are disproportionate in amount may be disallowed or reduced even if they were reasonably or necessarily incurred; and
(b) resolve any doubt which it may have as to whether costs were reasonably and proportionately incurred or were reasonable and proportionate in amount in favour of the paying party.
11. Whilst quantified costs can be considered on a standard basis, this Claimant's purported costs are wholly disproportionate and do not stand up to scrutiny. In fact it is averred that the Claimant has not paid or incurred such damages/costs or 'legal fees' at all. All debt collection letters were a standard feature of a low cost business model and are already counted within the parking charge itself.
12. The Parking Eye Ltd v Beavis case is the authority for recovery of the parking charge itself and no more, since that sum (£85 in Beavis) was held to already incorporate the minor costs of an automated private parking business model. There are no losses or damages caused by this business model and the Supreme Court Judges held that a parking firm not in possession cannot plead any part of their case in damages. It is indisputable that the alleged 'parking charge' itself is a sum which the Supreme Court found is already inflated to more than comfortably cover the cost of all letters.
13. Any purported 'legal costs' are also made up out of thin air. Given the fact that robo-claim solicitors and parking firms process tens of thousands of claims handled by an admin team or paralegals, the Defendant avers that no solicitor is likely to have supervised this current batch of cut & paste claims. The court is invited to note that no named Solicitor has signed the Particulars, in breach of Practice Direction 22, and rendering the statement of truth a nullity.
14. According to Ladak v DRC Locums UKEAT/0488/13/LA a Claimant can only recover the direct and provable costs of the time spent preparing the claim in a legal capacity, not any administration costs allegedly incurred by already remunerated administrative staff.
15. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 (POFA) makes it clear that the will of Parliament regarding parking on private land is that the only sum potentially able to be recovered is the sum in any compliant 'Notice to Keeper' (and the ceiling for a 'parking charge', as set by the Trade Bodies and the DVLA, is £100). This also depends upon the Claimant fully complying with the statute, including 'adequate notice' of the parking charge and prescribed documents served in time/with mandatory wording. It is submitted the claimant has failed on all counts and the Claimant is well aware their artificially inflated claim, as pleaded, constitutes double recovery.
16. Judges have disallowed all added parking firm 'costs' in County courts up and down the Country. In Claim number F0DP201T on 10th June 2019, District Judge Taylor sitting at the County Court at Southampton, echoed an earlier General Judgment or Order of DJ Grand, who on 21st February 2019 sitting at the Newport (IOW) County Court, had struck out a parking firm claim. One was a BPA member serial Claimant (Britannia, using BW Legal's robo-claim model) and one an IPC member serial Claimant (UKCPM, using Gladstones' robo-claim model) yet the
Order was identical in striking out both claims without a hearing and here the defendant quotes from the cited cases: -
''IT IS ORDERED THAT The claim is struck out as an abuse of process. The claim contains a substantial charge additional to the parking charge which it is alleged the Defendant contracted to pay. This additional charge is not recoverable under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Schedule 4 nor with reference to the judgment in ParkingEye v Beavis. It is an abuse of process from the Claimant to issue a knowingly inflated claim for an additional sum which it is not entitled to recover. This order has been made by the court of its own initiative without a hearing pursuant to CPR Rule 3.3(4) of the Civil Procedure Rules 1998...''
17. In summary, the Claimant's particulars disclose no legal basis for the sum claimed and it is the Defendant's position that the poorly pleaded claim discloses no cause of action and no liability in law for any sum at all. The Claimant's vexatious conduct from the outset has been intimidating, misleading and indeed mendacious in terms of the added costs alleged.
18. There are several options available within the Courts' case management powers to prevent vexatious litigants pursuing a wide range of individuals for matters which are near-identical, with meritless claims and artificially inflated costs. The Defendant is of the view that private parking firms operate as vexatious litigants and that relief from sanctions should be refused.
19. The Court is invited to make an Order of its own initiative, dismissing this claim in its entirety and to allow such Defendant's costs as are permissible under Civil Procedure Rule 27.14 on the indemnity basis, taking judicial note of the wholly unreasonable conduct of this Claimant, not least due to the abuse of process in repeatedly attempting to claim fanciful costs which they are not entitled to recover.
20. When Directions are given, the Defendant asks that there is an order for sequential service of witness evidence (rather than exchange) or alternatively, for the hearing fee to be ordered to be paid before exchange of documents between the parties, because where a claim from this serial Claimant is robustly defended, this Claimant routinely discontinues after seeing a Defendant's Witness Statement and never pays the court hearing fee.
21. It is an unfair burden and a complete waste of time for the Defendant to spend hours on their defence against a vexatious litigant who then discontinues. Research shows that this Claimant is regularly observed as being in pursuit of default judgments to use as an aggressive form of debt collection, with no intention of paying for or attending the majority of hearings.
22. In summary, it is the Defendant's position that the claim discloses no cause of action, is without merit, and has no real prospect of success. Accordingly, the Court is invited to strike out the claim of its own initiative, using its case management powers pursuant to CPR 3.4.

I believe the facts contained in this Defence are true.

Had my letter through the this is now defended and will fill in the questionnaire to send back to have a hearing at my local crown court.

Just wanted to thank you all again for your help, support and guidance and I will keep you updated as to how it goes.

[nosferatu1001]

You are the defendant. They are the claiamnt. You mixed this up in 7)

Equality Act 2010. Not Equalities Act

The idea was to return here with your draft first, as its a bit of a jumble. It also doesnt show your main defence - no keeper liability - until mid way, and doesnt argue abuse of process at all.

You need to start work on your witness statement TODAY

[anotheruser]

Hi All,

So I had my court date through for the 17th of Jan. I had a letter telling me how robust their case was and that I had better pay (they would graciously take £120) and then this morning.... 'Please find enclosed a Notice of Discontinuance'.

So annoying as I was quite looking forward to my day in court

As it didn't get to court I assume I cannot hit them for anything? Just wanted to stick it to them in court out of principal.

Anyway, much more importantly.

A massive thank you once again for your amazing work on this forum. Thank you.

[ostell]

Check with the court that they have actually discontinued

[anotheruser]

I didn't even think that they would be able to do that. But given their whole business is deceit and lies, I will contact the court on Monday to confirm. Thank you.

[anotheruser]

Hi all,

Just wanted to confirm that the case is now marked as discontinued with the courts.

Thank you again for all your patience and help.

[nosferatu1001]

phew! well done
they ran scared