Court Claim Form received - MIL Collections Options

[Mango62]

I hope someone can help please. I believe Hotel Oscar 87 & GAN are the experts where MIL Collections are concerned !
Registered keeper has received a court Claim Form. Claimant is MIL. Claim is for £175.
In short the registered keeper received a parking ticket from a private parking company (Northwest Parking Enforcement). It was a Pay & Display car park & 2 hrs parking was purchased for £2. We accidentally overstayed by 9 minutes and received a ticket for that. Photos were taken of vehicle after only 7 mins. I'm aware in Oct 2015 regulations were introduced to allow a statutory 10 minute (minimum) grace period in which to leave the car park. The operator should not begin to issue a ticket until the 10 min grace period has expired. So I believe they breached their COP and no debt exists. To also charge £100 for an overstay of 9 mins, when it only cost £1 to park for an hour is surely a penalty & is not lawful in contract law.
We ignored NWPE letters and Debt Recovery Plus letters. We then received a letter from MIL pretending to be NWPE stating that the debt had been sold under agreement of assignment to MIL. We then received a Letter Before Action from MIL.
We responded to the LBA strongly denying any debt exists and pointing out to MIL that their letter failed entirely to comply with the requirements of the Pre-Action conduct. We also requested further info from MIL similar to a Part 18 request. I used examples posted by HO87.
I also took advice from the BMPA who suggested I wrote a letter of complaint to MIL since they had broken the CSA cop and the FCA cop. Again I strongly disputed any debt. I had hoped the letter would stall MIL as they are supposed to suspend proceedings whilst a complaint is investigated.
Needless to say I received no replies to my 2 letters. (Proof of postage obtained).
We were dismayed to therefore receive the court Claim Form last week. The Particulars of Claim state the charge is for parking on private land. The offence is "parked after the expiry of paid for time". Not sure whether this is trespass or breach of contract ?
Anyway I have spent hours & hours reading the forums regarding MIL and in particular posts by the experts. I have a pretty good idea what a defence should look like from reading the posts...... breaches of cop, no valid deed of assignment, champerty & maintenance, claimant does not have a direct interest in the claim, no GPEOL etc. I've collated a lot of info but I could do with help in making a defence relevant to the case and pointing out anything we've omitted.
I have of course kept all correspondence & I have photos of the carpark signage.
I have used MCOL to acknowledge the Claim on line & stated that the claim will be defended in full. I have not submitted any defence yet. I now have 28 days from date of service to submit a defence.

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[nosferatu1001]

As they havent suspended activities, complain further to the CSA and require the CSA suspends MIL while they investigate.

Making the defence - post your draft here, we can then critique.

WHat is your deadline?

[Mango62]

Date of issue is 16th Sept. So date of service is 21st Sept. I've got 28 days from date of service - 19th Oct.

[emanresu]

no GPEOL etc

Don't use that

As nos says, post up your defence and we'll all have a look.

This thread http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=104016 has more

This post has been edited by emanresu: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 - 05:08

[Mango62]

Thank you to all who have responded. I'll post a defence within the next few days. ..... I have until 19th Oct. I believe at this stage the defence does not have to be too detailed as it can be expanded on at a later stage.

[nosferatu1001]

It can be, however the more work you put in now, the better

For instance it MUST cover every single *legal* argument you wish to make, as amending it to add these in later "should" cost £255.

[Mango62]

Hi again..... I'm currently writing an initial defence.
MIL collections have purchased a parking charge from a PPC. The Notice to Keeper from the PPC makes no explicit mention of POFA 2012. They just say they are unaware of driver's identity & are therefore pursuing the keeper.
The Particulars of Claim from MIL also make no reference whatsoever to POFA.
Does this mean that MIL cannot pursue the keeper, only the driver ? At no time has the driver ever been identified.
If MIL intend to assert POFA don't they have to state it ? Or should I assume they are going to assert POFA & challenge compliance anyway ?

Also, in MIL's Particulars of Claim there is no mention of what the actual claim is for- breach of contract, trespass or something else. So it's a bit difficult to write a defence if you don't know what you're defending. So any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

This is the exact wording of the POC :

Charge for parking on private land.
1.The claimant purchased the debt on xx/xx/xxxx. Assignment notice sent xx/xx/xxxx.
2. The defendant was the registered keeper and/or driver of vehicle xxxxxxx at the time. The charge is as follows:
Ref:xxx OFFENCE: Parked after the expiry of paid for time LOCATION: xxxxxx DATE AND TIME: xxxxxx
VRM/MAKE/MODEL/COLOUR:xxxxxxx
3.The claimant wrote to the defendant on xx/xx/xxxx informing of an intention to issue a summons. No resolution achieved.
THE CLAIMANT CLAIMS:
1.Debt Amount £100
2. Admin & collection fee £50.

[nosferatu1001]

Yes, it means they cant claim Keeper liability

They have to prove the Keeper was the driver. A Keeper stating they were NOT the driver in their defence, WITH a witness ststement stating the same, is evidence AGAINST the claimant and owuld be hard to dismiss by the court.

You state they have "chosen not to utilise the keeper liability provisions under POFA"

You MUST refer to CPR 16.4 and their UTTER FAILURE To comply with it. FIRST THING in your defence. This HAS RESULTED in cases being dismissed!

re cause of action - every. single. PoC. is. the. same. NONE state contract, trespass, etc. THat s why EVERY defence points this out! State you are then assuming some form of breach of contract and deefending on that basis. Ask the court to strike the claim OR Order Further and Better PoC.

[Mango62]

Excellent ! Many thanks.

[nosferatu1001]

It seems you need to do more reading around - havea look at the parking prankster site.

[Mango62]

I have done loads of reading around actually - a lot more than most ! I've lost count of the number of days I've spent on this. It's very time consuming not to mention stressful. I'm not even the keeper or the driver, I'm doing all this on behalf of someone else. I have read every comment regarding MIL from HO87 on this forum & MSE. I've had some PMs from HO87. I've also been in contact with the Parking Prankster & had advice from him too.
I've collected a wealth of info from the forums and I'm now trying to put together an initial defence. There are several examples of people's defences out there, all subtly different and some no longer relevant. I'm just wading through it all & putting together a defence that is relevant and contains all the legal arguments.
Inevitably there are questions that are going to crop up. With regards to POFA 2012, I just wasn't sure if the claimant had to explicitly state they were asserting POFA or if it was implicit because they were pursuing the keeper. In order to pursue the keeper does the claimant have to clearly state they are utilising POFA ? If they make no mention of POFA 2012 specifically, then they can't pursue the keeper ?

[Jlc]

They either have to fully comply with the PoFA or they can pursue the keeper under the presumption they were driving.

As ever, they just want people to pay up or get defaults - going to a genuine contested hearing to establish the facts isn't their ideal situation.

You can simply assert they have failed to met the necessary PoFA conditions, truthfully state the keeper was not driving - you can put them to proof of any liability.

[nosferatu1001]

Sorry to assume, its hard to tell all this

They have to make a whole load of explicit statements in order to invoke Keeper liability. Look at POFA 2012 sched 4 para 8 (if there was a windscreen ticket) or para 9 (no ticket on car, first notice came through hte post)

Nothing implicit at all. All very explicit!

So you state they have chosen not to invoke the keeper liabilitiy provisions of POFA2012, and even if they contend otherwise have failed to include mandatory wording, and therefore cannot hold the keeper liable.

[Mango62]

OK. Thanks again for the responses.

[Mango62]

Just an update as to where I am now....
I have prepared a skeleton defence which includes : a statement denying any liability what so ever, 20 defence bullet points, a response to the Particulars of Claim (such as they are) and a more detailed statement of defence which expands the 20 defence bullet points.
The skeleton defence is very similar to all the other MIL defences that I've read and uses the usual arguments. I'm very grateful to HO87 and Parking Prankster for their advice.
I do not wish to post my defence here as I'm sure MIL and other companies like them read these forums. I have emailed my defence to HO87 & asked him to critique it for me but I have not heard anything back yet. Hopefully he'll respond soon as I want to submit my defence by the weekend. It's due on the 19th Oct.
Incidentally, I noticed that on MCOL there is only space for 122 lines in the defence box. My defence will exceed that so I'm just going to enter the bullet points in the defence box and I'm going to send the entire defence as a word document attached to an email to the Northampton Centre. Parking Prankster gives that advice on his website together with the appropriate email address for defendants.
Anyone know if it's ok to do that ie. enter a bullet point defence in the MCOL defence box and then email the whole document separately ?
I'm just concerned that having spent ages putting my defence together I want it all to be sent & accepted, not just a few bullet points.
Thanks.

[emanresu]

Best not to use the online form but keep the full document as a PDF or Word document and email it - email it before the time runs out.

[Mango62]

@emanresu
Thanks for that. I'll email the full document. I'll just add a comment on the online form to state that the defence has been submitted via email. I'll ask for confirmation too that it's been received & accepted.
I'm emailing it today...... right now infact !
Thanks again.

[nosferatu1001]

Don't just ask for one, call them up and check!

[Mango62]

@Nosferatu1001

Yes, I'll ring on Monday & make sure they have it.

Just for info for anyone else : the email address for emailing a defence has just changed since last week. I had a moment of panic when the email I sent with my defence got bounced back ! The correct email address is now:
ccbcaq@hmcts.gsi.gov.uk

[Mango62]

Just checked on MCOL. The DQ was sent out yesterday.