Claim Form from CNBC for Parking Charge by UKPC

[abz88]

Hi All,

A complete newbie here after having read some of the threads here.

I have recently received a claim form from the Civil National Business Centre for a parking charge that was issued by UK Perking Control Ltd. The parking charge in question was for parking in an Asda car park that allows for 3hours of free parking, however the issue was that a parking attendant pictured that car parked a bit outside the parking bay at 9.30pm in April 2023 and he issued a charge for breaching the terms and conditions. Now furiously this is at a time when the whole car park is empty and i was not necessarily impeding any other car to be parked near by me.

I received a few letters for this and i ignored thinking that someone will be sensible and stop sending these if they see the actual contravention, but now they didnt and they've now filled a claim.

So i am asking for advice on here on what should be my appropriate response to get this case cancelled. The issue date on the form is the 6th of Nov and it says i need to respond within 14 days after 5 days from the issue date of the letter, so i've got another 4 days or so to respond back to them.

My thinking is that my response needs to be along the lines of (i) this is an unreasonable request, (ii) the signs do not direct you to park within the bays or be fined, (iii) there is no contract

I will get a picture of the sign when i go to the car park again today and will post here. I am also attaching a picture of the claim form to start with.

I would highly highly appreciate any help/direction on this from all the OGs and experts on here.

Thanks all!

[abz88]

Unfortunately not able to add attachements as yet, assuming as im a new member. so writting the particulars of the claim below:

"1. Defendant(D) is indebted to the Claimant(C) for Parking Charge(s) (PCN) issued to the vehicle ******* at Leyton Mill Retail Park, E10 5NH. 2. The PCN details are: ************* (05/04/2023 21:27:33). 3. The PCN(s) had been issued on private land, which is managed by C. 4. The vehicle was parked in breach of terms and conditions provided by signage (the contract), resulting in the PCN(s). 5. The driver agreed to pay within 28 days but did not D is liable as the keeper. Despite requests, the PCN(s) are outstanding. 6. The C claims 170.00 being the total of the PCN(s) and damages. 7. C claim costs and court fees. The claimant claims interest under section 69 of the County Court Act 1984 at the rate of 8% a year from 04/04/2023 to 02/11/2023 on £170 and also interest at the same rate up to the date of the judgment or earlier payment at a daily rate of 0.02."

Thanks all

[R0b]

Hi

Do you still have a copy of the original parking charge letter? There may be additional defences you can include and would be useful to see but if you can't upload maybe you can use a third party site to share a link. Just make sure to redact all personal info.

Also, did you identify the driver of the vehicle at any point?

have you acknowledged the claim? If not, do that now but do not file a defence as you get an additional 14 days (total of 33 days from the date of the claim form).

[abz88]

I have looked but unfortunately i can not find the original ltter, have only got a letter from UKPC in July claiming that I owe them £170 which includes the NoPC(s) and debt recovery fee.

I have not made any communications with them to confirm whether i was the driver or acknowledge the claim.

by acknowledging the claim do you mean to the County Court or to UKPC?

Thanks.

[abz88]

Okay, I've done the acknowledgement of the claim so that does indeed give me a further 14 days so atleast I can get thorough advice on this before defending the claim.

How likely is this claim to be going to court vs beign struck off?, as I would imagine any sensible person would think that this should be struck off. There was no damage to anyone, i did not have to pay for the parking in the first place (free parking), only parked across the bay lines at night time when the whole car park (over 200+ bays) is empty. I can only imagine that the parking attendant was trying to find opporuntities to make his commissions.

[R0b]

According to my calculations, you have until 4pm Monday 9 December to file a defence.

If you have the financial means to pay £275 and are confident to make the necessary arguments, I think you have reasonable grounds to strike out the application altogether, or you could at least ask the court to make an order that the claimant provides detailed particulars as the existing ones make no sense and are vague and general.

Otherwise, it's a case of putting what is needed in your defence to try and get them to toss this as soon as possible, but mor than likely not until the claim has been allocated to the small claims track since they don't get an adverse order against them for costs.

I would also suggest that your defence includes an argument that the charge for £100 based on the factual circumstances and there was no loss suffered or incurred. The breach should therefore be considered de minimis. Alternatively, it's an unfair contract term for the same reasons and the charge of £100 is unconscionable.

If you've seen some of the other threads on here, you can start your drafting your defence and post up a copy for feedback, or let us know if you need an example to start with and will find you one.

[abz88]

If you have the financial means to pay £275 and are confident to make the necessary arguments, I think you have reasonable grounds to strike out the application altogether, or you could at least ask the court to make an order that the claimant provides detailed particulars as the existing ones make no sense and are vague and general.

The claim they have filed is for a total of £255, how would i go about doing what you are suggesting above?

Otherwise, it's a case of putting what is needed in your defence to try and get them to toss this as soon as possible, but mor than likely not until the claim has been allocated to the small claims track since they don't get an adverse order against them for costs.

Similarly what would be my response for the them to get this tossed out?

I would also suggest that your defence includes an argument that the charge for £100 based on the factual circumstances and there was no loss suffered or incurred. The breach should therefore be considered de minimis. Alternatively, it's an unfair contract term for the same reasons and the charge of £100 is unconscionable.

I agree, for something that did not cause any loss, this is completely unreasonable. Another discrepancy is that on the board they say another £60 would be added for debt recovery, however they've actually added 70 on top of the 100.

If you've seen some of the other threads on here, you can start your drafting your defence and post up a copy for feedback, or let us know if you need an example to start with and will find you one.

It would be great if you could give me some examples and I can give it a start, i've never had to do anything like this before so not quite so sure what my starting point would be, hence why lots of silly questions above!

I also visited the car park last night and sadly the boards do instruct people to park within marked bays, not sure how that would impact my defence.

[abz88]

According to my calculations, you have until 4pm Monday 9 December to file a defence.

If you have the financial means to pay £275 and are confident to make the necessary arguments, I think you have reasonable grounds to strike out the application altogether, or you could at least ask the court to make an order that the claimant provides detailed particulars as the existing ones make no sense and are vague and general.

Otherwise, it's a case of putting what is needed in your defence to try and get them to toss this as soon as possible, but mor than likely not until the claim has been allocated to the small claims track since they don't get an adverse order against them for costs.

I would also suggest that your defence includes an argument that the charge for £100 based on the factual circumstances and there was no loss suffered or incurred. The breach should therefore be considered de minimis. Alternatively, it's an unfair contract term for the same reasons and the charge of £100 is unconscionable.

If you've seen some of the other threads on here, you can start your drafting your defence and post up a copy for feedback, or let us know if you need an example to start with and will find you one.

Hi Rob - just bumping up my response above so i could get some guidance from you, much appreciated!

[R0b]

So I've attached an example defence but be aware it's a work in progress and a catch all for multiple defences against that you might expect to see from parking companies. Also, I suggest you edit your posts so that you refer to the driver throughout because parking companies like to trawl these forums and use your posts against you as part of their evidence if they find out who you are.

Some points to note:

1. The sub-heading, Claimant's non-compliance with CPR 16.4 is based on the fact that the particulars of claim are useless and don't really state a real cause to bring a claim. It's just a template generic statement which fails to identify the breach(es) of the contract. If you were to make an application to the court to strike out the claim, that sub-heading is essentially what you need to put in your application as to why it should be struck out. You could also ask the court to make an unless order that they provide detailed particulars of claim if they don't think strike out is warranted. Unless orders are basically a do or die order in that if the claimant doesn't comply with the order then the claim would be struck out.

2. Paragraph 24 refers to unfair contract terms byt it is in relation to the additional costs added on usually the £70 fee. You can also model that to base if on the £100 parking charge being unfair. The Supreme Court Beavis v Parking Eye essentially stated that a charge would be regarded as unfair if it was extravagant and unconscionable based. Here is a statement that might assist you if it gets to court.

109. Overstaying penalties are, as we have mentioned, both a normal feature of parking contracts on public and on private land, and important for the efficient management of the space in the interests of the general body of users and the neighbouring outlets which they may frequent. They are beneficial not just to ParkingEye, the landowner and the retail outlets, but to the motorists themselves, because they make parking space available to them which might otherwise be clogged up with commuters and other long-stay users.

The Beavis case was about overstaying and they said the £85 charge was not a penalty, but in your case, you argue that the SC acknowledged the main feature of the court was efficient management to allow free flow of customers and parking spaces. In your case it was nearing the end of the shop closing time, there was an abundance of car parking spaces and a minor infraction of going over the white line for a fee of £100 is extravagant and unconscionable especially where the driver is not impeding anyone.

Have a go at drafting your defence and then post it up with your personal information redacted such as using XXXXXX where the personal information is referenced. If you are using MS Word, suggest you use tracked changes if you remove anything or make amends so we can see what you have actually done just in case you remove something that is still relevant.

[abz88]

HI All,

So i've run myself into a bit of trouble becuase of my stupidity. I am kicking myself at the moment as I had missed filling my defence and I was travelling for a little while.

Result is I have now received a letter saying they have been granted the CCJ due to not receiving any defence from me. They have asked me to pay the amount of £278. I have just checked and that has also put a mark on my credit file too. I was reading the letter and in the small print it says if i pay within 1 month I can then request them to not register this onto the public register.

So I know the community have tried to help me already and I have let myself down, however question now is do I have any options at all? I just do not want the CCJ to be on my file for 6 years!

Any help would be extremely appreciated!

[abz88]

So having done some reading up, I can ask for the default judgement to be set aside using form N244, would this be the correct route for me?