wright hassall instruction by ZZPS letter before claim

[gimmealook]

HI.
Background to the case : My daughter has mental health issues and she had had a big argument with her father, she left the house and drove off. They agreed to meet a little later in a car park to talk. She was in a right state.
At the car park she tried to put money in the machine, it kept falling through. She was too distraught to concentrate. Her father arrived within 5 minute of her arrival and too could not pay for a ticket. The walked to an area and sat down so she could calm when a tannoy message (security) asked them to step away from the building so they left to go to a place where they could talk.
The issue occurred on 1st April 2017. On 24th April she received a letter from Park with ease (dated 20th April) parking charge notice to keeper. Stating she owed £50 but reduced to £30 if she paid within 14 days. She entered and left within 22 minutes.

Her father , to this day has NOT received any parking charge notice.

My daughter was obviously distressed about the letter and stupidly I emailed Park with ease to say she would not be paying this charge. See below.

Dear Sir/madam
I am writing on behalf of my daughter to whom you issued a parking charge notice Ref : PWE94551
She is in a recovery phase after a mental breakdown and has been stressing about this for the last few weeks and has just brought it to my attention.
She would like to dispute this notice on the following grounds
· The penalty notice was dated 20 days after the alleged parking offence and indeed received several days after this date. I believe such notices should be issued within 14 days.

· My daughter left the house after an argument with her father, she made an attempt to pay the charge but the coins get falling through the machine. ( if you view your CCTV you will see that this is the case)

· She did not have a phone with her to pay any charge and did not notice any signage to say there was another method of payment , She is recovering from a mental breakdown and was in no fit state to properly consider this.

· Her father followed her into the car park and parked for the same amount of time, he too could not pay by the machine as the coins kept falling out. He has NOT received any form of parking charge. How can you pick and choose who to issue a notice to?

· Her father calmed her down and they left the car park after just 22 minutes. The charges requested are excessive for the amount of time the vehicle was allegedly parked.

My daughter WILL NOT be paying the parking charge for the above reasons.

I had a reply to the email saying that they could not discuss anything with me. I/we ignored the letter.
Since then a letter has been received from 1. Park with ease ..... legal action pending. (20/05/17) 2. ZZPS the unpaid PCN has been sent to them to resolve ( 16/08/17 ) 3. ZZPS saying the debt remains unpaid. (01/09/17)

Since the alleged parking breach my daughter has moved out and I returned on Oct 26th from a 3 week break away to find letters for her. A letter had been sent from Wright Hassall solicitors , dated 11/10/17 saying that they had been unstructed by ZZPS on behalf of Park with ease ltd stating that THEY ( no letter ever from them) previously wrote in connection with the recovery of the debt ......... etc. At the bottom it states ' the letter is a letter before claim pursuent to the practice direction on preAction Conduct and Protocols .... etc I am sure you probably know the rest.
the letter is allegedly signed by Tim Hawker, the signature looks like a photocopy and almost exact copy of one sample letter I have found on the internet. The phone number is not the same as stated on the wright Hassall website but similar to their fax number.

My gut reaction is to ignore it and complain to the SRA as I have read a few posts from different forums that say Wright Hassall cannot legally take me to court.
Could you advise me please as to the best course of action to take.
Many thanks in anticipation

[Kati]

Re: wright hassall instruction by ZZPS letter before claim

tagging [MENTION=5553]charitynjw[/MENTION] xx

[charitynjw]

Re: wright hassall instruction by ZZPS letter before claim

Hi, welcome to LB.

Could you post up the latest WH letter? (Obscure any personal details.)

[gimmealook]

Re: wright hassall instruction by ZZPS letter before claim

Hi, welcome to LB.

Could you post up the latest WH letter? (Obscure any personal details.)

I thought i had registered but seems this post has come up as a guest. hope i can view this and follow it ok now. took me a little while to post this. hope you can see it ok.

[charitynjw]

Re: wright hassall instruction by ZZPS letter before claim

Ok

That letter does not conform to the new pre action protocol for debt claims.

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/pr...ebt-claims.pdf

[gimmealook]

Re: wright hassall instruction by ZZPS letter before claim

Ok

That letter does not conform to the new pre action protocol for debt claims.

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/pr...ebt-claims.pdf

Thanks for your reply. Am I right in thinking I should just ignore it then. Or do I respond in some way.

[R0b]

Re: wright hassall instruction by ZZPS letter before claim

Thanks for your reply. Am I right in thinking I should just ignore it then. Or do I respond in some way.

Ignoring the letter before action would be a mistake in my opinion and it will be more likely than not if you don't respond at all, then they will issue a claim. They might also say that you contributed to their costs by ignoring their LBA when had the information you presented at the time, could have made them consider dropping the case and therefore should be liable for some wasted costs.

Of course their letter does not say this but I can see a couple of anomalies in there that could potentially breach SRA Code of Conduct rules. First of all, they are suggesting that they will ask for legal costs but they should already be aware that the sum of money involved is small, is not a complex matter and is likely to end up on the small claims track, of which costs are extremely limited and restrict the recovery of any legal costs unless there is good reason to do so such as unreasonable conduct/behaviour.

The other point to note is where they say that if a CCJ is obtained then it's recorded on a register and which may also affect your ability to obtain credit. Technically this is not true because your details are not registered automatically, since you have a grace period of paying the amount in full within one month from the date of the judgment to avoid any CCJ being recorded on the register.


Both of the above relate to the relevant provision in the SRA Code which is Chapter 11 - Relations with third parties where Outcome 11.1 says you must not take advantage of third parties. This is especially true when those are not legally represented and do not have a proper understanding of the court rules and system. Indicative Behaviour 11.8 suggests solicitors should not demand something that they know is not legally recoverable and the same principle could be applied to the legal costs point. An inexperience person who is not legally represented might think that those costs would be recoverable if the case went to court when in fact the starting point is that they are not recoverable. The result being that the inexperienced person might otherwise end up paying despite having a perfectly valid defence to the claim.

The same point could apply about the CCJ, particularly if someone is looking to obtain a mortgage and is worried the CCJ will affect their ability to be granted one then this too could make them pay up even though the claim might not have any merit or if there's a reasonable prospect of successfully defending it.

Obviously if you complained to the SRA, they might acknowledge and investigate the matter but ultimately they are a bag of **** at times so don't expect anything to come good of it but they would also have to weigh up whether the wording of that letter suggests alleged defendants might take a different view had they known better - worth a try anyway if the letter is worded carefully enough.

Just on another point, did WH send you the Reply Form that is required under the debt protocols, or did they just send that single page letter?

[gimmealook]

Re: wright hassall instruction by ZZPS letter before claim

They only sent a single page letter. The reverse had just a few boxes with debt Advice companies. If I do reply, is there someone who can help with this please? Many thanks.

[R0b]

Re: wright hassall instruction by ZZPS letter before claim

Just re-reading your original post, I can see your daughter has moved out, why haven't you informed the parking company of her new address?

If court proceedings are issued, you cannot act on her behalf unless she gives permission and you attend the hearing as well as her, otherwise you don't have any rights. You can attend the hearing and act on her behalf but only if she is present too.

So at the moment, replying isn't really going to do a great amount of good, unless you can show that you are acting on her behalf with her permission and her having signed some form of authority which you can supply to WH, ZZPS and Parking With Ease.

If there's no evidence to suggest that she has given authority for you to deal with the matter then WH or ZZPS are entitled to ignore your correspondence until such evidence is received.

Once you have that then yes I am sure one of us can assist but your daughter also needs to help herself with this too otherwise she could end up with a CCJ through her own irgnorance.

[gimmealook]

Re: wright hassall instruction by ZZPS letter before claim

Just re-reading your original post, I can see your daughter has moved out, why haven't you informed the parking company of her new address?

If court proceedings are issued, you cannot act on her behalf unless she gives permission and you attend the hearing as well as her, otherwise you don't have any rights. You can attend the hearing and act on her behalf but only if she is present too.

So at the moment, replying isn't really going to do a great amount of good, unless you can show that you are acting on her behalf with her permission and her having signed some form of authority which you can supply to WH, ZZPS and Parking With Ease.

If there's no evidence to suggest that she has given authority for you to deal with the matter then WH or ZZPS are entitled to ignore your correspondence until such evidence is received.

Once you have that then yes I am sure one of us can assist but your daughter also needs to help herself with this too otherwise she could end up with a CCJ through her own irgnorance.

Whatever letter I send will be signed by her. She asked me to deal with it as she isn't able to on her own. I will get a written letter to say she is happy.
I wanted to do the leg work for her. It all seems really complicated for me to understand and deal with , there is no way she would know what to do etc.
All her post comes here still at the moment by the way. Where she is may be a temporary address.

So, where do I go from here please?
will the fact that Parkwithease didnt send a notice to keeper within the 14 days And the fact that her father never received a PCN even though he followed her into the car park too have any bearing on throwing the case out?

[charitynjw]

Re: wright hassall instruction by ZZPS letter before claim

will the fact that Parkwithease didnt send a notice to keeper within the 14 days
Unfortunately, because the driver has been ID'd, the parking co does not have to adhere to the 14 day rule (for 'no windscreen PCN' cases) found in the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 Schedule 4. That only applies if there is a transfer of liability from driver to registered keeper in those cases where the driver is not identified.
And the fact that her father never received a PCN even though he followed her into the car park too have any bearing on throwing the case out?
Personally I would drop that type of argument like a hot potato! They might start looking to see if they could charge the father as well....especially as they would have convenient witness evidence unwittingly supplied by yourselves. Anyway, the old adage "2 wrongs don't make a right" springs to mind....that is, just because someone else got away with it, doesn't mean that everyone else will.

####

[gimmealook]

Re: wright hassall instruction by ZZPS letter before claim

Could someone please help us write a letter. ��

[R0b]

Re: wright hassall instruction by ZZPS letter before claim

Could someone please help us write a letter. ��

We can assist you with the letter but you also need to help yourself/daughter and have a go at the first draft and upload it on here. Once you've done that then we will be able to give you some direction on whether anything is missing.

You should take into account what Charity has said above and consider if there are any grounds for actually defending this or whether, in this case an offer to settle, albeit not the full amount might be the way to go. You have said that your daughter and her dad tried to put the money into the machine but it was not working, perhaps that's a possible get out. Perhaps if your daughter has evidence of her mental breakdown that could also be used to support the fact that the parking company may have not taken into account any possible vulnerability and/or mitigating circumstances you mentioned, all in favour of obtaining as much money as possible. It doesn't particularly help that you've said your daughter will not be paying any parking charges for the reasons you mentioned instead of a more softer approach.

In addition to the above, you've made their life much easier because you already named your daughter as the the driver - a lesson to learn next time that it is up to the parking company to prove their case so you should generally make reference to the 'driver' rather than giving specific names.

I think what I am trying to get at is you need to work out what evidence you have to support any rebuttal that the parking charges should not be paid by your daughter. Once you have all of this, then you can start drafting and sending a letter, otherwise if you say X and they come up with Y to counter, you are going to look silly, especially in court which may add further legal costs for a hopeless defence.

[gimmealook]

Re: wright hassall instruction by ZZPS letter before claim

Thank you for your assistance so far.
I have written to the owner of the car park ( a charitable trust ) to explain the situation and asked them to ask Park With Ease to rescind the PCN and said my daughter is happy to offer a settlement sum of £20 to the Trust in the hope to close the matter.

My daughter is gathering some evidence of her breakdown as we speak, should we need to use it.

I have noted a couple of posts from forums ( whilst trying to research my options as you suggested)
1 . for a without prejudice letter .

NAME OF PPC's LEGAL DEPT (or Solicitor if acting)
ADDRESS

DATE

WITHOUT PREJUDICE SAVE AS TO THE QUESTION OF COSTS

Dear Sir

[Name of PPC] -v- [Name of defendant]
County Court case number xxxxxxxx

I refer to the above claim, court papers for which were served on me on [date]. I am writing to acknowledge the claim against me and to confirm that liability is denied in full. I am in the process of filing a defence will no doubt be served upon you, by the court, in due course.

Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the above comments, in the spirit of disposing of this matter swiftly and conveniently, I am willing to make an offer of settlement in the sum of [£xx] [this being the original sum specified in the PCN dated xxx] [calculated as follows; actual loss, DVLA costs, reasonable admin costs]. This offer is made in full and final settlement of the whole claim, inclusive of interest and costs and is made entirely on a 'without prejudice' basis and with no acceptance of liability.

I confirm that payment will be made in full within 14 days of receipt of acceptance of this offer together with details of required method of payment.

PLEASE NOTE: This offer is intended to have the consequences of Section 1 of Part 36 of the Civil Procedure Rules. It will remain open for a period of 23 days from the date of this letter (namely 21 days plus two days for service) after which time the offer will be withdrawn and in the event of the claimant failing to achieve a judgment in excess of the sum offered in this letter, an application will be made for an order that the claimant pay the defendant's wasted costs of the action in full.

I trust this will not be necessary and look forward to receiving your positive response shortly.

Yours faithfully

PRINT NAME


.and 2 : another drafted letter which acknowledges the LBA and asks for all the relevant details of the case. I could add that the WH letter breaches the SRA rules as you have stated in your post above

Dear WH
I acknowledge your letter dated 11^th October 2017 which I take to be a letter before claim, the contents of which have been noted.
Pre action protocols expect both parties to exchange sufficient information to understand each others position so I request that you forward to myself the original parking charge notice and a picture of the signs at the alleged location along with the operators contract which allows them to operate at the site in question.

As well as the information already requested please answer the following questions :-
What type of car park is it ?
What contravention gives a cause of action ?
Who contravened your rules ?
Who you are pursuing ?
Have you followed the rules laid down in the Protection of freedoms act 2012 schedule 4 ?
How is the £154 made up ?
Not only will this information help comply with the pre action protocols it will also help achieve the over riding objective.


Having done some research on your claims i request that if you ignore my requests for information that your claim complies with
CPR 16
Contents of the claim form
16.2
(1) The claim form must –
(a) contain a concise statement of the nature of the claim

Contents of the particulars of claim
16.4
(1) Particulars of claim must include –
(a) a concise statement of the facts on which the claimant relies;

Practice direction 16
Other matters to be included in particulars of claim
7.5 Where a claim is based upon an agreement by conduct, the particulars of claim must specify the conduct relied on and state by whom, when and where the acts constituting the conduct were done.

Practice direction 22
Who may sign the statement of truth
3.1 In a statement of case, a response or an application notice, the statement of truth must be signed by
(2) the legal representative of the party or litigation friend.

3.7 Where a party is legally represented, the legal representative may sign the statement of truth on his behalf. The statement signed by the legal representative will refer to the client’s belief, not his own. In signing he must state the capacity in which he signs and the name of his firm where appropriate.


3.9 The individual who signs a statement of truth must print his full name clearly beneath his signature.

3.10 A legal representative who signs a statement of truth must sign in his own name and not that of his firm or employer.

Practice direction 7E
Signature
10 Any provision of the CPR which requires a document to be signed by any person is satisfied by that person entering their name on an online form.

I await your response.
Yours sincerely

WH said in the letter ( the copy is above in a previous post) that they have previously written to me and that a breakdown of the debt can be found overleaf but no letter has been received and no breakdown of charges. The last total was £110, here it is £146. Do I add something to this effect in the letter?

Am I barking up the wrong tree with these responses or will they be acceptable. Should I wait until I have had a response from the Charitable Trust?

Again, many thanks for your time in assisting me.

[R0b]

Re: wright hassall instruction by ZZPS letter before claim

First of all, I don't think the second letter (the latter half) is appropriate at this stage and doesn't really assist.

Clearly the letter does not comply with the pre-action debt protocols so this should be emphasised but also if you want to mentioned the SRA code of conduct is entirely up to you. Here's a rough example to start you off.

---------------------------------------

Dear Sir or Madam,

Re: Park With Ease v [insert name]

I write in response to your letter before claim dated 11 October 2017.

You will note that the Pre-action Protocol for Debt Claims (the 'Protocol') came into force on 1 October 2017 and which applies to any business claiming a payment of a debt from an individual. Unfortunately your letter before claim fails, to by some margin, with the provisions of the Protocol. In particular:

(a) contrary to paragraph 3.1 of the Protocol, the letter does not:
(i) state where the debt arises from an oral agreement, who made theagreement, what was agreed and when and where it was agreed;
(ii) where the debt arises from a written agreement, the date ofthe agreement, the parties to it and the fact that a copy of thewritten agreement can be requested from the creditor;

(b) the letter did not enclose a copy of the Reply Form as prescribed in the Protocol and the address to which the completed Reply Form is to be sent;
(c) the letter did not enclose a copy of the Financial Statement as prescribed in the Protocol; and
(d) the letter fails to give the correct amount of time to reply. The letter states that action will be taken within 14 days if there is no response however, the Protocol explicitly states that court proceedings should not be commenced any earlier than 30 days from the date of the letter before claim.

Pursuant to paragraph 5.2 of the Protocol I am entitled to request further documents and/or information from the claimant and must be provided within 30 days of receipt. In light of this, I require the following:

[insert information/documents you require]

Finally, I would refer you to paragraph 7.1 and 7.2 of the Protocol which concerns the court's power to impose sanctions for failure to comply with the Protocol. I must inform you that should you or your client ignore this letter, I reserve the right to draw this letter to the court's attention in respect of your client's failure to comply with the Protocol which may lead to your client being held liable for any wasted costs.