Sainsburys - horizon parking ltd - county court claim - help please

[johnyb121]

Hi Guys

I had some amazing help on the fourms last time so am back again. My sister has had a claims letter come through which was for tickets at sainsburys a fair while ago.

In a panic she has called the company and although has not admitted liability said she needs more proof. One of the people at the company said they should not do this but has sent her pics of the car, parking machine and proof they have! I can upload these also if that helps but was not sure if I should?

Can I still dispute this for her ? They are asking for a lot of money. I am wondering if she can get out of this with all the evidence they have.

I have not filed acknowledgement of service or anything yet.

Thanks in advance

[Kati]

Re: Sainsburys - horizon parking ltd - county court claim - help please

[MENTION=5553]charitynjw[/MENTION] ... one for you I think

[ostell]

Re: Sainsburys - horizon parking ltd - county court claim - help please

Sign on on line using the details on the form and acknowledge the claim to get the additional 14 days to submit a defence. You are disputing the full claim, you do not contest jurisdiction (unless you do not live in England or Wales) AND DO NOT PUT ANYTHING IN THE DEFENCE.

Redact that password from the claim form you uploaded!

Have you been into Sainsburys to complain about the charges? Your sister seems to be a regular customer. Have you got copies of the original NTK that your sister received?

[johnyb121]

Re: Sainsburys - horizon parking ltd - county court claim - help please

Hi,

I have acknowledged the claim online now thanks.

I have also amended the form uploaded.

No she has not been in there yet, would it be worth going in there?

I have the claim form here with info but that is all, I think she did receive the letter before claim would this be needed?

Thank you

[ostell]

Re: Sainsburys - horizon parking ltd - county court claim - help please

Just looking for a Notice to Keeper that would have been received after each incident. It may be relevant.

It's worth going in with some evidence like statements showing payments to Sainsburys. But don't ignore the court, the steam roller doesn't stop

[johnyb121]

Re: Sainsburys - horizon parking ltd - county court claim - help please

I have asked but she does not have them them as they were dated back quite a few years now.

She will look through her statements and pop in there if she can get some proof she has been shopping regularly at the store.

Thanks

[charitynjw]

Re: Sainsburys - horizon parking ltd - county court claim - help please

What are the terms of parking?
Any idea what the alleged breach is for each incident?
Do you have pictures of the site signage?

[johnyb121]

Re: Sainsburys - horizon parking ltd - county court claim - help please

I believe it is because she has gone over the free 30mins parking. She told me she had to do some work in the library which is above the store.

I have attached a picture of the site sine.

They have quite a few pics of the car.

Thank you

[johnyb121]

Re: Sainsburys - horizon parking ltd - county court claim - help please

Hi Guys,

Was just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on this?

Thank you

[ostell]

Re: Sainsburys - horizon parking ltd - county court claim - help please

You may like to look at Post #23 from this thread on MSE forum.
In casee you can't get htere it is copied below. Use it as a base for your defence and post up here when you are finished.

_________________________________________________
BETWEEN:

HORIZON PARKING LIMITED

-and-

XXX
________________________

DEFENCE STATEMENT
________________________

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 you operate parking management activities on land which is not owned by you, you must supply us with written authority from the land owner sufficient to establish you 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 7.5 as there is nothing which specifies how the terms were breached. 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. I believe 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:!

1.4 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

3. The Claimant has not complied with the pre-court protocol.
(1) No initial information was sent to the Defendant.
(2) 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.

On the basis of the above, I 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 registered keeper of the vehicle in question at the time of the alleged incident.

2) The Particulars of the Claim submitted to the Defendant provide no statement to the nature of the claim and the Defendant does not believe these particulars to be compliant with Civil Procedure Rules 16.4 nor Practice Direction 16 7.3-7.5 inhibiting the ability of the Defendant to provide a comprehensive and conclusive defence.

3) It is denied that the Claimant has authority to bring this claim.
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.

4) 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 driver has not been evidenced on any occasion.
c) The Defendant has no liability as they are the keeper of the vehicle and the Claimant has failed to comply with the strict provisions of POFA 2012 to hold anyone other than the driver liable for the charges.
d) There is no presumption in law that the keeper was the driver and nor is the keeper obliged to name the driver to a private parking firm. This was confirmed in the POPLA Annual Report 2015 by the POPLA Lead Adjudicator and the barrister, Henry Gleenslade, when explaining the POFA 2012 principles of ‘keeper liability’ as set out in Schedule 4.
e) The Claimant's increasingly demanding letters failed to evidence any contravention or clear/prominent signage. Further, the Notice to Keeper (postal 'PCN') failed to give the statutory warning to the registered keeper about the '28 day period' which is mandatory wording as prescribed in paragraph 9(2)(f) of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. Consequently, the Claimant is unable to rely on the 'keeper liability' provisions of the POFA.

5) 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 disclosed no cause of action to give rise to any debt.
b) The Claimant has stated that parking charges were incurred.
c) The Claimant has given no indication of the nature of the alleged charges in the Particulars of Claim.
The Claimant has therefore disclosed no cause of action.
d) The Particulars of Claim contain no details and fails to establish a cause of action which would enable the Defendant to prepare a specific defence. It just states “incurred the parking charge(s)” 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.
e) 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’
f) 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.

6) The Claimant has not complied with the pre-court protocol.
a) 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.

7). 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'.
a) This case can be distinguished from ParkingEye v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 (the Beavis case) which was dependent upon an undenied contract, formed by unusually prominent signage forming a clear offer and which turned on unique facts regarding the location and interests of the landowner. Strict compliance with the BPA(CoP) was paramount and Mr Beavis was the driver who saw the signs and entered into a contract to pay £85 after exceeding a licence to park free. None of this applies in this material case.
b) In Beavis it was held that the purpose of a parking charge must not be to penalise drivers. Justification must depend on some other ‘legitimate interest in performance extending beyond the prospect of pecuniary compensation flowing directly from the breach in question’. The true test was held to be ‘whether the impugned provision is a secondary obligation which imposes detriment on the contract-breaker out of all proportion to any legitimate interest […..] in enforcement of the primary obligation’

8)
(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 ‘local’ recovery agent (which suggested to the Defendant they would be calling round like bailiffs) adding further unexplained charges to the original £60 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 £70 solicitor costs.
c) Not withstanding the Defendant's belief, the costs are in any case not recoverable.
d) The Claimant described the charge of £70.00 "legal representative’s costs" not "contractual costs". CPR 27.14 does not permit these to be recovered in the Small Claims Court.

9) The Claimant’s solicitors are known to be a serial issuer of generic claims similar to this one, with no due diligence, no scrutiny of details nor even checking for a true cause of action. HMCS have identified over 1000 similar poorly produced claims and the solicitor's conduct in many of these cases is believed to be currently the subject of an active investigation by the SRA.

10) I believe the term for such conduct is ‘robo-claims’ which is against the public interest, demonstrates a disregard for the dignity of the court and is unfair on unrepresented consumers. I have reason to believe that this is a claim that will proceed without any facts or evidence supplied until the last possible minute, to my significant detriment as an unrepresented Defendant.

11) I suggest that parking companies using the small claims track as a form of aggressive, automated debt collection is not something the courts should be seen to support.

12)
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 £60 to £120. This appears to be an added cost with no 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.

13)
a) The signage on this site is inadequate to form a contract. It is barely legible, making it difficult to read.
b) The sign does not contain an obligation as to how to ‘clearly display a valid ticket within your vehicle’, therefore there was no breach of any ‘relevant obligation’ or ‘relevant contract’ as required under Schedule 4 of POFA.
c) 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.

14)
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 £60 to agree to the alleged contract had the terms and conditions of the contract been properly displayed and accessible.

I believe the facts stated in this defence are true.

(Name) (Signature) (Date)!

[johnyb121]

Re: Sainsburys - horizon parking ltd - county court claim - help please

Thank you I will check it all out.

You may like to look at Post #23 from this thread on MSE forum.
In casee you can't get htere it is copied below. Use it as a base for your defence and post up here when you are finished.

_________________________________________________
BETWEEN:

HORIZON PARKING LIMITED

-and-

XXX
________________________

DEFENCE STATEMENT
________________________

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 you operate parking management activities on land which is not owned by you, you must supply us with written authority from the land owner sufficient to establish you 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 7.5 as there is nothing which specifies how the terms were breached. 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. I believe 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:!

1.4 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

3. The Claimant has not complied with the pre-court protocol.
(1) No initial information was sent to the Defendant.
(2) 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.

On the basis of the above, I 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 registered keeper of the vehicle in question at the time of the alleged incident.

2) The Particulars of the Claim submitted to the Defendant provide no statement to the nature of the claim and the Defendant does not believe these particulars to be compliant with Civil Procedure Rules 16.4 nor Practice Direction 16 7.3-7.5 inhibiting the ability of the Defendant to provide a comprehensive and conclusive defence.

3) It is denied that the Claimant has authority to bring this claim.
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.

4) 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 driver has not been evidenced on any occasion.
c) The Defendant has no liability as they are the keeper of the vehicle and the Claimant has failed to comply with the strict provisions of POFA 2012 to hold anyone other than the driver liable for the charges.
d) There is no presumption in law that the keeper was the driver and nor is the keeper obliged to name the driver to a private parking firm. This was confirmed in the POPLA Annual Report 2015 by the POPLA Lead Adjudicator and the barrister, Henry Gleenslade, when explaining the POFA 2012 principles of ‘keeper liability’ as set out in Schedule 4.
e) The Claimant's increasingly demanding letters failed to evidence any contravention or clear/prominent signage. Further, the Notice to Keeper (postal 'PCN') failed to give the statutory warning to the registered keeper about the '28 day period' which is mandatory wording as prescribed in paragraph 9(2)(f) of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. Consequently, the Claimant is unable to rely on the 'keeper liability' provisions of the POFA.

5) 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 disclosed no cause of action to give rise to any debt.
b) The Claimant has stated that parking charges were incurred.
c) The Claimant has given no indication of the nature of the alleged charges in the Particulars of Claim.
The Claimant has therefore disclosed no cause of action.
d) The Particulars of Claim contain no details and fails to establish a cause of action which would enable the Defendant to prepare a specific defence. It just states “incurred the parking charge(s)” 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.
e) 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’
f) 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.

6) The Claimant has not complied with the pre-court protocol.
a) 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.

7). 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'.
a) This case can be distinguished from ParkingEye v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 (the Beavis case) which was dependent upon an undenied contract, formed by unusually prominent signage forming a clear offer and which turned on unique facts regarding the location and interests of the landowner. Strict compliance with the BPA(CoP) was paramount and Mr Beavis was the driver who saw the signs and entered into a contract to pay £85 after exceeding a licence to park free. None of this applies in this material case.
b) In Beavis it was held that the purpose of a parking charge must not be to penalise drivers. Justification must depend on some other ‘legitimate interest in performance extending beyond the prospect of pecuniary compensation flowing directly from the breach in question’. The true test was held to be ‘whether the impugned provision is a secondary obligation which imposes detriment on the contract-breaker out of all proportion to any legitimate interest […..] in enforcement of the primary obligation’

8)
(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 ‘local’ recovery agent (which suggested to the Defendant they would be calling round like bailiffs) adding further unexplained charges to the original £60 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 £70 solicitor costs.
c) Not withstanding the Defendant's belief, the costs are in any case not recoverable.
d) The Claimant described the charge of £70.00 "legal representative’s costs" not "contractual costs". CPR 27.14 does not permit these to be recovered in the Small Claims Court.

9) The Claimant’s solicitors are known to be a serial issuer of generic claims similar to this one, with no due diligence, no scrutiny of details nor even checking for a true cause of action. HMCS have identified over 1000 similar poorly produced claims and the solicitor's conduct in many of these cases is believed to be currently the subject of an active investigation by the SRA.

10) I believe the term for such conduct is ‘robo-claims’ which is against the public interest, demonstrates a disregard for the dignity of the court and is unfair on unrepresented consumers. I have reason to believe that this is a claim that will proceed without any facts or evidence supplied until the last possible minute, to my significant detriment as an unrepresented Defendant.

11) I suggest that parking companies using the small claims track as a form of aggressive, automated debt collection is not something the courts should be seen to support.

12)
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 £60 to £120. This appears to be an added cost with no 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.

13)
a) The signage on this site is inadequate to form a contract. It is barely legible, making it difficult to read.
b) The sign does not contain an obligation as to how to ‘clearly display a valid ticket within your vehicle’, therefore there was no breach of any ‘relevant obligation’ or ‘relevant contract’ as required under Schedule 4 of POFA.
c) 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.

14)
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 £60 to agree to the alleged contract had the terms and conditions of the contract been properly displayed and accessible.

I believe the facts stated in this defence are true.

(Name) (Signature) (Date)!

[johnyb121]

Re: Sainsburys - horizon parking ltd - county court claim - help please

Hi Guys

I submitted my defence and have now recived the attached letter from Gladstone I have only attached the first page. I have also recived another letter 'notice of proposed allocation to the small claims track' please let me know if you would also like to see a scanned copy of this.

I'm slightly confused as to what to do now? I would really appreciate any help.

thank you

[johnyb121]

Re: Sainsburys - horizon parking ltd - county court claim - help please

Please any help on this thanks.