Claim form received from Northampton Parking Fine from 2012 - Won

[jewls67]

Re: Claim form received from Northampton Parking Fine from 2012

Hello Ostell,

I have now uploaded my documents and updated a few concerns I have further down on the link. I would be really grateful if you could have a look for me please.

Thanks Jewls

[mystery1]

Re: Claim form received from Northampton Parking Fine from 2012

You do not need to enter a defence at the same time when filing acknowledgement of service. Do it ASAP as time is ticking.

Great to see you have the letter of assignment as that is a huge weapon for fighting this case.

Follow the advice i posted to another user :-

OK.

1st thing, as advised previously, acknowledge service as you get 14 days extra to enter a defence.


Then write to some people.

1. The claimants solicitor.



Dear Mr Schwartz,

I, as defendant, am in receipt of your court claim number xxxxxxxx in which the claimant is Civil Enforcement Ltd, Horton House, Exchange flags, Liverpool, L2 3PF. I note that you have personally signed a statement of truth for the particulars of claim.

I would like to bring to your attention CPR 16.4 which centres around the contents of the claim form. Given the 3 alternative scenarios you put forward, being contractual entitlement, breach of contract or trespass it can never be said that your particulars of claim show the concise facts if you are unable to accurately state what your case is actually for. I also note that the claim form signed by A. Cohen has a different amount than the particulars of claim signed by yourself. This case should be repleaded.

My first point pales into insignificance however compared to my next point. You have signed a statement of truth for a claim for Civil Enforcement limited for an amount which even if the circumstances upon which the arose were undisputed, which they are not, is simply not due to them as they have assigned a large portion of them. See the faux claim sent by debt enforcement and action ltd and the letter of assignment on your clients headed note paper which accompany this letter. This case is in serious trouble and i would ask you drop it immediately to avoid further costs.

Aside from the problems this gives you with this case, it also gives you a rather severe problem as you cannot have had an honest belief in the truth of your particulars of claim as they are simply untrue. This matter will be reported to the SRA and the possible contempt of court highlighted to the court.

In order to ascertain your response and see if i need to take further action i would ask for an extension to the time for filing a defence pursuant to CPR 15.5 and seek the full 28 days extra and look forward to your cooperation on this. Failure to sort out you case or the issues identified will lead me to consider a summary judgement application particularly if time starts to get short.

Yours etc





2. The claimant.


Dear Mr Cohen,

I, as defendant, am in receipt of your court claim number xxxxxxxx in which the claimant is Civil Enforcement Ltd, Horton House, Exchange flags, Liverpool, L2 3PF. I note that you have personally signed a statement of truth for the particulars of claim.

I note that you have signed a statement of truth. I enclose copies of a letter of assignment and a faux claim form from debt enforcement and action ltd which clearly show that the matters in the claim form simply cannot be true. I will be highlighting this potential contempt of court to the court. I note the assignment is on Civil Enforcement limited headed paper so you should have been aware of it.

I have asked Mr Schwartz to consider the content of the claim and the issues surrounding his possible contempt of court.

Yours etc


3. The BPA.

aos@britishparking.co.uk

Dear Sir/Madam,

I have had court papers issued by one of your members. It appears that your member, Civil Enforcement Limited have assigned the debt (see attached assignment, faux claim) to another company but have still lodged court papers in their own name for a debt they do not own. (see attached court papers).

Is this a level of honesty i should expect from one of your members ?

Yours etc




Keep an eye on deadlines and see what that stirs up. If nothing we can either go for a summary judgement or enter a defence.

You could also have a wee bash at steve.murrells@co-operative.coop see if he can help.

M1

[jewls67]

Re: Claim form received from Northampton Parking Fine from 2012

Hello Mystery1,

Thank you very much. I have already acknowledged their claim. I believe I only have another week to enter my defence. I believe I need to enter it by Monday. They have never actually told me what I did wrong.
I will get the letters out asap.
Thank you so much again : )

[mystery1]

Re: Claim form received from Northampton Parking Fine from 2012

Hello Mystery1,

Thank you very much. I have already acknowledged their claim. I believe I only have another week to enter my defence. I believe I need to enter it by Monday. They have never actually told me what I did wrong.
I will get the letters out asap.
Thank you so much again : )

Well 2 of you are pretty much at the same stage so i'll be doing the defence soon

M1

[chopperpilot]

Re: Claim form received from Northampton Parking Fine from 2012

Well 2 of you are pretty much at the same stage so i'll be doing the defence soon

M1

+3 and +4

Hi M1.

I'm reading this topic with GREAT interest: as I'm in the almost identical position as the OP (just sent in my AoS for court papers issued by CEL for a long forgotten PCN issued in the Co-op in Ryde, Isle of White in April 2012!! Although in my case i'm sans the letter of assignment which was consigned to the open-top circular file cabinet under my desk years ago. (D'oh).

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....php?t=5281937

There's also at least one other person i'm aware of that has recently had court papers from CEL for a prePOFA2012 case too.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....php?t=5286134

I'm assuming CEL must be having one last ditch attempt at wringing some money out of poor unsuspecting motorists!

looking forward to your next posts about a defence, although for me i will be pushing the 'no Keeper Liability prePOFA2012' angle.

Just wanted the OP to know they are not alone!!

all the very best to you both. and keep up the good work.

[mystery1]

Re: Claim form received from Northampton Parking Fine from 2012

+3 and +4

Hi M1.

I'm reading this topic with GREAT interest: as I'm in the almost identical position as the OP (just sent in my AoS for court papers issued by CEL for a long forgotten PCN issued in the Co-op in Ryde, Isle of White in April 2012!! Although in my case i'm sans the letter of assignment which was consigned to the open-top circular file cabinet under my desk years ago. (D'oh).

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....php?t=5281937

There's also at least one other person i'm aware of that has recently had court papers from CEL for a prePOFA2012 case too.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....php?t=5286134

I'm assuming CEL must be having one last ditch attempt at wringing some money out of poor unsuspecting motorists!

looking forward to your next posts about a defence, although for me i will be pushing the 'no Keeper Liability prePOFA2012' angle.

Just wanted the OP to know they are not alone!!

all the very best to you both. and keep up the good work.

You should still win without it but when you have it they are in real trouble. If enough claims are signed with a statement of truth which is clearly untrue then it could ultimately lead to jail if we are very lucky.

M1

[jewls67]

Re: Claim form received from Northampton Parking Fine from 2012

Hello Mystery1,

Sorry had a family emergency. I went to send to complete details in the letters, but noted no-one has actually signed the statement of truth. the solicitors details have nothing filled in, no signature, name or address. Does this affect anything?
The other query I have, it says if you file an acknowledgement you get 28 days to put in a defence but further on it talks about if you do not file an application within 14 days....I am so confused? I believe I filed it 14 days ago, I can't get back on to website and from tomorrow I will not have access to a computer until next Monday. My head hurts! I hope I am not too late to fight this.
Thanks for everything you are doing to support us.

[mystery1]

Re: Claim form received from Northampton Parking Fine from 2012

Hello Mystery1,

Sorry had a family emergency. I went to send to complete details in the letters, but noted no-one has actually signed the statement of truth. the solicitors details have nothing filled in, no signature, name or address. Does this affect anything?
The other query I have, it says if you file an acknowledgement you get 28 days to put in a defence but further on it talks about if you do not file an application within 14 days....I am so confused? I believe I filed it 14 days ago, I can't get back on to website and from tomorrow I will not have access to a computer until next Monday. My head hurts! I hope I am not too late to fight this.
Thanks for everything you are doing to support us.

They are signed as typing counts for these electronic types.

Phone the court who will confirm if you have filed acknowledgement of service or not. I will be around tomorrow socan knock up a defence then if required. It is best to wait and see what transpires from the letters though, if you can. If you have filed acknowledgement of service then it'll be around 10th August that we must file a defence by. If not do it tomorrow.

M1

[missg01]

Re: Claim form received from Northampton Parking Fine from 2012

Jewls67 Did you get any response back from them regarding the letters?? Defence stage next week and nothing on my side??

[mystery1]

Re: Claim form received from Northampton Parking Fine from 2012

Jewls67 Did you get any response back from them regarding the letters?? Defence stage next week and nothing on my side??

Nobody has brought it to my attention if they have. I wasn't really expecting them to but it puts us in a strong position for costs and they cannot deny knowing later if a judge picks up on contempt of court.

M1

[jewls67]

Re: Claim form received from Northampton Parking Fine from 2012

Hello All,

I have WiFi again!

As no one had signed the statement of truth and there was no address for the solicitors I could not forward this on to anyone. I had a reply from AOS:

Dear Ms Kerr,
Thank you for your enquiry.

We can confirm that Civil Enforcement Limited are a member of the BPA (An Accredited Trade Association) and part of The Approved Operator Scheme.

The BPA is a membership association and not a regulator for private parking and we are unable to assist with individual parking charge notices. We can however, advise of the processes used by those parking companies that are a member of the BPA AOS Scheme (AOS).

If a parking charge is not appealed or paid in the required timescale however, the parking operator may pass the charge to a debt recovery company who will add their charges and pursue the motorist for payment. If the charge remains unpaid at this stage the parking operator may choose to recover the charge through the legal system. This is per the collection process. As we are not a legal entity we are unable to give any advice in this area.

The Approved Operator Scheme and its Code of Practice was developed by the BPA to bring a degree of regularity to an industry without primary legislation. Regrettably as we are not a regulator, we are not empowered to become involved in individual disputes between the motorist and the car park operator and have no power to overturn an operator’s decision.

Kind regards,
AOS Investigations Team

I have not called the court so will follow that up tomorrow. I hope everyone is well?

[jewls67]

Re: Claim form received from Northampton Parking Fine from 2012

Hello,

Me again. I have now recieved in the post a copy of the particulars of claim and a photo copy letter from the Co-op saying CEL had permission from them. I can now send the letter off to Micael Schwartz, do you know what address I should send this to please?
I have never had a letter from CEL saying what parking contravention I committed and do believe that is part of my defence.

Thanks guys.

[jewls67]

Re: Claim form received from Northampton Parking Fine from 2012

I had one from the association they belong to, basically saying there is nothing they can do. I have not heard anything from the others though. Good luck!

[mystery1]

Re: Claim form received from Northampton Parking Fine from 2012

We'll need to submit a defence by close on Monday so i'll get to that tonight.

Not overly worried by the letters.We gave them a chance to rectify their issues and get out of trouble. If they choose to ignore the obvious then it helps us and could help bury them.

M1

[mystery1]

Re: Claim form received from Northampton Parking Fine from 2012

Did you get pages 2 & 3 from Letter_8.pdf

I write the defence as if you had.


Email it to ccbcdefendants@hmcts.gsi.gov.uk

Take note of

Form and content of emails

When you email the court the subject line of your mail must contain (in the following order): -

• The claim number
• The title of the claim (abbreviated if necessary) **
• The subject matter (e.g. defence)
• If relating to a hearing the date and time of hearing
• The judge or legal advisers name, where the correspondence/document is for their attention

**If your email is in relation to a family matter, please refer to the initials only.
Your message should also contain the name, telephone number and email address of the sender. If you email us we will normally send any reply to you by email.
Correspondence and documents may be sent as either text or attachments. Where there is a practice form, it must be sent in that form by attachment.
Attachments must be in one of the following formats and the complete email (including any attachment(s)) must not exceed 10Mb





IN THE [TOWN] COUNTY COURT CASE No.
BETWEEN
[IVOR PROBLEM] Claimant
AND
[JUSTIN TIME] Defendant
DEFENCE






1. The Defendant denies that she is liable to the Claimant either as alleged in the Particulars of Claim or at all. Save where otherwise admitted, each and every allegation in the Particulars of Claim is denied.


2. I am the Defendant, xxxxx, a brain surgeon.


3. I am the registered keeper of vehicle, registration number xxxxx.

4. I have no knowledge of paragraph 1 in so far as Civil Enforcement Limited and the landowners are concerned and the claimant is put to strict proof that they have a valid contract with the landowners.

5. Paragraph 2 is outside my knowledge and is neither admitted nor denied. The claimant is put to strict proof.

6. Paragraphs 3 & 4 are denied. The claimant is put to strict proof they are entitled to enter in to a contract. Any contract must have offer, acceptance and consideration both ways. There is no consideration from Civil Enforcement Ltd to motorist; The gift of parking is the landowner’s, not Civil Enforcement Ltd’s. There is no consideration from motorist to Civil Enforcement Ltd. The original parking charge letter is not an invoice. It is headed "parking enforcement notice" and it is clearly not a contract.


7. Paragraph 5 is denied as the claimant was not entitled to demand money from the defendant as none was owed as no contract was agreed.

8. Paragraph 6 is denied. Interest is not due as there is no base debt on which interest should be charged.

9. The claimants claim fails to meet CPR 16.2 (1) (a). It does not include a concise statement of the nature of the claim. It's either a contractual charge, damages for breach of contract or damages for trespass.

10. The claimants claim is also denied for the following reasons :-

A. The sign was not an offer but a threat of a punitive sanction to dissuade drivers from parking without payment and was therefore a penalty clause. It was not an offer to pay for a period of parking. The charge was held to be a penalty in the appeal ruling of Civil Enforcement Limited v McCafferty Their claim is based on damages for alleged breach of contract. It is a fundamental principle of English Law that a party who suffers damages through breach of contract can only seek through court action to be put back in the same position as they would have been if the breach had not occurred. In order to do so, they must demonstrate their actual, or genuine, pre-estimate of loss. I submit that no loss has been suffered by the Claimant as a result of any alleged breaches of contract on my part. Any losses are due to the landholder, not the Claimant. I further submit that the loss to the landholder is zero .


B. A charge of £130 is above and beyond that which the British Parking Association expects and is a trade association of which Civil Enforcement Ltd are a member. 19.5/6 of the trades code of practice states "If the parking charge that the driver is being asked to pay is for a breach of contract or act of trespass, this charge must be based on the genuine pre-estimate of loss that you suffer. We would not expect this amount to be more than £100. If the charge is more than this, operators must be able to justify the amount in advance.


19.6 If your parking charge is based upon a contractually agreed sum, that charge cannot be punitive or unreasonable. If it is more than the recommended amount in 19.5 and is not justified in advance, it could lead to an investigation by The Office of Fair Trading. "



The claimant "Civil Enforcement Limited" assigned £113.75 of the alleged debt to Debt Enforcement & Action limited and in the letter of assignment, on their own headed paper, stated that the balance of £16.25 was kept due to an ongoing agreement and that it was due to the Co-operative. The claimant is attempting to be unjustly enriched and if the claim succeeds the defendant will be in the position of owing the same monies to 2 different companies.

Case Law Relied Upon:


a) With regard to point 4 & 6, there are two Court of Appeal judgments of note, ParkingEye v Somerfield [2012 EWCA Civ 1338] and HMRC v VCS [2013 EWCA Civ 186]. In the first, the court ruled that the parking company could not take legal action in their own name. In the second the court ruled they could. The nature of the relationship between landowner and car park operator, and the wording of the contract between them, is key to distinguishing these two cases. It is instructive therefore to compare the current relationship between ParkingEye and landowner, and the wording of the contract, to see whether this more closely resembles ParkingEye v Somerfield or HMRC v VCS. The defendant submits that it is obvious the relationship is more like the ParkingEye v Somerfield case. In 3JD04329 ParkingEye v Martin (12/05/2014 St Albans) District Judge Cross found ParkingEye’s contract to be more like the Somerfield case than VCS v HMRC, and
dismissed the claim. No transcript is currently available.



b) With regard to point 9 I rely upon the following cases and evidence:


OBServices v Thurlow (Worcester County Court, 2011) (Appeal hearing before Circuit Judge).3JD00517 ParkingEye v Clarke (Barrow-in-Furness, 19/12/2013) Deputy District Judge Buckley ruled that the amount charged was not a genuine pre-estimate of loss as any loss was to the landowner and not the Claimant. “The problem which the present Claimants have, however, in making this assessment is that on any view, any loss is not theirs but that of the land owners or store owners”


3JD02555 ParkingEye v Pearce (Barrow-in-Furness, 19/12/2013) This case followed on from the previous case and Deputy District Judge Buckley ruled the same way.(No transcript is available)

3JD04791 ParkingEye Ltd v Heggie (Barnsley, 13/12/2013). The judge ruled that the amount charged by ParkingEye was not a genuine pre-estimate of loss as the loss for a four minute overstay was negligible.


3JD03769 ParkingEye v Baddeley (Birmingham 11/02/2014) District Judge Bull. The judge found that the defendant's calculation of ParkingEye’s pre-estimate of loss of around £5 was persuasive. As ParkingEye could not explain how their alternate calculation of £53 was arrived at, he accepted the defendant's calculations. The transcript is not yet available.



The Office of fair Trading agreed with this, pointing out that all costs must be directly attributable to the breach, that day to day running costs could not be included and that the charge cannot be used to create a loss where none exists (Appendix A).


Appendix B contains the minutes of the British Parking Association where parking charge levels were decided, showing that there was no consideration whatsoever given to pre-estimate of loss, and that at least one factor was to set the charges the same as council penalties. The minutes also show there is no financial basis for the 40% discount but that it is needed to ‘prevent frivolous appeals. Any charge set to deter is a penalty. A charge set to the level of a penalty is a penalty.



Conclusion

I deny that I am liable to the Claimant for the sums claimed, or any amount at all. I invite the Court to strike out the claim as being without merit, and with no realistic prospect of success.





Statement of Truth
I believe that the facts stated in this Defence are true.
Dated this 2nd day of June 20....
To the court and
to the Claimant








..........................
JUSTIN TIME
Defendant
of [Address],
at which address he/she will accept service of proceedings.




The 2 appendix items can be found http://www.parking-prankster.com/sample-defence.html although the lettering is different you should know which is which.



M1