Parking Eye County Court Claim Form, how to defend it

[J. Garces]

hello

I am a new user of the forum

The registered keeper of a vehicle has received a Claim form from the County Court Business Centre
The claim refers to a Parking Eye parking notice. The amount claimed is £175 (£100 penalty plus charges).
The registered keeper would like to defend it and is looking for advice

In summary, the driver parked the car at the parking area for 1hour and 20 minutes. The driver paid in the machine 1£ and kept the receipt. The fees were £0.60 per hour. The machine accepted the payment of £1 (no change), and, therefore, the driver assumed that he could park for one hour and a half, at least. It seems that Parking Eye only accepts full hour payments, and claims that the driver should have paid £1.20. The penalty for the £0.20 underpayment was £100.

The defense could be articulated around the arguments:
- As Parking Eye accepted a payment of £1, the driver was led to believe that payments for periods shorter than a full hour were possible
- The penalty is totally disproportionate to the missing payment, 500 times bigger

Any help would be very useful. Thanks

[charitynjw]

Hi & welcome

Could you please edit your post?
Golden rule....never ID who was driving/parking....even on an internet forum.
"The driver parked....the registered keeper received.......etc.

Parking co's trawl the forums.

[charitynjw]

OK can you get pics of the site sign(s) & post them on here?

Did you receive
A windscreen notice to driver (NtD)?
Postal notice to keeper (NtK)?

Post up what you have, suitably redacted, front & rear.

[J. Garces]

The registered keeper received a postal Parking Charge Notice for an amount of £100
The registered keeper appealed, the appeal was rejected by Parking Eye
The registered keeper has now received a Claim Form by the County Court Business Centre of Northampton
I don't have pictures of the site sign, but I will get them and post them asap

[charitynjw]

Hi

Did you do POPLA?

[ostell]

Could the OP read post #2 and take the action requested.

[J. Garces]

The registered keeper did not appeal to POPLA, he missed the deadline

[charitynjw]

The registered keeper did not appeal to POPLA, he missed the deadline

So not a very POPLA kind of person, eh!

Only joking, POPLA isn't mandatory.

[J. Garces]

The registered keeper submitted his defense case to the County Court Business Centre, based on the arguments explained on this post

The registered keeper has now received a letter from Parking Eye proposing to settle for £125, instead of the £175 claimed

Is this a standard practice by PE?
Should the keeper settle?
Can the keeper make a counter-offer to PE?

Thanks

[ostell]

Unusual for PE, they must have been upset by your defence.

Yes, you can make an offer. Perhaps a drop hands offer. Both sides agree to walk away from the case and not seek costs from each other.

And without prejudice save as to costs.

[charitynjw]

The registered keeper submitted his defense case to the County Court Business Centre, based on the arguments explained on this post

The registered keeper has now received a letter from Parking Eye proposing to settle for £125, instead of the £175 claimed

Is this a standard practice by PE?
Should the keeper settle?
Can the keeper make a counter-offer to PE?

Thanks

As ostell says, very unusual for PE.
Imho, they must be wobbling

If it were me I'd (in the nicest way possible) tell them to insert their offer where the sun don't shine.
Drop hands, walk away without costs at the very least!

In writing, marked 'Without Prejudice'.

But it yours to decide........

[charitynjw]

If you have them, could you post up pics of the NtK & signage per post #3?

& what did you file in your defence?

[J. Garces]

If you have them, could you post up pics of the NtK & signage per post #3?

I attach the signage pics


what did you file in your defence?[/QUOTE]

My defence was as follows:

The parking charges are as follows: £0.70 for up to one hour and £1.20 for two hours
The driver paid at the parking machine £1.00. The receipt states only the time of the payment and the amount paid. The parking receipt does not state the parking time credited, nor the time at which the parking permit expired. The car stayed at the parking lot for 1 hour and 23 minutes

Defence:

Parking Eye accepted the payment of £1. If the parking time is charged by Parking Eye by full hours, ie, £0.70 for up to one hour, and £1.20 for any stay between one and two hours, why does Parking Eye accept a payment of £1 and does not return the change? I was therefore misled by Parking Eye to believe that £1 was an acceptable payment and enough to cover my planned one and a half hours stay, and therefore I was convinced of not having infringed any parking rules by the time I left the parking. Also the parking ticket did not state the expiration of the allowed parking time.

Moreover, the £100 penalty claimed by Parking Eye is hugely disproportionate to the alleged underpayment of £0.20. It represents a penalty of 500 times the underpayment. The penalty claimed must always be commensurate to the loss of the claimant.

[charitynjw]

I dom't think your argument is going to fly, I'm afraid

As the sign states 'up to', I would take that as 'any part thereof'.

But if you're certain about 1hr 20 mins, you are allowed a min of 10 mins 'grace' on entry, & a similar grace period to exit.

[J. Garces]

The car stayed in the parking 1h 23m, just 3 minutes over the grace period

Do you think it is wise to settle at this point ? I have an offer from PE to settle for £125 instead of the cour claim of £175

Thank you