Hello all.

I’m hoping for some help regarding a ParkingEye county court summons.

The background is I was falling asleep at the wheel of my car late at night on the motorway while driving home from a meeting at the other end of the country, so pulled into the nearest services for a nap and a coffee. I was aware of the two-hour parking limit and so set my phone alarm, but was so tired that it didn’t wake me and I overstayed my welcome.

There were signs but I didn’t make any attempt to read them because I was aware of the two-hour rule and had no intention of staying longer. I did purchase coffee during my stop and the car park was virtually empty so I’m quite sure I did no harm, especially with it being an alternative to falling asleep in the fast lane.

Thus far, I haven’t done the right thing with this ParkingEye saga and this latest development has had me in tears wondering how the heck I’m going to get rid of it without sacrificing my credit rating or my sanity. I run my own business and the last year has been tough, extremely tough. I’m up to my eyeballs in debt and have been working 18-hour days for months trying to stave off bankruptcy. Thankfully there is now light at the end of the tunnel but the last few weeks it’s really started to catch up with me. My head’s mashed, I’ve become an adrenalin-fuelled zombie and I’ve just packed my child off to her grandmother’s for a few days to try and catch up. It’s like I’ve thrown everything I’ve got at keeping our heads above water this year to avoid defaults and CCJs - and then along comes ParkingEye to slap one on me anyway for oversleeping in a car park.

I don’t want to sound like a whingebag in explaining that, or to sound like I think sympathy will get me anywhere with ParkingEye. What I mean is I haven’t had either of the things one needs to get rid of ParkingEye: time, or money.

So when their initial demand dropped onto my doormat my response was “no chance”. No chance am I paying £60 (upped to £100 for any dawdling) for 45 minutes parking when I can barely afford food or childcare. Yet I can no more afford the alternative: days of researching a fight-back.

But appeal I did. I spent hours researching this forum and others, stated my legal arguments (primarily genuine pre-estimate of loss), but was so hacked off at being made to drop everything and respond to their demands in their timescale that I’m afraid it did deteriorate into a bit of a rant towards the end which in hindsight I regret. I may have suggested they take me to court, without having thought through the fact I don’t have the time or energy for that sort of fight. Needless to say it got rejected.

So I set aside a morning to write my POPLA appeal but after a whole day of researching reams of information on legal arguments I took the decision that I couldn’t waste a third day on it, that I wouldn’t complete the appeal, that I couldn’t get it done properly before the deadline and that surely they wouldn’t take it all the way to court anyway.

Instead I contacted ParkingEye’s client, the motorway service station, in the hope they might help this to go away quicker. I spoke to two duty managers and they were actually quite approachable and listened and promised to pass my details to the site manager. I haven’t had a response but didn’t chase them up, hoping they might have called off their dogs without feeling the need to inform me and so waited to see if I heard from ParkingEye again.

Wishful thinking that was. The letter before county court claim is still sitting in my in tray, and of course now the actual claim form from Northampton County Court has arrived.

Much as it would stick in my throat to do so, if I had the ever-increasing sum of money needed to make this go away I would, shamefully, pay it. I haven’t got spare days to research, prepare, write, attend court and fight yet more stress without driving myself into a big hole. I don’t think I even have the mental capacity to get my head around the legal arguments anymore but as a company director I cannot afford a CCJ against me.

So I’m going to have to find the will and the time to fight this aren’t I? And hopefully I’ve made a start by posting this today. But goodness do I resent this pressure at having to defend myself from for such a miniscule crime that had no bad intentions behind it.

Apologies for such a long post. Any general advice would be appreciated, but specifically I’m hoping for guidance on:

• Now it’s got to court summons stage, does the landowner still have the authority to call it off or is there no turning back now?
  

• Does anyone know if any public safety arguments have been made in court in similar cases when a tired driver overslept after trying to do the sensible thing and pull off at motorway services? Is there any defence in that angle at all?
  

• My main concern is the CCJ. Is the only way to guarantee avoiding one to pay up without going to court? Or to agree with the claim?
  

• Are there any clear lines of defence on this one that I might have missed?
  

Thanks for reading and for a very helpful forum.

First things first, you will only get a CCJ IF you lose, and IF you don't pay what the court says within 14 days of the hearing.

As I said, don't be worrying about CCJ's just yet.

OK, so you screwed up a little bit by not appealing to POPLA, but you aready know that and don't need it rubbing in.

So, on with a court defence.

OK, to get the ball rolling, YOU MUST reply to Northampton and say that you'll be submitting a full defence, DO THIS SOONER rather than later, as it will buy you some more time.

You can also ask that the case is transferred to your local county court, I'm not sure whether you do that on this form or not, but look out for it. If it's there use it! PE will then have to decide if they want to go to the expense of sending a legal team to your court, rather than getting a default judgement.

Once they know that the case will be fully defended, don't be surprised if you never hear from them again, or if they don't bother turning up on the day (in which case you'll win by default)

Far better minds than I will no doubt be along at some point and will give you more advice, but in the mean time, these are a few things that you'll need to be asking for in your defence, or in the evidence pack from PE.

A copy of the entry in the Land Registry which shows ParkingEye as the land owner. And/Or.

A copy of a document that shows that ParkingEye have an interest in the land. And/Or

A legally binding, unredacted contract, signed and dated by the landowner of the service area, which expressly allows ParkingEye to issue a parking charge in their own name. And/Or

A legally binding, unredacted contract, signed and dated by the landowner of the service area, which expressly allows ParkingEye to issue proceedings in a civil court in their own name should a parking charge remain unpaid. And

A copy of the dated calibration certificate which proves that the time/date stamp on the ANPR system is accurate to within 5 seconds. And

A full itemised breakdown of your Genuine Pre-Estimate of loss incurred by ParkingEye specifically due to the vehicle remaining in a space in a FREE carpark.

Also, make sure you keep track of your reasonable costs, and anything that it costs you to get to the court on the day of the hearing, including ironically, any parking charges

If, or rather when you win, you can claim some money from ParkingEye. Whether or not you get them will be up to the judge, but it's always worth a punt.

If you can remember, and if you still have the paperwork.... When did you park at the services, and when was the notice to keeper received and/or dated?

Phew, thank you DragonFly1967.

Have a read of the Parking Prankster, start with this post http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/parkingeye-dodgy-practices-exposed.html so you can see just what a bunch of shysters you're up against. But don't worry, they can be and have been beaten in court.

Thanks DragonFly, that's a great help.

The date of the incident is May 16 and their initial notice is dated May 21.

That list of requests I should be asking of ParkingEye - how and when should I request them? I mean do I write to them now directly or will the court send further paperwork covering such requests?

Thanks for the blog link. That's quite a list. I'd like to see their PR man try and defend those one-by-one.

Ok, so the notice was in time, so no help there unfortunately.

Others will correct me if I'm wrong (which often happens (ask my wife lol)) but I think my list will only be of use as part of your submitted defence where you'd be asking for disclosure of the material facts.

Have a good read of the stickies at the top of the forum, particularly the ones entitled "Successful Defence Against Private Parking Charge" and the two named " REceived Court Papers From A Private parking Speculative invoice?? - How To Deal With It HERE***"

They're both full of extremely useful info.

When did you receive the court papers? It's very important that you don't time out on sending the notice back telling them that you'll be defending the claim, and if it's on the form, asking for the case to be moved to your local court.

It only arrived today. There doesn't appear to be an option to request transfer to my local court. But is that a key element of fighting this? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with my name being on court lists where it might be recognised. At least in Northampton there's no risk of getting noticed by anyone I work with. I'll request it if it's worth the risk though.

Forget my last post, I can't afford to be fussy.

I've read those stickies before thanks and have just re-read them again now. But it doesn't cover the defence section of the form I've got today, unless I'm missing something.

What got me stuck before is that I don't know what my defence is, despite all my research. I know what part of it is, and I know what it isn't (like the signage arguments can't apply to my case can they?) but there's so much other stuff that I'm not getting my head around sufficiently to apply correctly.

I thought my type of case must be really common, it seemed like such a predictable sequence of events that led to it. But I can't find any particularly comparable cases where I'm not disputing the facts, just that it's a disproportionate punishment.

Sorry, I meant the notice to keeper (from ParkingEye) not the notice from the court.

Unfortunately, you're not in a position to spare your blushes, unless you want to roll over and pay (which I'm assuming you don't). By doing nothing PE will gain a default judgement against you. You have to have it transferred to your local court to stand any chance of winning.

OK, the part to select the location of the hearing comes later in the process, my mistake. What you have to do at this point (or at least soon) is send off the Acknowledgement of Service forms, and indicate on there that you intend to defend the case in full. That then buys you some more time to prepare a defence statement. Don't worry about what that's going to say just yet, we'll work on that.

You say that signage arguments can't apply in your case. Are you sure? Was it dark? Raining? Did you see & read the signs? Did you accept the (parking) contract offered? Do PE even have the legal right to offer you that contract?

But the main defence in court is going to be that PE have suffered no "loss" by your actions, so their charge of £60 (or £100) cannot be a genuine pre estimate of that loss. If anyone has lost (which they haven't) it would be the landowner and not PE or anyone else. Thereby the £60 (or £100) charge must be a penalty, which would be illegal

Keep a careful note of the days so that you don't send back the Acknowledgement of Service too late. But conversely, don't send it back too early either, you need as much time as possible to formulate your defence. Just don't let it time out.

Hello there.

I don't think you should be embarrassed about going to court against parking 'cowboys', I would say you're fighting for justice.

Certain people here, like Dragonfly, are desperate to go to court and can't manage to get them to bite.

I'm sure you'll be fine, just follow the advice.

HB

Certain people here, like Dragonfly, are desperate to go to court and can't manage to get them to bite.

That actually made me laugh out loud.

That actually made me laugh out loud.

Lol! Me too!

You ask whether the motorway services people can call it off. No they cant but they can sink PE's claim completely by showing you the contract which PE wish to rely upon to make a claim in their own name and they can also withdraw their permission for PE to sue you but the chances are they wont do that. You can ask for a copy of the contract between the landlord/occupier and PE as what was called "discovery" and now has a CPR number like 31.15. You should demand PE provide this as well and make an application for striking out of their claim as being vexed if they dont.

When you send back the court form the case will automatically be transferred to your nearest court as park of the allocation proceedings. This will also make PE pay the allocation fee so you will cost them money just by saying you are going to defend. Occasionally parking companies withdraw their claim when someone says they are going to defend the claim but PE doesnt usually do this but does offer to do so if you pay their costs of say £50. I would recommend that you dont accept this option as your defence will normally defeat their claim and they pay you rather than them getting a payout.

When you submit your defence look into everything that can help, the Parking prankster has a goos page on what to do but I would also add that you demand to see the Planning Permission granted to PE for their advertising display hoardings. If they claim that they dont need them because they are too small to need PP then they are too small to be read when passing through their camera system. If they say they dont need PP they are wrong and you can claim that it is an unlawful contract and so repudiate the contract offered on those grounds

Having said that, the killer for parking companies is they cannot show your action has caused them a loss. Indeed, they cannot make any money if they only recover their losses and therefore shouldnt be in business as they would be broke. Commonly known as no GPEOL, you can read up and when you submit your defence quote the usual case law of Dunlop. PE will claim that they have a right to claim in PE v Beavis and another, this is not case law and if they claim that it is in their favour you would need to complain to the court beforehand that they are misrepresenting themselves.

Close ericsbrother... Disclosure is 31.5 and Disclosure before proceedings is 31.16

I'm part way through an outline defence statement for you motorwaymadness, it's going to take a couple of days to finish (paid work keeps getting in the way) and then a couple more days to polish with input from others on here. But I don't think you'll have too much trouble turning these cowboys over.

Aw, thanks guys. This is such a terrific help. I'm happy now to try and get them to court if they'll bite ;-)

So I glad I was on the track focusing on the GPEOL, maybe I was over-complicating things and starting to believe this was beyond comprehension.

The signage - yes it was dark, no it wasn't raining. But had ParkingEye employed a bloke in a gorilla suit to jump on my bonnet and yell "Two hours only or we'll come and getcha!", I'd have said "Yeah yeah, I'm only here for a 30 minute nap and a double espresso."

And isn't that precisely what motorway services are for? "Tiredness kills, take a break" we read on along our monotonous journey, with signs dotted the length of the carriageway telling us how far are the next services. There’s a voice of authority enticing us into these places to do the right thing, the safe thing.

Is it not really obvious that on occasion these customers that they rely on – and who do pay way over the odds for their sarnies, might I add – may just suffer a normal human reaction to tiredness and fall into a deep sleep?

There’s no malice in oversleeping. I didn’t wake up that morning and think “Ooh just for fun, I’m going to get one over on a motorway service station today and bag myself a free night’s kip in one of their lovely car parks.”

So no, I didn’t bother even trying to read their signs. I didn’t think I needed to. I just didn’t think to increase the volume on my phone alarm. It was an accident. In fact no, it wasn’t even an accident. As far as accidents in the car go, going into the back of the car in front or running over your neighbour’s cat – they’re accidents. This isn’t even in the same category. I was just being normal and human. I slept in. Give me a break. It didn’t make me late for anything, I left nobody inconvenienced. There was no queue of other drivers waiting for me to wake up and take the space I’d been occupying in the empty car park.

In fact is this scenario why they have a ParkingEye car park in the first place? Sleeping drivers are prime targets aren’t they? Entice them in then get em when they don’t wake up in time. It feels like entrapment.

Sorry, rant over. Is the outline defence statement for this claim form? Section 3 of the defence and counterclaim section gives space to ‘set out your defence’. I’m going to do some more reading over the weekend of the links that have been suggested.

DragonFly, should I PM you my appeal letter? It contains my initial claims about GPEOL and a bit of other stuff, which they completely dismissed in their rejection letter of course and spouted a load of cases where they’d triumphed (though I’ve read that is bog standard ParkingEye manipulation and not to be taken seriously).

MM, feel free to PM me, I'll give it a read through, make some suggestions (if and where I can), and PM it back to you.

Hello again.

MM, you can't PM anyone but site team with the number of posts that you have. If was very confidential, I could forward it, but normally if you post up the proposed letter minus identifying details, it's fine.

HB

D'Oh! Didn't notice MM's post count

D'Oh! Didn't notice MM's post count

HB

Ok, maybe posting it is a bad idea if they trawl these boards? Even redacted they could identify me from posting the letter I sent them couldn't they?

Maybe it's sensible to start from scratch, sticking to facts sound legal arguments instead of inviting them to attribute my aforementioned opinions to my file.

Don't panic too much. I think you have to have 10 posts to be able to PM someone (other than the site team). Now whilst I'm not suggesting "go mad and post trash", just posting normally it won't take you too much longer to reach 10 posts

MM, it sounds like you're beginning to lighten up a bit with the advice given on here. Judges are also human, and I'm sure that they'd understand your reasons for taking a break. Once a PCN is issued, the whole saga becomes a long, drawn out game, with the parking company becoming ever more threatening. I have no more advice to offer at this stage as you are already being well looked after by the guys on here, but be assured that there's many of us here in the background following your case and wishing you well.

dont worry about PE reading these posts, they are already suing you so there is nothing else they can do.

Whilst you are looking into the planning permissio for signs have a look at thePP for the building of the services, they pften have either a promise to the planners to provide for people like yourself or they have it forced uponthem by the consent. Parking companies's self-decided limit often breaches this consent and they have been absolutely slapped down in court before for this.

dont worry about PE reading these posts, they are already suing you so there is nothing else they can do.

Whilst you are looking into the planning permissio for signs have a look at thePP for the building of the services, they pften have either a promise to the planners to provide for people like yourself or they have it forced uponthem by the consent. Parking companies's self-decided limit often breaches this consent and they have been absolutely slapped down in court before for this.

That's a good point well made!

What services was it MM? We can start having a look. Don't be too concerned about naming the service area, I'm sure PE hand these things out like confetti so the name of the service area won't give them any clues.

Not that they've got a bloody clue (about anything) in the first place

Thanks Billy's mate, that's lovely. Indeed I have lightened up since asking for help on here, it does half the burden knowing you're not alone. I was seriously at my wit's end with their arrogance in thinking I have nothing better to do with my time or money than drop everything and donate it to them. If the alternative is to let them win then they've got my full attention as requested ;-)

Eric's brother - are the planning permission requests part of the info I'm going to be demanding from ParkingEye later or is this a separate request for the relevant local authority? Ignore me if that's detailed in a previously suggested link, I'm just starting to get my paperwork together and research read today.