My daughter parked in my private parking bay and viewed the visitor permit in the windscreen rather that the permit with the bay number.

When we returned she had a parking ticket.

I wrote to UK Car Park Management Ltd advising this was an error and that she had my permission to park there me being the resident for that bay and provided photographs of both the visitor and bay number permits.

She still received letters requesting payment which rightly or wrongly i told her to ignore as i believed we have the proof that she had permission to park there.

She has now received a letter from Gladstones Solicitors stating 'Letter Before Claim'

The initial ticket was for £100 which increased to £149 and the latest letter states £160

My daughter has never responded to the letters in respect of this ticket by my advice as i gave her permission to park there.

Should i or her respond to the 'Letter Before Claim' or ignore it?

Any advice would be gratefully received

So, you have the land owners authority to allow whoever you like to park in the bay allocated to you?.

The 'problem' being that instead of your daughter showing a permit with 'your' bay's number on it she showed a visitor's permit (presumably there are visitor's bays, too).

If I've got that right, then in fact:

a) they have suffered no loss ( and they 'gained' the use of the visitor's bay she might have occupied)

b) she parked with permission, giving her 'supremacy' over any rights claimed by UK Car Park Management Ltd.

I'd not get into letter tennis with Glady's, but one letter in reply would be my advice.

"Dear Glady's,

I've already explained to UK CPM Ltd why this sum isn't owed.

The reasons are [as set out above].

Any claim will be robustly defended on this basis."

If they were daft enough to try to take this to court it'd likely be small claims track (where costs are limited), but none the less you want to be seen to have been reasonable and tried to give them the info so court could be avoided (so that, when you win, you can still claim those limited costs allowable!)

Hi Bazza

Thanks for the advice.

Yes, anybody can park in the numbered bays displaying the numbered voucher. That was the error. My daughter displayed the visitor permit by mistake.

You are also correct that there are visitors bays and one would have been used by her.

Thanks

They cant claim that they 'lost' the numbered bay as the numbered permit (that wasn't used, in error) wasn't valid for a different bay.

They can't claim she was parked without permission, as your permission grants 'supremacy' (if the bay is allocated to you).

Whilst it is always worth telling them so politely, as correspondence can feature in any future court case, they can 'jog on!'

I told my daughter not to respond to previous correspondance as it is her mums address and not hers.

That way any future actions (should there be any) the debt collectors could not be sure that my daughter lives there.

The only concern by responding to Glady's is that it will confirm the letters have been received.

I am confident it won't get to that stage but don't want to give any information away.

A potential problem then is that any court correspondence will go there.

Is there any concern court correspondence might be missed? As then they'd get a backdoor CCJ, and it'd be messier to get it undone.

If that isn't a concern for you you can "keep your powder dry" and just defend IF they issue a claim. If you are asked why you didn't respond to the LBA I can see how you could think "but I'd already told UK CPM Ltd why they didn't have a claim ...."

Question : For those who "know the pattern of who does court & who doesn't" :

Do Gladys's do court (on behalf of UK CPM)?

Do they issue claims & then discontinue?

What should the OP expect based on "previous form"?

They ukpcm rarely do court

And when they have

They've lost

Supremacy rules here

Ignore now till claimforn

Thank you

gladstones will certainly try and persuade CPM to do court,

they need to show the parking world they have the biggest cojones and are the masters of the universe.

They do this because they are also the IPC in a summer frock so some observers might think there is a conflict of interest here but you can be assured they, as the worlds greatest legal minds, would never act in a manner that is greedy and self serving.

Now, what I dont understand is why it is problematical for letters to go to the registered address of the keeper of the vehicle unless daughter is using a false/outdated address.

daughter should respond or Gladdys will think they will win by default.

Daughter need to simply tell them that she had permission from the landowner to park there and that this supremacy of contract makes anything they offer invalid and thus any claim made via the courts will be vex and a ful costs recovery order sought.

She should say that she is minded to sue their client for a breach of the DPA for obtaining her keeper details contrary to the terms of their KADOE contract.

The simple reason is that i was unclear of the possible action by UKCPM and wanted them to stay uncertain as to where she lives and if she was receiving the letters.

It seemed plausible that debt collectors would not attend the address for such a small amount.

In a quandary now whether to contact them or not??

dca's ARE NOT BAILIFFS

they have

NO SUCH LEGAL POWERS.

so time to respond unless you are 1000% sure that if a claimform was issued to the address they are writing too

will get alerted to you quickly [

who is the registered keeper of the vehicle and where is it registered to?

That will determine where the letters go unless they have been told the drivers address.

If vehicle keeper and driver the same person (daughter) then she needs to do the running, no-one else can

She should use the one line response suggested,

she had landowners permission to park there

and they have no say in this matter as the land is not covered by any agreement

they may have with an uninterested third party and that she is minded to sue them for breach of the DPA for obtaining her keeper details without a reason contrart to their KADOE contract.

now stop worrrying about toothless letter writers (dca's cant do anything else) and let the solicitors know they arent getting a walkover.

Ok, thanks

Letter time it is.

only the keeper should be writing unless someone else has been identified as the driver at the time

It is your space so you can be a witness to all of this later but you cannot write to them at present.

What you can do is write to them and tell them to desist their harassment of people who are invited on to your property

let them know that you may well sue them as per a motorist who successfully got an injunction against a parking co for trespassing in his space and harassing him for payment.

It was thread on here a couple of years ago and reported on the parnksters site but I cant find references at present.

When you find it you can let them know that they will be about £10k out of pocket if they continue to harass your daughter.

When you have all your info you can also go to the papers over this,

your local and the Daily Mail would be a good start,

the latter has a long running campaign about the parking cowoiys

Good morning all.

A letter was sent to Glady's taking ericsbrothers advice stating supremacy, no loss of parking and breach of Kadoe.

A reply has been received stating.

A. It is not alleged that our client suffered a loss from your parking, only that the driver accepted our clients charge upon parking as it was parked not in accordance with the terms and conditions of licence offered to all motorists on the land, i.e display the correct permit for parking.

B. Permission or the ability to park on the relevant land is shown by way of a valid permit being displayed. In parking without it, the charge was accepted. If you wished to park with permission, the correct permit ought to have been displayed to avoid incurring our client's charge.

They also say the will defend any claim of breach of the terms of Kadoe advising payment needs to be made within 21 days of the date of this letter. Or they 'may' be instructed to commence legal proceedings.

Could you offer any advice?

I am minded to ignore the letter now and let it go to small claims court if proceedings are brought.

My daughter had a valid permit but a visitor one not the specific bay permit.

I advised the parking company that she had permission to use the bay and sent proof that the bay was mine.

It was my daughter who wrote to them with my assistance.

they are still hinting that their client is right but wont go as far as actually asserting the driver accepted terms they are not actually obliged to.

They then try and fudge the whole thing by talking about permissions and they know that no permission is required.

That is why they then give another 21 days for you to be frightened by this

or they will be forced to either sue you and lose their clients a pot full of money

or go quiet and lose face as the hard men of the parking world.

Generally they would rather lose thier clients money

because they still make a few quid at their expense

even if they cant get you to cough up.

the sad thing is that the mugs at UKPCM may fall for that yet again.

Should we reply stating the voucher is valid and the resident who's bay it is had given full permission for it's use by the defendant of which UKPCM were advised immediately so as to prevent this process.

Or should we now ignore it and wait to see if a CCJ is applied?

nope sit on your hands

unless you get a claimform from northants bulk.

dx

And if we do?

you come here ofcourse...

And if we do?

You have a nice day out in County Court at UKCPM's expense. It'll be quite an easy win for you

of course

you wait for them to decide,

you will have no influence from now on until they send out a proper lba.

As for CCJ

you have used a misnomer so make yourself aware of what the procedures are so you understand what may happen next and how many stages there are before a CCJ is issued.

A claim and a CCJ are often a year apart with several steps between them if the claim is acknowledged and defended.

Gladdys hate it when a claim is defended because they do such shoddy work they will invariably get up the judges nose for procedural reasons and that leads to a walkover for the defendant.

You save it all for that moment,

they have been given the opportunity to consider things

and deseve to get a costs order for unreasonableness if they do try their luck.

If they come back with a proper lba then we advise responding in no uncertain terms but this taradiddle isnt worth a stamp.

Should we reply stating the voucher is valid and the resident who's bay it is had given full permission for it's use by the defendant of which UKPCM were advised immediately so as to prevent this process.

 

Or should we now ignore it and wait to see if a CCJ is applied?

Ok, thanks

Another PPC was spanked for a non display of permit in their own space, might be useful:

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/private-parking-solutions-hammered-in.html