NPM PCN claimform - overstay Un-adopted Rd entrance to old St Edmunds Hosp Northampton - *** Claim Struck Out+Costs***

[dx100uk]

yes you send it.

 

your defence will be the std 2 or 3 line one on most PPC claimform threads on this forum but that's not due till day 33 

read my above post carefully!!

 

 

[parkingbill2018]

CPR31.14 done and will post tomorrow. 

 

Registered with Money Claim and instructions followed to completion. Thanks for your help.

 

Now the defence needs to be worked on. 

 

 

[ericsbrother]

back to the content of their Particulars of Claim.

 

they say the claim is for unauthorised parking

- now this cant be,

it has to be for monies due under a contract for parking or for a breach of contract.

as you know unauthorised parking is a contractual impossibility being prohibitive in nature,

it means you aren't being offered a contract so you cant form or break it that means the amount claimed is an unlawful penalty.

 

now you also know that the £60 unicorn food tax can only ever apply to the DRIVER so if you havent identified yourself as the driver and they wrote to you in the capacity of keeper of the vehicle the POFA forbids them adding this sum (they are too thick to know this, they just copy everyone else and hope)

 

even if you were the driver the amount has to be expressly written into the contract on the signage and if it isnt that is a breach of the unfair contracts terms regs of the CRA 2015 so that voids the entire contract if you dont wish to be bound by it in any way. ( they don't have a contract as already said so a moot point)

 

Now you can either put this in your outline defence and then state that as theire is no reasonable grounds the claim will ever be found in their favour you ask for a dismissal of it under CPR 3.4 and hope the judge gets to read it before it goes to the next stage

[parkingbill2018]

Thanks ericsbrother for your advice. How come so many Private Parking use this wording on their signs and then claim for the impossible (payment for unauthorised parking)? Surely the regulators (BPA & IPC) and their Solicitors should know the law?

 

Unfortunately the driver was named as we were ignorant at the time that the PCN was received, but according to IPC Code of Conduct Part C

 

2. Notice to Driver (Non-ANPR cases)

Schedule 4 to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 prescribes the steps you must follow to pursue the registered keeper of a vehicle for an unpaid parking charge. You should fully ap­praise yourself and those within your organisation with the Act and the processes therein to make sure that you are compliant with the legislation. Below is a short summary of the requirements. However, it is you that has the responsibility for ensuring compliance with the Act.

2.1 The Notice to the Driver must;

(a) Be in writing.

(b) Either be affixed to the vehicle or given to a person who appears to the Operator to have control of that vehicle.

 

It was not affixed to the vehicle or given to me, it was sent in the post!

 

They also want an extra £60 for referring this to a debt collector, plus interest on the full £160 from the date of the alleged offence. In May 2018 I wrote to the MD of NPM instructing him to not bother passing this onto a Debt Recovery company as the debt would be denied and that if his company were going to continue their claim against me they should do so via the Small Claims Court and not waste time and incur additional costs, the latter which I would not accept. So can this fact be used to reduce their claim in the unlikely event of them being successful?

 

I will be also include in my defence no Private/Un-adopted road signs at the entrance of the road, with T & C's (Parking Eye v Beavis) and most signs in the road are perpendicular to drivers line of sight (Parking Eye lost a case in Swindon court because of this) , non compliance of IPC Code of Conduct (Signage at entrance, not clear, alluring tactics, signs not lit up outside of daylight hours, no grace period etc. ) and not following the Pre Action Protocol. What do you think?

 

 

[Gick]

The BPA and IPC are NOT regulators. They are clubs to which Private Parking Companies belong and pay for the running.

They don't have bars to serve drinks, but by pulling the wool over the eyes of the DVLA (and the parliamentary sub committee who formulated the POFA in 2015, they create a benefit to the members by allowing them electronic access to Registered Keeper details.

[parkingbill2018]

Gick I agree with you, except POFA was 2012. According to the DVLA the IPC and BPA are the regulators and it is a waste of time complaining to them about a Private Parking Company not adhering to Code of Practices. They do have the wool pulled over their eyes, but do they care when they receive a nice income from it? The IPC don't have bars to serve drinks, but they do  have nice annual dinners, with their main sponsor being Gladstone Solicitors, but that could never be seen as another example of a conflict of interest could it?

[ericsbrother]

asking theoretical questions about what the trade associations do doesnt help you.

As for the rest, this has alread either answered or you have decided to ignore the advice already given and try and rely on the WRONG part of the POFA.

 

You are not writing a book at this stage, either go with the one line suggested or add their failure to do the POC so it shows a cause for action.

 

Now as the driver was named can we assume that as you are writing all of this that you are the driver as well as the defendant?

You would be surprised how many peopel come here on behalf of someone else and take it upon themselves to act as though they are the defendant and o occasion turn up at court and then promptly lose becasue they have no right to be there. Do not fall into that bearpit.

 

so my suggestion is  again the simple

" there was not contract between the claimant and the defendant so no cause for action"

 

  and then rubbish their POC if you wish but again you can do this when the allocation questionnaire comes along ior in your Witness Statement when you get closer to the hearing date.

 

At the moment it would be wise to say nothing you dont need to so you dont drop yourself in it or go down a dead end argument route

[Gick]

ParkingBill2018

                             thank you for pointing out my typo. I am struggling at the moment as the screen on my laptop has failed and until I have the replacement, I have connected a 10 metre HDMI cable to my television to act as a monitor. Unfortunately it is not showing full screen and my eyesight is not too good at the moment.

 

As for the 'regulator, the DVLA can call them what they want, unless parliament APPOINT them, they are not regulators, but as previously mentioned, boys clubs set up paid for and run by the member PPC's and in the case of the IPC, Will and John of Gladstones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lookinforinfo]

The idiots who run these parking companies are under the illusion that they can add any amount they want when using debt collectors to write a letter. Under the Office of Fair Trading Debt Guidelines they state 2 . 10[e] applying charges which are disproportionate to the main debt is considered an unfair practice.

https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20060716004337/http://www.oft.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/50F06527-9FC5-4610-B385-999D6E2A8950/0/oft664.pdf

Now the OFT are no longer exist but these regulations have been accepted by the FCA and no Court would think that 60 pound is proportionate for sending out two letters when the maximum charge for the ticket is 100 pound. And of course you would criticise them charging interest from day one of the ticket issue rather than when the 60 was actually imposed. 

[parkingbill2018]

22 hours ago, ericsbrother said:

asking theoretical questions about what the trade associations do doesnt help you. As for the rest, this has alread either answered or you have decided to ignore the advice already given and try and rely on the WRONG part of the POFA.

You are not writing a book at this stage, either go with the one line suggested or add their failure to do the POC so it shows a cause for action.

Now as the driver was named can we assume that as you are writing all of this that you are the driver as well as the defendant? You would be surprised how many peopel come here on behalf of someone else and take it upon themselves to act as though they are the defendant and o occasion turn up at court and then promptly lose becasue they have no right to be there. Do not fall into that bearpit.

 

so my suggestio is  again the simple " there was not contract between the claimant and the defendant so no cause for action"

  and then rubbish their POC if you wish but again you can do this when the allocation questionnaire comes along ior in your Witness Statement when you get closer to the hearing date. At the moment it would be wise to say nothing you dont need to so you dont drop yourself in it or go down a dead end argument route

 

I was just commenting on Gick's post regarding trade association definitions and is not going to be part of my defense.

 

No I am  not trying to write a book. Your recommended one liner is of course important if that is the main point of law which will make everything else irrelevant and I will of course use this in the opening to my defense. However it is important to note that the reason I parked here was because honestly and genuinely the Tesco Car Park was full and I was not aware that this road was Private/un-adopted as it looks like a normal highways controlled road (no yellow lines or no parking signs) and no signs at the entrance and other cars were parked here, including one used by the parking company. The parking company are members of the IPC and state the signs and site has been audited and approved by them and they abide by the Code of Practice, which they only do when it suits them!

 

I am confused by your comment questioning if I am the driver as well as the defendant and coming on here and planning to go to court pretending to be someone else! I have no intention of being so stupid and don't you have to present proof of ID when you attend court? So don't worry about me falling into any bear bit!

 

Finally you say wise to say nothing more at this stage, but I am sure there are spies following this thread so I think they will be aware of what we are both suggesting to use in the defense, so they are probably already trying to come up with counter arguments! A disadvantage of open forums      

 

[brassnecked]

Don't worry whether a PPC "Secret Squirrel" is trawling these threads, sometimes when they see how something is going they pull the plug on their action as they know they are on to a loser.  Gick, have you thought of using Linux, say Mint Windows 7 is end of life next year.

[parkingbill2018]

You would think they would have already pulled the plug, especially after having a case dismissed for the same road a couple of months ago, but I think they are either stupid, very determined to get me or both.

 

is always a chance of these cases being lost if you get a bad judge, so I suppose they might think it is worth the odds of this happening for the relatively cheap legal costs.

 

They also probably know the odds better than me having used this court several times in the last 12 months. 

[ericsbrother]

they may well take it to the wire hoping you put in a rubbish defence like " I didnt mean to" but drop the claim when they actually see you have a decent one and quote thie previous case as being persuasive. Now you need to get the details of that if you possibly can, claim number would be a great start and any local reporting on it to see what the defendant said.

Their POC is rubbish so you are halfway there, you know that prohibitive isnt a contract and load os other points regarding timings, planning etc that are often misunderstood but you will ram these home to create a bigger picture about the inability of a contract being formed

[parkingbill2018]

NPM have a new court pop up on their website which they state is to be transparent and these figures are claimed to be live and updated.

 

They certainly have a lot of pending (59) cases, which presumably includes me, but they are not showing the case they lost on Friday 15th February 2019, so can this data be trusted? 

 

https://www.npmpay.co.uk/court-popup/

 

Also NPM had their contract for this road suspended following several complaints from Tesco Head Office to their Landlord.

 

They have not been seen here since early November 2018, but the Landlord  won't confirm if they have cancelled their contract completely.

 

The Tesco Manager told my Father that his busiest day of the year is Easter Sunday and that even if he had a car park with 100 spaces it would not be big enough and in previous years NPM have had a field day issuing PCN's.

 

Well this Easter Sunday was extremely busy and NPM, nor any other parking company were here issuing tickets!

 

If NPM do still have a contract why would  they would miss this golden opportunity to make lots of money?

[brassnecked]

Under GDPR they are on a sticky wicket if they have photos of random pedestrians who are nothing to do with their data capture of vehicles.

[parkingbill2018]

Sorry did not mean to mislead you brassnecked. That was one of my Fathers photos taken on Easter Sunday showing how busy the parking in the road was. It is not an NPM PCN photo. They don;t include random pedestrians in their photos. That was why we removed faces and number plates in the photo. 

[brassnecked]

Great, thanks for the clarification, my comment was more where they use CCTV and people with phones to take pics of parked cars.

[ericsbrother]

they are not the first lot to do this, it is designed to intimidate the waverers and is very likely to be unlawful unless the data is held on a secure server and each individual accessing it has their own password.

 

you can make a complaint to the ICO about this and if you get a response in time use it to bash them.

 

The ICO still prefers to have a quiet word with miscreants rather than chucking the book at them as they hope to get the crooks to change their ways rather than punish the wrongdoer

[parkingbill2018]

Could a complaint also be made to Trading Standards as this is incorrect and misleading information, or is this not within their remit?

[ericsbrother]

If I thought that telling Trading Standards was a worthwhile exercise I would have said write to them and not the ICO but as it is a data protection issue and very much in the world of the ICO  said compain to them and that doesnt mean complain to your vicar or TS as they may well sympathise but cant do anything.

 

We try to offer precise advice so spend your time learning about the issues rather than trying to spread this as thinly as possible but hoping someone will take up the cudgels and help you. 

 Learn and then focus

[parkingbill2018]

OK message understood.

[parkingbill2018]

I have been going through all 192 posts on this thread and picked out what I believe have been the most relevant points to consider for my defense, not necessarily all for the first one. Here is what I have extracted. Some points have been made multiple times reinforcing their importance. Hopefully I didn't miss anything:

 

They have failed to apply the minimum grace period (and I bet their ticket/NTK doesn’t have an observation period either) & how are they proving how long you were /weren't parked for? You didn't get a windscreen ticket so they had to send the NTK within 14 days which they did, but they must also prove how long you were there, they cant so sorry sir it was less than 10mins. PROVE otherwise... they can't...fallen in yet...??

 

This, therefore, applies to "permitted parking", and you weren't permitted to park. However, you can still use it against them to support your position that a contract could not be created as you were not offered provision of parking. You were merely trespassing, which changes everything for them. Only the landowner can pursue you for trespass, and would be for any damages you caused - which you didn't. This gets a frequent mention across the forum, particularly where forbidding signage is used.

 

They will try to charge you for parking whatever the case. In respect of the point about 10 minutes grace - you would first push them to declare the exact breach they are claiming has led to the charge - then you twist them in any which way you can.

 

All this is for possible court later - no point telling it to them now as it'll not make any difference. However, my point is along the lines that you can always raise the lack of observation period (breaching their IPC code)....which they'll likely state it's because parking is not permitted.

 

Of course your response is that no permission equals no offer - the charge is an unlawful penalty. Their only recourse against you is for trespass.

 

A sign saying no parking isn’t an offer of a contract, it is a prohibition and that means there can be no meeting of minds and agreement of terms. The sign is prohibitive in nature so not an offer of terms for parking so the amount they are claiming is an unlawful penalty. Basically you aren’t offered terms for parking so not a genuine offer bur at best a sign that is designed to dissuade you from parking. The only way you can agree to be bound by its conditions is to break them!

 

Now to me it looks as though the white lines were painted by the council at the same time as the other lane markings so this brings into play the rather dubious decision of Dawood v Camden so even if private land it is effectively under council control and they don’t prohibit parking. In other words the land may be private but the road isn’t private land as far as this matter goes. Bit like me ticketing you for parking outside my house. I own the wall my dodgy sign is stuck to but it doesn’t apply to the actual tarmac. Not necessarily convincing on its own but it is another nail in their coffin. So who did the paint job on the junction onto Wellingborough Rd? If the council, then they have adopted it using the criteria of Dawood. It shows that the council has rights over the land and that in return means the parking co's authority is trumped as you would naturally consider that the road surface is council property or at least maintained by them so signage doesn’t apply.

 

On the plan in your last post, the boundary of the road appears to be separate from the old hospital site, so the owner of the development site may or not be the owner of the road; you need to establish who actually owns it. As in earlier posts, the sign is a prohibition, and only the landowner themselves can take action for trespass (not a private parking company). It is a completely different situation to a private parking company controlling a car park etc, where they claim for breach of contract for failing to comply with their conditions. So, ask council or valuations Agency who the landowner is. Tesco will only be tenant or but the plot after the work has finished and the actual land ownership may well change 3 times during the planning and building process ( a nice earner for some) so dates of change of ownership is important. Also look up the actual landlord at Companies House. Occasionally the landowner is so in hock the lenders don’t allow them to enter into contracts without their say so. That has won one court case (lack of authority to enter into a contract) and would be another reason for a judge to prefer your evidence over theirs should it come to it (they are never called out and out liars because then the judge would have to consider having them sent down for perjury and that is a messy business when it comes to companies)

 

Unless there has been a Stopping order by the council, Market Street is an adopted road already; it was a through road from Wellingborough Rd to Kettering Rd. The construction site access road is a separate spur and will likely belong to the developer.

 

You can use that (case NPM lost for same location) as being a persuasive case. That may well put them off suing you if they send a proper lba and you taunt them with it. Knowledge is power and they won’t expect you to know they have been gladstoned (hammered) for bringing a poorly prepared hopeless claim to court and losing badly, named after Gladstone’s solicitors who do most of this)

 

Your defense can be quite simple at this stage so something like there was no lawful contract offered for you to consider so there can be no breach to give a cause for action. This allows you to attack the lack of PP and the content of the signage as well as their failure to follow procedure). If you go for this simple approach you can also rip into their POC and any procedural errors with the claim itself but I would never rely on that as a stand alone defense. Later on you can refer to the other case as being persuasive as well as going into detail on the no contract defense

 

They say the claim is for unauthorised parking- now this cant be; it has to be for monies due under a contract fro parking or for a breach of contract. As you know unauthorised parking is a contractual impossibility being prohibitive in nature, it means you aren’t being offered a contract so you can’t form or break it that means the amount claimed is an unlawful penalty. Now you also know that the £60 unicorn food tax can only ever apply to the DRIVER so if you haven’t identified yourself as the driver and they wrote to you in the capacity of keeper of the vehicle the POFA forbids them adding this sum (they are too thick to know this, they just copy everyone else and hope) and even if you were the driver the amount has to be expressly written into the contract on the signage and if it isn’t that is a breach of the unfair contracts terms regs of the CRA 2015 so that voids the entire contract if you don’t wish to be bound by it in any way. (They don’t have a contract as already said so a moot point). Now you can either put this in your outline defense and then state that as there is no reasonable grounds the claim will ever be found in their favour you ask for a dismissal of it under CPR 3.4 and hope the judge gets to read it before it goes to the next stage

 

So my suggestion is again the simple “there was not contract between the claimant and the defendant so no cause for action" and then rubbish their POC if you wish but again you can do this when the allocation questionnaire comes along in your Witness Statement when you get closer to the hearing date. At the moment it would be wise to say nothing you don’t need to so you don’t drop yourself in it or go down a dead end argument route

Edited April 26, 2019 by parkingbill2018

[dx100uk]

oh well that was a waste of time ..

maybe for your witness statement useful

but not your defence

file the 2 or 3 lines defence on most PCN claimform threads here already.

but its not due until 4pm 13th may..

 

[brassnecked]

DX is correct for sure.  Less is more at this stage, too much and your options are limited when it comes to the actual WS.

[parkingbill2018]

All is advice given mostly by the site team throughout this thread,

so having this consolidated in one place instead of trolling through 195 posts to me is not a waste of time and I am sure the contributors, some which were from yourself, might be offended that their advice is being called a waste of time, unless it is not good advice.

 

I did say this is not all for the initial defence and the witness statement that follow I consider to be part of the later defence.

Not all PCN's are the same.

 

Most are for car parks and not unadopted/private roads and this is why I started this thread.