NPS Letter of Claim - Cross Street, Long Eaton overstay

[Explorer98]

Apologies if this has already been covered elsewhere but I haven't found a direct answer so here's my question.

 

Both my daughter and my partner have today each received a Letter of Claim from NPS.

Both refer to 'incidents' in 2017

- my daughter's in March

and my partner's in April.

I remember these only vaguely but can't remember what (if any) action we took.

 

I remember my partner's more clearly because in their PCN where they claimed she'd overstayed (Cross Street, Long Eaton) there was something drastically wrong with their 'evidence'.

 

I can't remember exactly but either their stated times contradicted or -and this is more likely from conversation today

- they only provided one photo which was of her car leaving but nothing showing her entering the car park.

 

I have a feeling my daughter just chose to ignore hers, based on 'urban myth' from friends.

 

 more than two years on

- both suddenly receive these letters from NPS with the usual rhetoric.

 

I want to make sure these are both managed appropriately so I'm not sure what to do next and would appreciate any advice.

 

I'm also particularly interested to read elsewhere on this forum that another case from said car park was rejected by POPLA in May 2017 due to insufficient signage and lack of planning permission for the relevant equipment:

 

 

This being the case, the same would have to apply to both our cases since this rejected case occurred just weeks after both of ours.

 

Not sure how much bearing this may have but I'm hopeful and your advice will be both very welcome and much appreciated.

 

 

 

 

[FTMDave]

Can you upload the letters (with personal details redacted) as an attachment (not directly in your post, as non-Caggers could see them ... something I've been guilty of doing in the past!)?

 

This is to make sure that they are proper Letters before Claim.  The fleecers try to pretend they are about to take legal action to scare people when in reality it's just a threatogram. 

 

If these are real Letters before Action/Claim then your partner & daughter will need to reply.  Well done on digging up the POPLA decision, your partner's invoice therefore would be easy to see off by quoting it and adding a torrent of abuse about how you'd look forward to thrashing them in court and getting full costs.  But please do the uploads.

[dx100uk]

second one today for old NPS tickets 

follow here.

 

 

pop up your details for each from the sticky here too please

 

 

 

 

[Explorer98]

Since posting, I've found another mention of a 2017 Cross St. ticket coming back to life yesterday (11th) and wonder how many more?

 

The more I think about this, the more the whole method seems wrong (and again, I'm inviting comments by doing this).

 

I have no legal qualifications - just a fair bit of contract law experience - but things that stood out to me after I'd posted were as follows:

 

1. NPS have no kind of 'evidence of service' for their PCN's therefore how can they confidently claim anyone has received one unless the recipient responds to it (which it seems we are largely advised not to do).

 

2. Surely then the burden of proof falls to them to reproduce their original 'evidence' (i.e. the PCN) and with it, some evidence that the same was actually served/received (which of course they can't do unless they're sent recorded (which they're not).

 

3. It would seem patently unreasonable (and therefore difficult to prosecute) to present a demand for 'payment within 14 days' for an claim/event which allegedly took place over two years ago and for which they (NPS) cannot demonstrate the above-mentioned evidence of service.

 

Or have I just explained the reasons for not responding in the first place?

 

There's a bit of me that's tempted to ask them for a copy of my partner's PCN as I know this was fundamentally flawed as I've already explained. My daughter's is a different matter. There's more of me that wants to just make it go away though rather than grandstanding for the sake of my own ego!

 

See what you all think?

[Mrs O'Frog]

They don't have to prove it was delivered I'm afraid.

 

Hopefully Ericsbrother will be around shortly to give you one of his wonderful letters to send.

[lookinforinfo]

When you enter these privately controlled car parks you allegedly agree that you are entering into a contract with these crooks. But before a contract is formed, they have to comply with certain Laws, regulations and a Code of Conduct with their  respective AOS. They always fall at one or more of those hurdles. It is very difficult as they have brains the size of a dead budgerigar but that doesn't stop them from trying to get undeserved money from unwitting motorists.

 

By not contacting them your family have protected themselves under POFA which means that it is more difficult to take you to Court when they do not know who was driving on the day. It is always advisable thoiugh to retain all their paperwork in the event of them trying it on several years later. If you have kept the PCNs great-you could post them up on here after removing names, reg numbers and any other identifiers.his requests so e can advise whether the claims from NPS are already dead in the water.

{the images of yours on post 4 did not come out-you need to use pdf instead.

[Explorer98]

I do overthink things - it's basic to my nature!

 

The post above also reminds me of something I've long wanted to explore - the 'contract'.

 

I've often wondered how they establish the basis for a 'contract' where free parking is involved since the basic premise of contract law is 'the consideration' i.e. the exchange of money and where free parking is involved, that consideration does not exist.

 

I think it's largely irrelevant now (since the advent of the Beavis case) and now that I've written it, I also have a vague recollection that a barrister friend of mine once explained to me that 'the consideration' isn't necessarily the exchange of money.

 

Oh well...

 

The question however remains,

what is the appropriate response to these letters?

 

Do I just lead with the previously-cited POPLA ruling form May 2017?

 

 

 

docs1.pdf

[Mrs O'Frog]

No, it's going to be scathing and rude, but you aren't going to show your hand fully yet or they will simply change what they say to fit around your point and make up some reason to cover themselves.

 

Search for Ericsbrother's "snotty letter" (use that in the site search) and it'll give you an idea of how you'll be responding. I'm sure you'll be telling them how incompetent they are and inviting them to "bring it on" so you can have a nice day out at their expense.

 

They are bullies and you can't reason with a bully, but if you laugh in their face, like most bullies you'll find they are cowards underneath and will slink away and pick on somebody smaller.

[ericsbrother]

you have to look back a long way to get all the info you need on contract law that covers the contracts offered by the parking co.

 

let us say wha it is if worded properly, it is a unilateral contract, which is an advertisement of something that by your actions you accept. they are enforceable as such.

CARLILL v Carbolic Smake Ball Co is the mainstay on adverts as contracts.

 

Burden of proof

- well that is a 2 way street in this case as they will say that they had lots of signs so you must have read them.

we say that they need to be specific to the circumstance of a motorist entering private land in a car so they have to be legible and transparent at the point of entry from the public highway or it isnt a proper offer.

 

Get the signage right and the fact that you drive in a manner that would get you nicked by not paying due care and attention wont allow you to claim that you didnt see the signs.

 

the reality is though that the signs are often piddlingly small, hidden or unlit and usually without the necessary planning permissions so thre illegallya dn thus fail to create a contract.

 

demand for payment  within 14 days at a a time well after the correct NTK/NTD was issued is OK, problem is that many of the original charge notices are duff so no liability exists.

 

you cant ask for other people's personal data, only they can.

If you were the keeper at the time then it will be you they are chasing but other than that all you can do is get her to name you as the driver and see if they want to obey the law and start all over again against you.

 

Now as the original Northern Parking services were wound up by the govt for being naughty you should look up the original paperwork you still have and see who the creditor was at the time.

 

Also get pictures of the sigange as all of the signs from the Co I have seen fail to mention the new version of the company and that makes the contract offered by the signage void.

 

so for example the second letter of claim that is headed Northern Parking Services

- no such company, it was wound up and this lot either dont know who they are or are too lazy or stupid to explain themselves.

 

There is no tie between the 2 companies with similar names so why are they passing themselves off as a bunch of out of business crooks I wonder?

 

I suspect that they took over the books of the wound up co and failed to explain themselves to the old clients and just carried on. Now that will be something to explore IF they do take you to court.

 

We really need to see the signs(ideally as they were back then so streetview archive images plus new photos please) if possible along with the original paperwork and an idea of when they dropped through your letter box with reference to the 12+2 days allowed under the POFA.

 

If you can get that then it will be fairly easy to compose a stinging response to their LBA.

 

the thing we need to do is identify the land correctly,

so state where exactly it was.

 

If you mean the Tesco/aldi car park 

then there is a sign at the entrance but that isnt an offer of a parking contract with charges for breaching it

so maybe an invitation to teat at best.

 

Cant tell who it is with though so not good for these bandits

[Explorer98]

A few things fall out if this then;

 

As I’ve mentioned, we don’t have either of the original PCN’s. Should we ask for copies?

 

There’s no question over who was driving – we know that in both cases.

 

Northern Parking Ltd ceased trading (presumably when the MD resigned) on January 1^st, 2014. The new company is now Northern Parking Services (North East) Ltd which was incorporated on February 10^th 2014 so that was the company in existence at the time of the alleged incidents.

 

They ARE connected since they have the same MD though he didn’t (officially) join the new operation until August 2015 (presumably for legal reasons).

 

The car park in question is Cross Street retail park - the one behind KFC which serves Farmfoods et al.

 

We already know that at the time of the alleged incidents, NPS had another claim for the same car park rejected by POPLA due to incorrect procedures though other issues were raised at the same time.

 

I'll have a drive by later and have a close look at the current signage and report back.

Edited November 12, 2019 by Explorer98

[newmoses]

The incidences regarding myself, my friend,and a work colleague were all after april 2017, so your cases being march and april 2017, should be invalid as well.

 

If you want to quote me, you can use my name.

The best one was my friends Ilona Rigby,

which was the one that POPLA ruled against NPS saying their contract was dated april 2017,

but as there was no end date on it,

 

POPLA could not say for certain that the contract was ongoing.

It had to have an expiry date to it.

[ericsbrother]

NPS and NPS(NE are totally different comapnies with nothing in common according to CH entries and were both in existence at the same time for a while. Now I smell a rat and that is why we need to see the signage  at the site and preferable picturs from Jan 2016, June 2016 and present day.

 

Now you say they are similar, well the original letter from that time has them as IPC members and now the signs say BPA

 

The smaller sign at the entrance is not an offer of a contrat but an invitation to treat so they cnat say you were in breach of a contract because you dotn have to accpet the offer made on the other signs. If they say this is a contract then there is no mention of paying them anything for breaching non-existent conditions ( not advertised on that principal sign)

 

they are thus stuffed even if the sky is gree and they are actually legit

[Explorer98]

Anthony David McMenamin was MD of NPS and resigned on January 1st, 2014. He then became MD of NPS (NE) Ltd which was incorporated on February 10th, 2014. Not that this has any real bearing on the objectives here - it just shows a clear connection between the companies.

 

Interestingly, NPS were 'Gazetted' on July 30th, 2013 and don't appear to have traded effectively after that and until they were dissolved by compulsory strike-off in January 2016 so although they legally existed at the same time, only NPS (NE) Ltd appears to have been (not surprisingly) actively trading. It's also quite cute the way their logo is remarkably similar to the IPC one!

 

You mentioned 2016 signage. Is 2016 in any way relevant? Our 'incidents' took place in March and April 2017 and the sign from that time (April 2017) definitely shows the BPA logo - as does today's. Again, I don't know what bearing that has?

 

So, we have signage from both occasions. As you mention, the main entrance one makes no mention of anything financial but the blue, rhomboid ones definitely do (file 4) and there are a few of these around the car park.

 

Does that change anything and based on the above, what's the next step?

[newmoses]

A good point that might be worthwhile remembering or looking int

 

I asked for a copy of their planning application to Erewash Borough Council for the signage and ANPR cameras.

 

I also contacted EBC myself asking for NPS's planning application.

 

EBC's reply was that there was and is no planning application submitted to EBC from NPS.

 

 NPS themselves brought this up in their POPLA pack,

saying they didn't need planning permission to erect their ANPR cameras,

unless they installed new ones.

 

Well,

I can testify that their camera at the entrance to the car park,

was situated on the corner wall of Barnados,

was white,

and way back last year,

it was changed to brown.

 

So there should be a planning application submitted to EBC for the new brown camera.

[Explorer98]

Guys, we have three days left in which to respond to this.

 

While I appreciate all the input we've received, at present we seem to be left with more questions than answers so is anyone in a position to advise what to do next please?

[dx100uk]

so you've not been reading around here then as advised earlier??

 

theres a questionaire link in post 2 that needs doing too please

 

…………………. 

 

there are numerous threads here now whereby NPS have sent a letter of claim.

 

a suitable reply is in this thread at post 26.

 

 

[Explorer98]

I've read loads - that's why I'm now so confused!!

 

I've uploaded the letters as per Post 2. I've read the response in the link from the last message - that doesn't fit as NPS (NE) were the Company trading in 2017 so everything related to our cases is under the new company.

 

I know they've had three cases from the same time kicked out by POPLA for non-compliance with the BPA COP but it looks to me as though using newmoses' cases might not work as his were post-April 2017 (up to which NPS can demonstrate compliance - see attached).

 

Consequently, I'm not super-confident right now about what to do!

 

 

POPLA.pdf

[dx100uk]

Matters not

The reply is universal

ah not the one sorry...

 

Just use any of eb's std snotty/insulting letters

[Explorer98]

The learning continues (well I think I'm learning!)...

 

I hadn't noticed that you can view your PCN on NPS' website. Strangely, the one for my other half seems quite different to how I remember it but I'm unreliable!

 

What I DO find interesting is that they're trying to do her for returning within the prohibited period - not overstaying! Apparently she clocked in first at 11:06, out at 11:45 then in again at 12:37 (a whole 8 minutes too early!) and out again at 12:53 - a total of only 55 minutes parking - and clearly nowhere near the allowed 90 minutes.

 

Once again, I'm not sure what - if any - bearing this has on things other than seeming now spectacularly petty and even opportunist!

 

Comments anyone?

PCN J.pdf

[FTMDave]

So Newmoses above has found out that NPS have no planning permission for their cameras.  So that's already an own goal from them.

 

How about sussing out the planning permission for the retail park itself?  It will state how much free parking is allowed which may well contradict this "no return within an hour" nonsense.

 

In any case don't panic.  NPS have sent out hundreds of these letters at once as a fishing exercise hoping some motorists will wet themselves and give in.  NPS have traditionally not done court and it's highly likely they will leave alone drivers who don't reply, or who (even better) give them a torrent of abuse and show they know their case is pants. 

Edited November 19, 2019 by FTMDave

[dx100uk]

certainly never seen a council planning debt ever make or allow a no return order for parking in any planning permission for a shopping centre nor restrict it to 90mins.

usually its 3hrs if they state anything at all.

 

 

[Mrs O'Frog]

Did the car agree not to return?

Can the car return with a different driver or can the driver return with a different car?

Can neither the car nor driver return?

 

It's a pants, unfair and unenforceable term anyway.

[Explorer98]

The thing that this does most for me is that it emphasises the true motivation behind what NPS are doing i.e. it's totally mercenary!

 

Council car park restrictions exist to stop people abusing a 30 minute spot outside a shop and this like - once round the block then back to parking again where you've just been. The total parking in this instance was way under the 'prescribed' 90 minutes so it's quite obviously just a cash-grabbing tactic!

 

EBC planning applications are very accessible and guess what? There aren't any from NPS in any form!!

 

https://www.erewash.gov.uk/index.php/planning/search-planning-decisions/

[ericsbrother]

the contract is with the driver and only the POFA can create a keeper liability

so to answer the theoretical question about whether the car is liable for it driver the answeer is clearly no.

 

If you want to argue that point you just state that the vehicle was driven by more than one person so no breach of the conditons occurred and the assumption that the drivera dn the keeper are one and the same is both false and an unlawful one when it comes to accessing the personal data of the keeper.

[Explorer98]

The plot thickens!! 

 

Thanks very much! Well, it's 'D Day' tomorrow so I'd better assemble some words and boot them off!