CEL PCN Claimform - White Cross Business Park***Claim Discontinued*** now going for GDPR Breach claim

[burmafriday]

Hi CAG

 

In November 2018 my wife paid for a parking spot so she could park her car in an allocated space outside where she used to work.

The payment was done through her previous employers and agreed in writing.

 

It is on Private Land; however, she has to cross a car park enforced by Civil Enforcement Ltd. (CEL), acting on behalf of Lancashire County Council (White Lund Industrial Park) to get to her space. There is a camera at the entrance to the Industrial Park.

 

The Landlord was informed my wife was using the space in November 2018 and asked by her employer to inform the Council so she could be added to the list of authorised cars.

 

She was incorrectly issued with 3 parking tickets, through late December 2018 and early January 2019.

She appealed them all through POPLA as advised by the Landlord (a mistake), and contacted the car park Council Manager, and got one cancelled, but apparently contacted them too late for the other two to be cancelled as they’d gone to POPLA.

 

Of the 2 remaining appeals POPLA found in her favour on one and against on the other.

When she did a procedural error letter to POPLA, POPLA replied they were right on both ????

AND said if CEL had sent the same defence she would have lost both appeals.

Who funds POPLA now?

Could it primarily be CEL?

 

After an ongoing saga now lasting over 18 months where she was taken to ZZPS and QDR Solicitors by CEL

the file was then returned back to CEL

and then CEL served court papers.

 

This was about a month after the landlord’s solicitors served a cease and desist order against the Council and CEL in December 2019 for continuously issuing tickets to cars parked on their private car spaces – not the Council’s.

 

CEL say tickets are issued on the grounds the cars are driven across private land and continuously cite Beavis.

There are obviously no CEL parking signs on her office car park as it is not owned by the Council, so Beavis obviously does not apply.

 

All this despite my wife writing to CEL (and ZZPS and QDR) on numerous occasions telling them she did not park on land they enforced and the landlord’s solicitors confirming with the County Council solicitors they were, ‘not seeking to police that area’, CEL were therefore not authorised to police that area.

 

They only have a photo of her driving in, not parked,

obviously. Interestingly she did not get tickets for all the days she worked only when she left at lunch time or at a non-standard time.

 

She also sent a letter asking CEL to copy in the landlord’s lawyers whilst we were on holiday in February this year

– they did not, so they issued court papers whilst we were away in February.

 

My wife is fighting this claim and has counter claimed. 

 

The parties were to serve their papers Form N180 (agreement to mediation) on each other and to the court on 18 May.

My wife served her papers to the court and CEL.

However, she has not received any communication from CEL.

 

She has written to the court initially to let them know she had not had the CEL N180 form and then after another week she wrote to the Court again and asked that CEL’s claim be dismissed forthwith. 

 

Please may I request some help from CAG - 

 

a. I believe she is within her rights to request a dismissal of CEL's case because of their failure to follow Civil Procedure Rules

 

b. Is there a particular, correct set of words we can express for this?

 

c. The ticket should never have been issued to her as she had paid for an allocated space on private land not owned by the Council, through her employers at the time.

 

d. Details concerning her legitimate right to use the parking space have been sent to Lancashire County Council who employed CEL to act against my wife.

The Council did confirm they would have cancelled them if they had received details earlier.

 

e. I believe my wife also has a case against her previous employers as they took the money but did not help her subsequently and I believe she should take out a claim against them

 

Please can you advise 

 

thank you

BF

[burmafriday]

Hi 

 

Thank you so much for your replies. Its been some years since I used CAG  - I had forgotten how fast you respond and I am really immensely impressed.  Sorry I had to attend to some personal issues but please note the following

 

1. Honeybee - I will complete the template you suggested and have it up for your ASAP

2. Ericsbrother - Yes thank you - my feeling is the same. If you could let me have a suitable wording that would be wonderful.

 

do we submit an affadavid or witness statement saying

 

The Plaintiffs case should be struck out

The Defendents counter claim be accepted.

 

followed by statement of truth

 

signed and date?

 

In the meant time I was surprised that they did not respond on the correct date. Are we missing something here? The date they were to respond is stipulated very clearly. 

 

3. dx.

 

Yes - exactly

In the industrial zone, there are two car parks. My wife has to enter first, the Car Park owned by Lancashire City Council (LCC) to reach  the Private car park owned by the Landlords of the company for whom she worked. They are two separate car parks and the solictors of the Landlords have issued a cease and desist order against Lancashire County Council.

 

This what the solicitors for the landlords sent to LCC

 

"... As your client has failed or refused to instruct CEL NOT TO ISSUE CHARGES for parking on the Carp Park  (the car park outside my wife's office), despite the fact that such action constitutes a derogation from grant and/or a breich of the covenant of quiet enjoyment under the Lease, we have today (03 December 2019)  sent a formal cease and desist order...... It remains our client's view that the current system is unlawful in that it seeks to restrict  or limit  the ability of our client to excercise its rights to park on the car park, which in turn is causing our Client issues with its own sub-tenant. "

 

As for CEL Managing the LCC's Car Park, let me then rephrase - LCC employed  CEL to police the car park and obviiusly issue parking tickets but they transit into issue parking tickets on cars parked in the private car park. 

 

Thank you 

Warm regards

BF.

[burmafriday]

Name of the Claimant ? Civil Enforcement Ltd

 

Date of issue – 28 February 2020

 

(We were away when this Claim arrived. When we returned we wrote to the court to explain we were away, sent copies of flight itinerary showing that we returned on 28 March and also sent a copy of a letter we wrote to CEL asking them to send copies of all documents to the solicitors of the Landlords whose address had been provided on a number of occasions – they did not do that)

 

Particulars of Claim

 

What is the claim for – 

 

1.Claim for monies relating to a parking charge for parking in a car park managed by the Claimant, in breach of the terms and conditions (T+Cs).

 

2.Drivers are allowed to park in accordance with T+C’s of use.  

 

3.ANPR cameras and/or manual patrols are used to monitor the vehicles entering + exiting the site.

 

Debt + damages claimed the sum of 182.00

Violation date : 28/12/2018

Timed in : 08:01 Timed Out: 13:59

 

PCN Ref: Refxxxxxxxxxxx

Car Registration Number.: HV..

Car Park /White Cross Business Park

 

Total due – 182.00

 (ref:WWW.CE-xxxxxxxxx or Tel xxxxxxxxx)

 

The Claimant claims the sum of 198.99 for monies relating to a parking charge per above including 16.99 interest pursuant to S.69 of the County Court Act 1984

Rate 8.00% pa from dates above to - 27/02/20

Same rate to Judgment or (sooner) payment

Daily rate to Judgment – 0.04 Total Debt and interest due 198.99’

 

This was signed (typed)

“S Wilson, Head of Legal

(Claimants Legal Representative)’

 

 

What is the total value of the claim? £ 274

(which includes a court fee of £25 and a Legal Representatives costs of £ 50 )

 

Have you received prior notice of a claim being issued pursuant to paragraph 3 of the PAPDC ( Pre Action Protocol) ?

 

Yes I received Letter before Action Claim for Debt which was dated 17 December 2019, with a 30 day deadline.

I received it and a further later dated letter from them, both on 24 December 2019

 

I wrote back to them on 24 December 2019 to say I received two letters on 24 Dec 2019 telling them it was unreasonable for me to reply to them in detail within their specified 30 days because: their letter had just arrived,  it was Christmas Eve and my husband had just come out of hospital after he had collapsed with a heart condition.

 

I advised yet again that I had not parked in the car park they policed and referred them back to previous correspondence including the file returned to them by their own solicitors which contained full details of all matters.

I also told them to stop harassing me.

I also asked for a contact name to address correspondence to.

 

I did then receive a letter from them dated 7 January denying they were harassing me

wrote back to them on 20 Jan 2020 informing them that all the information they requested in their Letter before Action was in the file bundle that their solicitors had returned to them.

 

I also advised them that they had been harassing and bullying me for the last twelve months for a payment which they knew they were not entitled to. I also pointed out that they had not given me a contact name.

 

   Have you changed your address since the time at which the debt referred to in the claim was allegedly incurred? NO

 

PCN - Parking Ticket. 

 

 

 

[burmafriday]

Hi HB

Ok I have done it - sorry I forgot I had to delete names etc.

took me la lot onger.  So, i will attach files here 

 

a. Claim 2 ... this is the Original Claim  from CEL

b. Couinter Claim -1 ... my wife's cCounter Claim (i think we may have to re-issue this document in a Court format as I am not sure this has been achieved although the court has acknowledged it

c. Harrassment -1a PDF

d. Harrassment 2 PDF

e. POPLA-1 14 May 2020.

 

I Hope everything is clearer now.

 

Thank you

Warm regards

BF

Counter -Claim-1.pdf Harrassment -2.pdf POPLA-1 - 14May20.pdf

[burmafriday]

Hi dx, HB and Dave 

 

Thank you very much for your messages and attending to my posting so fast.

My wife is max impressed with you all working on a Saturday.

 

Thank you dx - Yes Counter Claim - i will try and convince my wife.

Its just more work and cause more delay I guess.

 

I feel and advised my wife that rather than counter claim she should serve a writ on the Landlords and her previous employers.

its their carelessness and aperthy which I think are the root of the problem

 

Regarding the documents i posted - yes please get rid of them all after you have had a chance to look at them because i dont think they will be of use to anyone else.

 

My plan tomorrow morning is to apply to the Court to have their case dismissed for not following CPR procedures 

 

Have a great Sunday

Best/BF

[burmafriday]

Hi dx

 

You wanted me to update you on MCOL website claim form.

My wife did not use MCOL. 

 

My wife made the counter claim by letter and a copy of this was sent with other documents earlier.

The Counter Claim has been acknowledged by the court. 

 

I have no idea why they have not followed CPR

- thats why I commented in one of my posts that perhaps they know something I don't.

 

These guys are so experienced that some one called them "Serial Claimants" and yet they did not serve papers on time?

We have still not received them.

 

Hi Andy 

Thank you for your comment. 

In that case we have to wait and see what will transpire next. 

I will ask my wife to call the Northampton County Court and find out if CEL had served the papers yet.

 

best/BF

 

 

 

 

 

[burmafriday]

Hi dx

 

OK thank you - I will get that done ASAP

 

best/BF

[burmafriday]

Thanks dx and Ericsbrother.

 

dx

We spoke with the court and they confirmed that they have not yet received the documents from CEL on this case. We asked the court if we needed to register with MCOL and were told  "it was not necessary as its all paper from now on" We were also told that the court would not dismiss their case but probably write to CEL and give them seven more days to serve their papers.

 

Ericsbrother

I did some research and found out that S Wilson is Scott Wilson, who is Head of Legal and Compliance at Creative Car Park Ltd. (CCPL) The directors of CCPL are also directors of CEL.  In Fact the MD of CEL is also MD of 23 other companies and I see that most of the people involved are the same bunch in many of the companies. 

 

From my investigation i see that CCPL gets the contracts from car park owners and manages their car parks whilst CEL chases any debts and mainly through litigation.  There are many cases of CEL taking people to court and they appear to be serial litigants.  So as Head of  Legal and Compliance he would be able to sign the writs for CEL.

 

Quite an interesting excercise doing the research!. we really are up against people who spend the majority of time rightly or ....trying to get money out of people. 

 

I will get back to you as soon as I hear from the court. Thank you all again.

 

Best/BF

 

 

[burmafriday]

Hi All, 

 

 

sorry for being missing the last few months as we considered the comments all round and finally, bit the bullet and persevered with this case. In short, we decided to continue with the counter claim as we felt that it was the best course of action.  

 

During this period, we received no communication from the Claimants at all.

They did not even submit their Directions Questionnaire on time, never mind sending us a copy.

BUT amazingly, the court granted them a 30 day extension (out of the goodness of their hearts) .

 

The final set of pre-hearing documents from both parties were to be submitted for 05 October, (the Monday just gone) but additionally, CEL were to pay the fees/costs on the same date.

 

We received an email yesterday, 06 Oct. - one day after their deadline that they have submitted a "Notice of Discontinuance."

 

We checked through "Part 38 Discontinuance" and know that we can submit an application to have it set aside but must do this within 28 days.  

 

So,

a) should we just apply for a stay on the Discontinuance as clearly, they have wasted the courts time and carry on the case 

 

b) should we accept the discontinuance and then serve a new writ on them (our counter claim)

 

c) we actually have formidable proof that their actions were not only reckless but unnecessary ...

the area of land where we parked was not in their jurisdiction to police.

 

Thank you

Best/BF

 

 

 

[burmafriday]

Hi All,

 

Thank you for your valuable comments and getting back fast.

 

Firstly, I like to apologise for the long gap.

 

You are right Bankfodder, I should have informed CAG that things were delayed.

It started with CEL not submitting their DQ.

 

We informed the court of this only to find that the Court gave them extension.

We have no idea if they applied to the court as we were not informed neither by CEL or the court.  

Then from out of the blue, we learnt the court granted them one-month extension.

 

the last three months was just wasted till finally a hearing date was set for a day in October.

All docs. either side were to be submitted by 01 Oct. which CEL failed to do and then we received this Discontinuance Notice

 

I will get back to CAG with a copy of our defence as soon as I have redacted.

 

In the meantime, after they submitted their Notice of Discontinuance, on Tuesday, in the evening they sent a private email to us saying that as they discontinued the case, they suggested that we should like-wise “discontinue our counterclaim”. They gave us 7 days to agree and said they reserve the right to show their letter to the Judge.

 

Yesterday evening, they sent an email offering to reimburse our costs for counterclaim if we discontinued and again gave us 7 days to agree.

 

Again, I have to redact the documents to post on CAG and I will get that done and forward them.

 

Should I use PM to all in this discussion or simply post on CAG?

 

Thank you

Warm regards

BF

 

[burmafriday]

Hi,

 

dx and Dave - Thank you for your messages.

 

1.)  If you don't need to see the defence and CC then OK. 

 

2.)  As for the CC - i understand your comments. Its an issue for us and we need to discuss it between us. 

 

3.)  In the mean time, let me advise you that we do have a formidable case because we can prove that they acted absolutely recklessly and had no right to issue the PCN.

 

More specifically, we can prove and have proven in our CC that they should not have issued the PCN in the first place.  They were told by the landlords of the private land on which my wife parked to stop issuing PCN's on their Private land (Cease and Desist (CD) order) and yet rather than dropping the case altogether at that point in time (which was way before the case started) they chose to continue to the bitter end. 

 

4.)  We have also declared right from the outset, our fees and costs which are actual fees we charge to our clients.  We told them why they were valid and that we will claim these fees in full. We think that is the reason why they want us to Discontinue with out CC.

 

4.)  Of course, now they have seen our defence and CC - which included a copy of the CD they are dropping their claim and they want us to stop the counter claim. 

 

5.) If we discontinue our CC, then we will not be able to serve them a writ later on our claim.

 
We will discuss this and get back to CAG.

 

Thank you again  

Warm regards

BF

 

[burmafriday]

Hi All, 

 

Firtly, thank you to all for your help and suggestions so far. I really am very grateful.

 

We have had numerous, very in dept  discussions and my wife is very, very keen to progress with the counter claim. 

 

I want to establish why you say we have little chance and that our counter claim does not have much merit? We note your comments that we will only receive about £200  at best.

 

Firstly, we have declared the cost from the beginning and these are very real costs we submitted. My wife, whilst retired, (only retired because she has to look after her ill parents and myself) still commands these rates in her industry. We did not  pull these figures out of the air. Secondly, defending this irresponsible writ has been a serious amount of work. CEL had broken every CPR rule. They did not copy us and submit their appliations always late.

 

In the meantime, having submitted their application to discontine the case, they now contacted us to say that as they have discontinued, our counter claim is now finished and we cannot continue with it. Of course we have ignored this.

 

We have 28 days to apply for a Stay to their appliation for discontinuance and our counterclaim is surely still valid, irrespective of whether they discontinue their claim or not.

 

Have a great weekend.

Best/BF

 

 

 

 

[burmafriday]

Dear Dave, Lookinforinfor, dx and brassnecked.

 

Thank you for your suggestions and advice.

OK I will advise my dear wife accordingly and try and convince her to follow it.

 

I will definitely need your help to claim for their breach of GDPR  as both my wife and I are unfamiliar with GDPR  and its beach. Neither of us know what GDPR these guys have breached and how we can claim. 

 

So I guess the first thing to do will be to try and negotiate for not only our court fees but also for what ever else we can claim from them (as LookingforInfo advised) 

 

But I can forsee that they would stipulate full and final settlement and include some clause so that we can not take any further action against them......

 

But, assuming that does not happen, once that aspect is settled,

we can then claim against GDPR. Is that the "proper" sequence?

 

thank you again

 

All the best/BF

 

Edited October 18, 2020 by burmafriday

[burmafriday]

Dear All, 

 

Thank you so much for all your support.

Neither of us were aware of using GDPR till  you put us right.

We shall follow your advice and get back to you in a few days.

 

Warm regards

BF

[burmafriday]

Hi Andy,

 

Thank you for your message. I was just about to post a message regarding the latest developments so your note is very timely

 

Regarding latest developments the following is the situation

 

Dear All,

 

1. We received a notice from CEL that because they have discontinued their claim, they consider the matter is now closed as we have not submitted our counter claim, However, my wife replied to the email that the Counter Claim was attached to the Defence Documents which was submiteed and copied to them.

 

In any event they knew that there is a Counter Claim because they asked us to drop it within 7 days and then they offered to pay our court fee only. !!

 

2. Firstly, there is an issue here. CEL submitted their notice of discontinuance 2 days after the deadline for their court fees to be paid. And also, as far as we are aware, they have not paid their court fees.

 

3. Surely their case should be struck out by the court for this failure to pay their fees on time - irrespective of their submission of the Notice of Discontinuance two days after the deadline date which they obviously made after the receipt of the Defence Documents.

 

4. As for their comment that we have not submitted our counter claim, this is definitely not the case as we made the Couter Claim and submitted this when we replied to their writ. So, as far as we are concerned, the counter claim is still very valid

 

5. As we are within our 28 days limitation, we have not advised the court whether we are accepting their notice of discontinuance or not. We acknowledged its receipt only. We have submited the Case Plan to the court today.

 

6. Although it was not stated that we have to copy CEL, we are copying them anyway

 

7. As advised earlier to CAG we will follow CAG’s advice but we will action this before the hearing date

 

8. However having had the latest advice from Andy, 

a. should we add the GDPR claim as an additional claim, and

b. should we add the County Council as an additional party to the counter claim as previously advised.  

 

thank you

Warm regards

BF

 

 

 

[burmafriday]

Dear All,

 

So Sorry we have been extremely busy with my work and family emergencies as my outlaws, who are in their mid and late eighties are very ill and they needed medical attention at hospitals. 

 

Andy - Case plan is simply a sheet issued by the court to confirm who will be attending for the both parties and at what time the people will each arrive -  apparently, attendies from either side may no arrive together at the court due to Covid.

 

BN - The Court has not confirmed the discontinuance. A Judge at the Court has to agree to the Discontinuance but that has not yet taken place. We have 28 days to submit a stay to this notice. 

 

FTMDave – I have always followed CAG advice since the first day I spotted the site and joined. CAG has helped me on numerous occasions. My wife did not want to drop the Counter Claim so it was essential I support her and try and talk her out of it gently.

 

The PCN should never have been issued in the first place because my wife’s parking area is on a private piece of land. A company leased that area of land (Call it Area A) from the main owner. The buildings in Area A are sub-let out to various tenants with Parking facilities; of which, the company my wife worked for is one such tenant.

  

To reach Area A, my wife has to drive through the main car park (Area B) of the main owner.

 

It is only Area B which Claimants are authorised to police. Area A is NOT under their jurisdiction so they cannot police there. This is still the case to this day and more specifically, this is something which the Claimant is fully aware. There is an agreement between the lessors of Area A and the main owner of Area B and it is written in this agreement. This, the  owner of Area B would instruct the Claimant,  not to police Area A.

 

After the Claimant issued the PCN to my wife, the solicitors of the Lessors of Area A, issued a cease and desist order to them and notified the solicitors of the owner of Area B wherein they stated clearly that this act was illegal and in breach of the terms of the lease. So, all the Claimant had to do was to cancel the PCN. We have a copy of this letter and so we can substantiate it.

 

BN + FTMDave – So, there you have it. This is the explanation you wanted. They were told to stop the case and drop it.  

 

But instead, the Claimant pursued the PCN relentlessly even after my wife pleaded with them to stop the matter and cancel the PCN and explained the situation with copies of the cease and desist  letter.

  

We are following CAG’s advice and to do that properly, we need to notify the Court  where:

a.       We will apply to the court to have the Notice of Discontinuance set aside.

b.       We will also apply to the court to add an additional case against the Claimants for obtaining data on my wife falsely.

c.       We will also apply to the Court to add an additional Defendant to our counter claim – that being the bosses of the Claimant – the owner of Area B

 

After submission of these applications, along the lines suggested by CAG, we will negotiate a settlement with the Claimants

 

Any further advice from CAG on (b) and (c) above will be very helpful and very welcome.

 

Thank you

BF

 

 

Edited October 23, 2020 by burmafriday
spelling

[burmafriday]

Dear All,

 

BN - Thank you for your comments. 

 

My wife had prepared the relevant notice to the court and rather than spending time redacting I am sending it as PM to the contributors to this thread. It covers everything we have been discussing and is in line with 

your comments and our discussions.

 

For the benefit of readers oif CAG I will redact and post it later as we have pressing family medical matters to attend to. 

 

Warm regards

BF

 

[burmafriday]

Dear All,

 

BN, BF, HB, - Thank you for your comments. 

 

Yes sorry, i wanted to save some time by doing that as I wanted to carry out the posting ASAP

OK, I have redacted the statement and it is attached here in the PDF doc.

 

Its our 2nd draft and I will fine tune it tonight / tomorow.

 

Thank you for putting me right. 

 

Warm regards

BF

 

Counterclaim-1.pdf

Edited October 25, 2020 by burmafriday

[burmafriday]

Hi,

 

Thank you very much indeed Dave for these links. We are checking these through.

 

warm regards

BF