Dear Sirs,
Re: Letter of Claim dated 13th November 2024
I refer to your Letter of Claim.
I confirm that my address for service at this time is as follows, and I request that any outdated address be erased from your records to ensure compliance with data protection obligations:
[YOUR ADDRESS]
Please note that the alleged debt is disputed, and any court proceedings will be robustly defended.
I note that the sum claimed has been increased by an excessive and unjustifiable amount, which appears contrary to the principles established by the Government, who described such practices as “extorting money from motorists.” Please refrain from sending boilerplate responses or justifications regarding this issue.
Under the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims, I require specific answers to the following questions:1. Does the additional £25 represent what you describe as a “Debt Recovery” fee? If so, is this figure net of or inclusive of VAT? If inclusive, I trust you will explain why I, as the alleged debtor, am being asked to cover your VAT liability.
2. Regarding the principal sum of the alleged Parking Charge Notice (PCN): Is this being claimed as damages for breach of contract, or will it be pleaded as consideration for a purported parking contract?
I would caution you against simply dismissing these questions with vague or boilerplate responses, as I am fully aware of the implications. By claiming that PCNs are exempt from VAT while simultaneously inflating the debt recovery element, you appear to be evading VAT obligations due to HMRC. Such mendacious conduct raises serious questions about the legality and ethics of your practices.
I strongly advise you to cease and desist. Should this matter proceed to court, you can be assured that these issues will be brought to the court’s attention, alongside a robust defence and potentially a counterclaim for unreasonable conduct.
I await your response.
Yours faithfully,
[YOUR NAME]
Please repost the LoC showing ALL dates. Why are you redacting the very info we need to see? Also, why have you redacted the location when it's included in the title of this thread?
Preferably repost the LoC pages as separate "images" (jpg) rather than as a PDF which we have to download and open separately to read. You can use Imgur.com to host the images and use the "Get Share Links" and then copy the link for "BBCode (Forums)" and paste the link into your post.
Just like this:
(https://i.imgur.com/ihvVgjt.jpeg)
Can you please show us the content of the LoC?
Good afternoon all,@DWMB2 @b789
The letter before county court claim has finally arrived.
Please advise on next steps
Many thanks!
It can go a couple of ways with ParkingEye. Sometimes they farm it out to a debt collector who will send a bunch of scary sounding letters before you eventually receive a Letter of Claim. Other times they do the litigation themselves.
Either way, you're looking out for a Letter of Claim, at which point you should come back here for advice.
They have up to 6 years from the date of parking to make a claim, but it would be unusual for ParkingEye to take that long, they're normally comparatively quick if they do decide to sue. If you move house before the matter has been to court, and before the 6 years have expired, write to them to provide your new address for service.
The operator is put to strict proof of full compliance with the BPA Code of Practice as this operator does not have proprietary interest in the “relevant land” then I require that they produce an unredacted copy of the contract with the landowner. The contract and any 'site agreement' or 'User Manual' setting out details including exemptions - such as any 'genuine customer' or 'genuine resident' exemptions or any site occupier's 'right of veto' charge cancellation rights - is key evidence to define what this operator is authorised to do and any circumstances where the landowner/firms on site in fact have a right to cancellation of a charge.
It cannot be assumed, just because an agent is contracted to merely put some signs up and issue Parking Charge Notices, that the agent is also authorised to make contracts with all or any category of visiting drivers and/or to enforce the charge in court in their own name (legal action regarding land use disputes generally being a matter for a landowner only). Witness statements are not sound evidence of the above, often being pre-signed, generic documents not even identifying the case in hand or even the site rules.
A witness statement might in some cases be accepted by POPLA but in this case I suggest it is unlikely to sufficiently evidence the definition of the services provided by each party to the agreement. Nor would it define vital information such as charging days/times, any exemption clauses, grace periods (which I believe may be longer than the bare minimum times set out in the BPA CoP) and basic information such as the land boundary and bays where enforcement applies/does
not apply.
Not forgetting evidence of the various restrictions which the landowner has authorised can give rise to a charge and, of course, how much the landowner authorises this agent to charge (which cannot be assumed to be the sum on a sign because template private parking terms and sums have been known not to match the actual landowner agreement). Paragraph 7 of the BPA Code of Practice defines the mandatory requirements and I put this operator to strict proof of full
compliance:7.2 If the operator wishes to take legal action on any outstanding parking charges, they must ensure that they have the written authority of the landowner (or their appointed agent) prior to legal action being taken.
7.3 The written authorisation must also set out:(a) the definition of the land on which you may operate, so that the boundaries of the land can be clearly defined
(b) any conditions or restrictions on parking control and enforcement operations, including any restrictions on hours of operation
(c) any conditions or restrictions on the types of vehicles that may, or may not, be subject to parking control and enforcement
(d) who has the responsibility for putting up and maintaining signs
(e) the definition of the services provided by each party to the agreement
section 20.11 of the Code of Practice 2018.Before the joint Code of Practice, the previous BPA Code of Practice was version 9, published in February 2024, you should be using this one, not one from 2018.
2. The operator has not shown that the person they are pursuing is the driver,They're not pursuing a person, they're pursuing a company, and therefore the entity they're pursuing cannot be the driver.
3. The signage is deficient and there are no ground markings to delineate the different car parks which have different terms,Include photos to demonstrate this, and ideally refer to the Code of Practice on what is required.
4. The operator does not have valid contract flowing from the landowner to be able to issue PCN’s in its own name,I would rephrase this as requiring them to prove they have a valid contract, rather than stating that they do not (which we do not know at this stage).
You can do a bit of your own research with PoFA and the BPA/IPC joint CoP.It may also be wise to refer to the old BPA Code of Practice that was in force at the time of the parking incident. That way, you can try to head of any arguments of "We can't be expected to have complied with a Code of Practice that hadn't even been published at the time".