What is the "from" email address they have used?
Respond to it with the following:
Subject: [Moorside reference] – Non-compliance with PAPDC and confirmation of my response
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am the person named in your Letter Before Claim, reference [insert ref]. I have no “account” with Moorside Legal or your client; I am simply the individual you have chosen to pursue.
I have already provided a full written response to your Letter Before Claim by email to help@moorsidelegal.co.uk. That email was sent by me personally and is my formal response under the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims (PAPDC). You are on notice of its contents and you are required to treat it as such.
Instead of complying with the PAPDC, you have:
1. Sent a stock “this mailbox is not monitored, use the portal” message, despite publishing that address in your own Privacy Notice as the DPO/contact route.
2. Sent a further email demanding “authorisation from the account holder” when the correspondence already came from the person named in your Letter Before Claim.
Both of these are plainly obstructive. They do nothing to progress compliance with the PAPDC and appear designed to frustrate proper written engagement and to pressure me towards your payment portal.
For the avoidance of doubt:
1. Your Letter Before Claim is defective and non-compliant with the PAPDC. My earlier response sets out in detail the documents and information you are required to supply (including but not limited to copies of the PCN, photographs, signage, landowner contract/authority, and the Information Sheet and Reply Form).
2. Until you have complied with those requirements and allowed a reasonable period for me to consider and respond, the matter is not ready for proceedings and the claim should not be issued.
3. My previous email response stands as my formal reply to your Letter Before Claim. I will not be using your portal and I am under no obligation to telephone you.
If you now choose to issue a claim without first remedying your non-compliance with the PAPDC, I will place your conduct squarely before the court. I will invite the court to note:
– Your failure to supply the documents and information required by the PAPDC.
– Your deliberate use of a supposed “not monitored” email and “account holder authorisation” as procedural obstacles.
– Your attempts to force portal-only communication in place of a clear written route.
I will ask the court to take these matters into account in case management and in costs against both your client and your firm.
Your communication practices, including the use of help@moorsidelegal.co.uk as a dead-end despite what your Privacy Notice says, are already the subject of complaints to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Competition and Markets Authority. Your latest emails will simply be added to that evidence.
You have my substantive response. The ball is now in your court to either (a) comply fully with the PAPDC and provide the documents requested, or (b) issue proceedings, in which case your pre-action conduct will be a live issue before the court.
Yours faithfully,
[Full name]
[Postal address]
[Email address]
Should I submit my response through their online portal instead, or is it safe to disregard the automated message?
You simply respond to that email (reply) and add the following paragraph before the response to their LoC:
On [date] I sent an Article 15 subject access request to help@moorsidelegal.co.uk using the exact subject line specified in Moorside Legal’s own privacy notice, ‘Data Subject Rights – [My Name]’. Within minutes I received a stock email stating ‘this mailbox is not monitored’ and directing me to their portal. This shows that the only published DPO/contact email is configured to auto-reply that it is ‘not monitored’, and that consumers attempting to use the route specified in the privacy notice are immediately told it is not available.
In addition to that, send the following email:
Subject: Formal Notice – Breach of Transparency Obligations and Imminent Escalation to ICO, SRA and CMA
To: help@moorsidelegal.co.uk; dpo@apn.co.uk
Cc: enquiries@apn.co.uk; [your own email address]
Dear Data Protection Officer,
This notice is issued to you in your statutory capacity under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, in relation to Moorside Legal Services Limited and the wider APN Group.
Moorside Legal’s own Privacy Notice states that any data subject wishing to exercise their rights or contact the DPO should email help@moorsidelegal.co.uk (subject heading: “Data Subject Rights – Your Name”) or write to the postal DPO address. Help@moorsidelegal.co.uk is the only email address Moorside Legal publishes for contact and it is expressly described as the DPO contact route.
Relying on that representation, a substantive response to a Moorside Legal Letter of Claim was sent to help@moorsidelegal.co.uk. That email contained personal data and clearly engaged data subject rights and pre-action obligations.
In reply, instead of engaging with the substance of the correspondence, Moorside Legal sent a boilerplate “fob-off” email stating that the mailbox is “not monitored” and attempting to force use of an online portal. This was not an automated server bounce: it was a standard template that an individual chose to send after accessing the original message. In other words, a member of your staff is monitoring incoming messages to the very address advertised as the DPO contact, reading those messages, and then sending a stock response asserting that the mailbox is “not monitored” and that the only acceptable communication route is your portal.
That is not a technical quirk; it is a deliberate policy choice designed to frustrate both data subject rights and responses to Letters of Claim.
From a technical standpoint, the position is clear. I have checked the configuration of your domain moorsidelegal.co.uk and obtained the following information:
Summary of findings
- Email addresses tested: help@moorsidelegal.co.uk; litigation@moorsidelegal.co.uk
- Status: both accepted; domain reported as catch-all
- SMTP provider: Barracuda Networks
- MX record: d238565.a.ess.uk.barracudanetworks.com
- Domain age: more than 800 days (a stable corporate domain, not newly registered)
A catch-all configuration on a Barracuda-hosted system means your server is set to accept mail for any address at moorsidelegal.co.uk and return a standard “250 OK” SMTP response, even if the individual mailbox name is not specifically configured, in order to mask mailbox validity. The tests show that both help@ and litigation@ are accepted in this way.
That behaviour may frustrate external probing of which individual mailboxes exist, but it does not alter the core legal and technical fact that once your server has accepted an email at SMTP level with a 2xx OK success code and no bounce is generated, delivery (service) into your system is complete.
What you choose to do internally with that message – including routing it to staff who then send a boilerplate “this mailbox is not monitored, use the portal” reply – does not change the reality that:
– You are in possession of the personal data.
– You are the controller responsible for handling it lawfully, fairly and transparently.
– You must not hold out help@moorsidelegal.co.uk as the DPO and data subject contact address in your Privacy Notice while instructing staff to fob people off with a knowingly misleading “not monitored” line and forcing them into a payment portal.
When you put that together:
1. Your Privacy Notice explicitly designates help@moorsidelegal.co.uk as the DPO contact for exercising rights and as your contact email generally.
2. Emails sent to that address are in fact accepted by your server, read by staff, and then met with a mendacious template claiming the mailbox is “not monitored” and that all communication must be via your portal.
Both positions cannot simultaneously be true in a way that complies with your legal obligations. Either:
– The mailbox is monitored and the “not monitored” claim is knowingly false, used to deter and obstruct data subjects and defendants from asserting their rights by email; or
– It is not monitored for DPO purposes, in which case your Privacy Notice is materially inaccurate and misleading because it advertises a non-functional route for exercising rights and contacting you.
In both scenarios, your current practice appears incompatible with:
– Article 5(1)(a) UK GDPR (lawfulness, fairness and transparency).
– Article 12 UK GDPR (duty to facilitate the exercise of data subject rights and avoid undue obstacles).
– Articles 13, 14 and 37(7) UK GDPR (duty to provide accurate, functional contact details for the controller and, where appointed, the DPO, and to enable data subjects to contact the DPO easily and directly).
It is particularly serious that you are using this “mailbox not monitored, use the portal” template specifically in response to reasoned pre-action correspondence, where the Civil Procedure Rules and the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims require meaningful engagement. Attempting to channel defendants into a payment portal while pretending that your published DPO/contact address is effectively dead is plainly calculated to frustrate both procedural fairness and statutory data protection rights.
Moorside Legal’s Privacy Notice states that Moorside Legal Services Limited “is part of the APN Group”. APN Group’s own privacy policy designates dpo@apn.co.uk as the group DPO contact. The APN Group DPO is therefore now expressly on notice that a group entity is operating a sham DPO/contact email route and using a stock “mailbox not monitored, use the portal” script in circumstances where the underlying mailbox is clearly active and handled by staff.
For the avoidance of doubt:
– Emails to help@moorsidelegal.co.uk are being accepted by your Barracuda-hosted server and are not bouncing.
– At least one such email has been opened and acted upon by staff, who chose to send the “mailbox not monitored, use the portal” template rather than deal with the content as a DPO/contact request and as pre-action correspondence.
– In those circumstances, any denial of receipt or attempt to treat emails to help@moorsidelegal.co.uk as “not valid” communications will be treated as bad-faith conduct.
You are therefore put on formal notice that:
– The burden of delivery is satisfied once your server has accepted an email at SMTP level with a 2xx “OK” status and no bounce. You cannot evade receipt by labelling the mailbox “
not monitored” after staff have already accessed the message and responded with a template.
– Continuing to publish
help@moorsidelegal.co.uk as the DPO/contact address while staff send “
not monitored, use the portal” replies is inherently misleading and obstructive of data subject rights and defendants’ rights.
In addition to the data protection issues, these practices will be drawn to the attention of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC), specifically the unfair commercial practices regime in Part 4, Chapter 1 and the banned practices set out in Schedule 20. In outline:
– You are engaging in misleading actions and omissions in relation to published contact channels and access to redress.
– You are failing to meet the requirements of professional diligence within the meaning of section 229 DMCC by maintaining a non-functional or deliberately frustrated DPO/contact route and channelling consumers exclusively into a payment-focused portal when they dispute liability.
If the CMA finds against you, consequences can include:
– Compliance directions and enforcement orders requiring changes to your practices.
– Monetary penalties of up to the higher of £300,000 or 10% of global turnover.
– Further regulatory action if systemic bad-faith conduct is identified.
I am simultaneously lodging formal complaints to:
– The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), for failure to meet the transparency and facilitation requirements of UK GDPR in relation to data subject communications and objections to processing; and
– The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), in relation to Moorside Legal Services Limited, for operating sham contact routes and frustrating written engagement in the context of pre-action debt claims, in a way that undermines access to redress and public confidence in the profession.
I therefore require the following, in writing, within one calendar month:
1. A clear statement whether help@moorsidelegal.co.uk is monitored for DPO and data subject communications. If it is monitored, you must confirm that the “mailbox not monitored, use the portal” template will be withdrawn immediately and that all future emails sent in reliance on your Privacy Notice will be treated as valid data subject and pre-action communications. If it is not monitored, you must confirm that your Privacy Notice will be corrected immediately and that a functional DPO email address will be published and properly monitored.
2. Confirmation that the specific email sent in response to your Letter of Claim (to help@moorsidelegal.co.uk) has been retrieved, placed on the relevant file, and is being treated both as a valid data subject communication (including an objection to processing and request for restriction) and as formal pre-action correspondence under the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims.
3. Details of the concrete steps you will take, and deadlines for implementation, to ensure that all published DPO and contact addresses (including those in Moorside and APN privacy notices) are truthful, functional, properly monitored, and not undermined by staff being instructed to send “not monitored, use the portal” responses.
You are fully responsible for the configuration and operation of your email systems and for ensuring that your published privacy information is accurate and not misleading. This letter puts both Moorside Legal and APN Group on explicit notice that the current arrangements are being treated as deliberate obstruction and misrepresentation and that the regulators are being asked to investigate and, where appropriate, sanction that conduct.
Yours faithfully,
[Your Name]
[Your address]
[Relevant references: PCN/Moorside ref]
Here are the three complaint templates you can use in parallel (ICO, SRA, CMA).
ICO complaint template (email/text to paste into ICO form). You’ll usually use the ICO’s online form, but this is the narrative you can paste in:
Subject: Complaint against Moorside Legal Services Ltd – Non-functional DPO email and obstruction of data subject rights
I wish to complain about the handling of personal data and data subject communications by:
Moorside Legal Services Limited
Part of the APN Group
Email as published in their privacy notice: help@moorsidelegal.co.uk
Moorside Legal’s Privacy Notice states that any data subject wishing to exercise their rights or contact the DPO should email help@moorsidelegal.co.uk (with the subject “Data Subject Rights – Your Name”) or write to a given postal address. help@moorsidelegal.co.uk is the only published email address.
Relying on that notice, I have sent a detailed response to a Letter of Claim to help@moorsidelegal.co.uk. Those emails contain personal data and clearly engage data subject rights (objection to processing, restriction, rectification) and pre-action obligations.
The firm replied not with a substantive answer, but with a boilerplate “fob-off” email stating that the mailbox is “not monitored” and that all contact must instead go through their online portal, which is presented as a payment/“customer” portal. This reply was not an automated bounce. It was a standard template that a staff member chose to send after accessing the original email.
I have also tested the technical configuration of their domain, moorsidelegal.co.uk. Both help@moorsidelegal.co.uk and litigation@moorsidelegal.co.uk are accepted by their Barracuda-hosted catch-all mail server (MX: d238565.a.ess.uk.barracudanetworks.com). The server returns a normal "250 OK" SMTP response and no bounce is generated. That means the emails are being delivered into Moorside Legal’s system, and at least a subset of them is being read by staff.
In practice, this means:
• Moorside publish help@moorsidelegal.co.uk as the DPO/contact email in their privacy notice.
• Emails sent to that address are accepted and read.
• Staff then send a template claiming the mailbox is “not monitored” and instructing individuals to use a payment portal instead.
Either the mailbox is monitored, in which case the “not monitored” wording is knowingly false and deters people from using their rights by email, or it is not properly monitored, in which case the privacy notice is materially inaccurate and misleading.
In my view this breaches:
• Article 5(1)(a) UK GDPR – lack of fairness and transparency.
• Article 12 UK GDPR – failure to facilitate the exercise of data subject rights and placing undue obstacles in the way.
• Articles 13, 14 and 37(7) UK GDPR – inaccurate and non-functional DPO/contact details, and failure to ensure the DPO can be contacted easily and directly.
It is particularly concerning that this behaviour occurs in the context of debt collection and pre-action letters before claim, where individuals are already under pressure and need a clear route to assert their rights and correct their data.
What I am asking the ICO to do:
• Investigate whether Moorside Legal and APN Group are complying with Articles 5, 12, 13, 14 and 37–39 UK GDPR in relation to the
help@moorsidelegal.co.uk address and their handling of data subject communications.
• Require them to either:
– make help@moorsidelegal.co.uk a genuinely monitored DPO/contact address and stop sending “not monitored, use the portal” replies; or
– amend their privacy notice and publish a functional DPO email address that is properly monitored.
• Require them to treat emails already sent to
help@moorsidelegal.co.uk as valid data subject communications and pre-action correspondence and to confirm this to affected individuals.
I attach:
• A copy of their privacy notice extract showing help@moorsidelegal.co.uk as the DPO/contact email.
• A copy of my original email to that address.
• The boilerplate “mailbox not monitored, use the portal” response.
SRA complaint template (Moorside’s conduct as a firm). Email to report@sra.org.uk and CC yourself:
Subject: Complaint about Moorside Legal Services Ltd – Obstructive contact practices and misuse of “not monitored” email in debt claims
I wish to complain about the conduct of:
Moorside Legal Services Limited
SRA number: 8006077
Moorside Legal act as solicitors in bulk debt recovery/parking charge litigation. Their Privacy Notice states that data subjects and clients should contact their Data Protection Officer via help@moorsidelegal.co.uk. This is also the only email address they publish for contact.
When a consumer/defendant replies by email to a Letter Before Claim (e.g. to set out a defence, raise issues under the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims, or exercise data rights), Moorside Legal do not engage with the contents. Instead, after a delay, they send a boilerplate response stating that the mailbox is “not monitored” and instructing the individual to use their online portal or telephone number. This is not an automatic server reply; it is a template a member of staff sends after reading the email.
Technical checks show that their Barracuda mail server accepts emails to help@moorsidelegal.co.uk and litigation@moorsidelegal.co.uk with a normal "250 OK" response and no bounce. At least some emails are clearly being read, because staff then send the “not monitored, use the portal” template in response.
The effect is that:
• A published email route for serious pre-action correspondence is, in practice, converted into a dead-end.
• Defendants who try to comply with the Pre-Action Protocol in writing are fobbed off and pushed into a payment portal instead.
• The public-facing privacy notice and “contact us” information are inconsistent with the reality of how the firm actually handles incoming emails.
In my view, this undermines:
• The proper administration of justice and compliance with the Civil Procedure Rules and Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims.
• Public trust and confidence in the solicitors’ profession, because a regulated firm is using a sham contact route and a standard script to frustrate written engagement.
• Basic standards of honesty and integrity – either the email address is monitored and the “not monitored” claim is untrue, or the privacy notice is materially misleading.
I ask the SRA to consider whether Moorside Legal’s conduct is compatible with the SRA Principles and Codes of Conduct, in particular the duties:
• To act in a way that upholds public trust and confidence in the solicitors’ profession.
• To act with honesty and integrity.
• To behave in a way that maintains the trust the public places in solicitors when handling disputes and pre-action correspondence.
I attach:
• Moorside’s privacy notice extract showing help@moorsidelegal.co.uk as the DPO/contact email.
• A copy of a reasoned email response to a Letter Before Claim sent to that address.
• Moorside’s “this mailbox is not monitored, use the portal” reply.
CMA/Trading Standards complaint template (DMCC 2024) which you email to general.enquiries@cma.gov.uk and CC yourself:
Subject: Complaint about Moorside Legal Services Ltd – Unfair commercial practice under DMCC 2024 (obstructed contact channels and sham DPO email)
I wish to report a business-to-consumer practice which I believe breaches the unfair commercial practices provisions in Chapter 1 of Part 4 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC).
Trader: Moorside Legal Services Limited (part of APN Group)
Sector: Legal services / debt recovery / private parking claims
Moorside Legal pursue private individuals for alleged parking charges and send Letters Before Claim. Their Privacy Notice tells consumers and data subjects to contact their Data Protection Officer at help@moorsidelegal.co.uk – this is also their only published email address.
When a consumer replies to a Letter Before Claim by email to that address (for example, to dispute the debt, challenge the claim or correct their data), Moorside Legal do not deal with the contents. Instead they send a standard “this mailbox is not monitored – please use our portal” response and attempt to divert the consumer into a payment-oriented online portal.
This response is not an automated server bounce. It is a boilerplate email sent by staff after reading the original message. Technical checks on their Barracuda-hosted mail server show that emails to help@moorsidelegal.co.uk and litigation@moorsidelegal.co.uk are accepted with a "250 OK" SMTP status and no bounce, so messages are reaching their system and being processed.
In practice, this means:
• Moorside Legal advertise an email address as the route to contact them and their DPO, but then treat written correspondence sent to that address as if it were invalid.
• They use a template to claim the mailbox is “not monitored” and funnel consumers into a portal that is clearly designed around payment rather than dispute resolution.
• Consumers trying to exercise statutory rights or respond properly to a Letter Before Claim are obstructed and channelled towards paying instead of being allowed to use a clear written route.
I believe this behaviour falls within the unfair commercial practices regime because:
• It is at least a contravention of the requirements of professional diligence under section 229 DMCC – falling short of the standard of skill and care reasonably expected of a trader dealing with consumers in a debt-claim context, and not commensurate with honest market practice or the general principle of good faith.
• It may also amount to misleading actions or omissions, because the published contact details suggest consumers can use email to exercise their rights and engage with the trader, whereas in reality those emails are dismissed and they are pushed into a portal.
• It is likely to cause the average consumer to make a transactional decision they would not otherwise have made – in particular, to use the portal in the belief that it is the only valid channel, to prioritise payment over dispute, or to abandon attempts to challenge the claim because the advertised contact route proves to be a sham.
I ask that this practice be investigated as a potential unfair commercial practice under the DMCC 2024, with a view to:
• Requiring Moorside Legal to provide functional, monitored contact details that match their privacy notices and letters.
• Preventing them from using a “mailbox not monitored, use the portal” script in response to legitimate dispute correspondence.
• Considering enforcement measures and penalties if systemic unfair practices are established.
I attach:
• Screenshots/extracts from Moorside Legal’s privacy notice (help@moorsidelegal.co.uk as DPO/contact email).
• Copy of a Letter Before Claim.
• Copy of an email response sent to help@moorsidelegal.co.uk.
• Moorside’s “mailbox not monitored, use the portal” reply.
Use this image as the evidence of their Data Protection email address from their Privacy Notice:
(https://i.ibb.co/R47zCqC4/Screenshot-2025-12-08-at-10-38-34.png)
If that is the entire content of the LoC you received, you must sent the following email to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) at report@sra.org.uk and CC yourself:
Subject: Formal complaint – Moorside Legal’s non-compliant and misleading Letters Before Claim
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am submitting a formal complaint regarding Moorside Legal and the Letters Before Claim they are issuing. I have attached a copy of the Letter Before Claim I received for your consideration.
The letter provides almost no information about the matter it relates to. It does not identify the creditor, does not specify what the alleged claim concerns, and does not set out any dates, events, references, or details that would allow me to understand why Moorside Legal believes I owe anything. The letter merely states that I should access an online portal to find out more, rather than supplying the information that the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims requires to be provided within the Letter Before Claim itself.
The letter does not enclose the mandatory Information Sheet, Reply Form, or financial statement form required by the Protocol. Instead, it directs me to Moorside Legal’s own website to obtain a reply form. This is not compliant with the Protocol and I am not obliged to use their "portal" and decline to do so.
The letter does not enclose or offer copies of any documents said to support the alleged claim. As a result, I cannot verify what the matter relates to, whether it concerns me, or whether any liability is denied or disputed. Without this information, I cannot engage meaningfully with the pre-action process.
Despite withholding the required information, the letter threatens possible court proceedings and refers to the risk of negative consequences, yet it does not provide the details necessary for me to understand or respond to the matter. This renders the Letter Before Claim unclear, incomplete, and misleading. It undermines the purpose of the pre-action process.
I am aware that this appears to be a standardised template used by Moorside Legal, not an isolated error. Many recipients report receiving an identical letter with the same omissions. This suggests a systemic failure to comply with the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims.
In my view, this raises concerns under the SRA Principles and the SRA Code of Conduct for Firms, including the duties to act with integrity, to uphold public trust and confidence, to communicate clearly and not misleadingly with third parties, and to comply with legal and regulatory obligations such as the PAPDC.
I request that the SRA investigate Moorside Legal’s practices and ensure appropriate regulatory action is taken where necessary.
Yours faithfully,
[Name]
[Address]
[Email]
Also, respond to the LoC to help@moorsidelegal.co.uk and CC yourself as follows:
Subject: Response to your Letter of Claim Ref: [reference number]
Dear Sirs,
Your Letter Before Claim contains insufficient detail of the claim and fails to provide copies of the evidence your client places reliance upon, putting it in clear breach of the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims.
As a supposed firm of solicitors, one would expect you to comply with paragraphs 3.1(a)–(d), 5.1 and 5.2 of the Protocol, and paragraphs 6(a) and 6(c) of the Practice Direction. These provisions exist to facilitate informed discussion and proportionate resolution. You may wish to reacquaint yourselves with them.
The Civil Procedure Rules 1998, Pre-Action Conduct and Protocols (Part 3), require the exchange of sufficient information to understand each other’s position. Part 6 clarifies that this includes disclosure of key documents relevant to the issues in dispute.
Your template letter refers to a “contract” yet encloses none. That omission undermines the only foundation upon which your client’s claim allegedly rests. It is not possible to engage in meaningful pre-litigation dialogue while you decline to furnish the very document you purport to enforce.
I confirm that, once I am in receipt of a Letter Before Claim that complies with para 3.1(a), I shall seek advice and submit a formal response within 30 days, as required. Accordingly, please provide:
1. A copy of the original Notice to Keeper (NtK) and any notice chain relied upon to assert PoFA 2012 liability.
2. A copy of the contract you allege exists between your client and the driver, being an actual photograph of the sign(s) in place on the material date (not a stock image), together with a site plan showing the sign locations.
3. The precise wording of the clause(s) allegedly breached.
4. The written agreement between your client and the landowner evidencing standing/authority to enforce and to litigate.
5. A breakdown of the sums claimed, identifying whether the principal sum is claimed as consideration or damages, and whether the £70 “debt recovery” add-on includes VAT.
I am entitled to this information under paragraphs 6(a) and 6(c) of the Practice Direction, and I require it to meet my own obligation under paragraph 6(b).
If you fail to provide the above, I will treat that as non-compliance with the PAPDC and Pre-Action Conduct and have already raised a formal complaint to the SRA regarding your conduct. I reserve the right to place this correspondence before the Court and to seek appropriate sanctions and costs (including, where appropriate, a stay and/or other case management orders).
Until your client complies and provides the requested material, I am unable to respond properly to the alleged claim or to consider my position. It would be premature and a waste of costs and court time to issue proceedings. Should you do so, I will seek immediate case management relief pursuant to paragraph 15(b) of the Practice Direction and an order compelling provision of the above.
Please note, I will not engage with any web portal; I will only respond by email or post.
Yours faithfully,
[Your name]
What you’ve just posted from the lease is exactly what we needed – and it is very strongly in your favour.
You have “the right to park a single private motor vehicle on the Allocated Parking Space…” with only very limited restrictions (must be a private, roadworthy, taxed and insured vehicle, not a commercial vehicle, no repairs etc.). There is:
– no requirement to display anything
– no mention of permits
– no mention of “management rules” about parking
– and the bay itself is demised/edged on the plan as part of the property
That means the leaseholder (your boyfriend) already has an express contractual right to park a private vehicle in that specific space. A third-party parking company later parachuted in by a managing agent cannot unilaterally invent extra conditions (such as “display a permit or pay £100”) which cut across that granted right. The lease has primacy; PCM are strangers to it.
You can still use the Letter of Claim response I drafted above to Moorside, but I would now add a short extra paragraph about the lease, so that both they and their client are on notice that there is no cause of action. For example, immediately before the final “Until your client complies…” paragraph, insert something along the following lines:
For the avoidance of doubt, any vehicle I parked in bay [number] was parked under an express right granted by the long lease of the flat held by [boyfriend’s name]. That lease grants the right to park “a single private motor vehicle” on the Allocated Parking Space, which forms part of the demised premises and is shown edged on the lease plan. The lease contains no requirement to display a permit, nor any obligation to contract with your client or comply with its signage.
The lease has primacy of contract. Your client is a stranger to that lease and cannot, by putting up signs years later, derogate from grant or interfere with the leaseholder’s right of quiet enjoyment of their own parking bay. Any attempt to levy charges for parking in that demised bay, or to pursue court proceedings for doing so, will be defended as a clear abuse and a tortious interference with the leaseholder’s rights.
Send that (with the rest of the Letter of Claim response) to Moorside for each Letter of Claim, as already suggested, by email and copy yourself in.
Practical points for you now:
• Keep a good scan of the full lease and plan safely stored.
• Make sure your boyfriend is willing to provide a short witness statement later if a claim is issued, confirming he is the leaseholder, that bay [number] is demised to him, and that you were permitted to use it.
• Do not pay anything, do not ring them, and ignore TRACE completely. Everything goes in writing to Moorside only.
Everything I mentioned earlier about CCJs still stands. You do not get a wrecked credit record just because Moorside send threats, or even if PCM are stupid enough to issue one (or two!) County Court claims. As long as you:
– do not ignore any actual Claim Form from the court, and
– either win, or in the very unlikely event you ever lost, paid in full within 30 days,
then no CCJ would appear on your credit file and your mortgage application would be unaffected.
So: send the beefed-up Letter of Claim responses, keep the lease safe, and stop worrying. If they are daft enough to sue over a demised bay with wording like that in the lease, you will be in a very strong position to defend it and even claim costs for their unreasonable behaviour.
Are there two separate LoCs, one for each PCN which are for the identical reason for the same vehicle? Hilariously incompetent but not surprising from the bottom-dwelling morons at Moorside. Stop worrying about this.
You are correct about the primacy of the lease. However that will not deter the feckwits at Moorside from issuing the claim. Receiving a claim will NOT affect your debit rating or any mortgager application.
You should respond to each LoC separately with the following to help@moorsidelegal.co.uk and CC yourself:
Subject: Response to your Letter of Claim Ref: [reference number]
Dear Sirs,
Your Letter Before Claim contains insufficient detail of the claim and fails to provide copies of the evidence your client places reliance upon, putting it in clear breach of the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims.
As a supposed firm of solicitors, one would expect you to comply with paragraphs 3.1(a)–(d), 5.1 and 5.2 of the Protocol, and paragraphs 6(a) and 6(c) of the Practice Direction. These provisions exist to facilitate informed discussion and proportionate resolution. You may wish to reacquaint yourselves with them.
The Civil Procedure Rules 1998, Pre-Action Conduct and Protocols (Part 3), require the exchange of sufficient information to understand each other’s position. Part 6 clarifies that this includes disclosure of key documents relevant to the issues in dispute.
Your template letter refers to a “contract” yet encloses none. That omission undermines the only foundation upon which your client’s claim allegedly rests. It is not possible to engage in meaningful pre-litigation dialogue while you decline to furnish the very document you purport to enforce.
I confirm that, once I am in receipt of a Letter Before Claim that complies with para 3.1(a), I shall seek advice and submit a formal response within 30 days, as required. Accordingly, please provide:
1. A copy of the original Notice to Keeper (NtK) and any notice chain relied upon to assert PoFA 2012 liability.
2. A copy of the contract you allege exists between your client and the driver, being an actual photograph of the sign(s) in place on the material date (not a stock image), together with a site plan showing the sign locations.
3. The precise wording of the clause(s) allegedly breached.
4. The written agreement between your client and the landowner evidencing standing/authority to enforce and to litigate.
5. A breakdown of the sums claimed, identifying whether the principal sum is claimed as consideration or damages, and whether the £70 “debt recovery” add-on includes VAT.
I am entitled to this information under paragraphs 6(a) and 6(c) of the Practice Direction, and I require it to meet my own obligation under paragraph 6(b).
If you fail to provide the above, I will treat that as non-compliance with the PAPDC and Pre-Action Conduct and will raise a formal complaint to the SRA regarding your conduct. I reserve the right to place this correspondence before the Court and to seek appropriate sanctions and costs (including, where appropriate, a stay and/or other case management orders).
Until your client complies and provides the requested material, I am unable to respond properly to the alleged claim or to consider my position. It would be premature and a waste of costs and court time to issue proceedings. Should you do so, I will seek immediate case management relief pursuant to paragraph 15(b) of the Practice Direction and an order compelling provision of the above.
Please note, I will not engage with any web portal; I will only respond by email or post.
Yours faithfully,
[Your name]
Please tell us exactly what the lease says about parking. Of course, as you already know, what it doesn't day about parking is equally important.
TO quell your unsubstantiated fear about CCJs, please read the following:
These unregulated private parking firms and their pet debt collectors thrive on one thing: the public’s ignorance of how County Court claims and CCJs actually work. They know that if they can make you believe that “a claim” or a “debt recovery” letter somehow wrecks your credit rating, you will panic and pay them. The gullible tree is full of low-hanging fruit, and they make a very good living shaking it.
Here is the reality, which you should read and take a “life lesson” from...
A Parking Charge Notice (PCN) from a private firm is not a fine. It is just a speculative invoice for an alleged breach of contract by the driver. At that stage, nothing touches your credit file.
If you are not successful in appealing the PCN – and appeals are almost never successful at the initial stage and rarely at the secondary, supposedly “independent” (but not) appeal – most low-hanging fruit do not understand that those decisions are not binding on them and they should never just pay. Many do, however, because they are ignorant of the process and fearful of imaginary consequences.
If you then get “debt recovery” letters from so-called debt collectors, those are just more speculative invoices dressed up in scary language designed to prey on your ignorance and fear. Debt collectors have no legal powers whatsoever to come to your door, take goods, or report anything to credit reference agencies. You could receive fifty of those letters and your credit rating would be unchanged.
As part of the modus operandi of these unregulated firms, the next formal step is usually a Letter of Claim (LoC). That is just a threat that they may start a County Court claim. Even then, your credit record is still untouched. It is simply a threat of legal action, not the result of it. Just more attempts to intimidate the low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree into paying out of ignorance and fear.
Only if they go ahead and issue a County Court claim do you enter the court (judicial) process. A Claim Form comes from the court, not from a useless and powerless debt collector. Getting a claim issued against you does not, by itself, affect your credit rating. A claim is simply an allegation that you owe money. You have the right to defend it. As long as you read your post, acknowledge the claim in time, and either defend it or settle it, your credit file remains untouched.
A County Court Judgment (CCJ) only arises if the court actually makes a judgment against you. That happens either because you defended and were unsuccessful at a hearing, or because you ignored the claim and the parking firm got judgment in default. Even then, you still have a crucial safety net that the low-hanging fruit do not realise exists. If you pay the full judgment sum within 30 days of the date of judgment, the CCJ is not registered on your credit file. It is expunged completely from the record. It is as if it never happened as far as lenders are concerned.
A CCJ only appears on your credit record if you fail to pay within that 30-day window. That is the point at which it gets recorded and can affect your ability to obtain credit. Up to that point, no amount of tickets, no stack of debt recovery letters, no Letter of/Before Claim, and not even the issuing of a County Court claim has any impact on your credit history.
Bailiffs are a separate step again. They cannot simply be sent because you have ignored an unregulated private parking invoice or a useless debt recovery letter. Bailiffs (enforcement agents) only become relevant after there is a CCJ and it has not been paid.
For most smaller PCN CCJs, it is not even worth the creditor’s time and cost to instruct bailiffs, especially when the amount is under £600 and stuck in the slower County Court enforcement system. But the key point is this: no unpaid CCJ, no lawful bailiff.
So when people say things like “I had a debt recovery letter so I might not get a mortgage now” or “if I defend, I will get a CCJ,” they are simply wrong. It is precisely that ignorance and fear that these firms trade on. They rely on ordinary motorists incorrectly assuming that a red-letter demand automatically means ruined credit and bailiffs at the door.
There is nothing in the advice given here that will affect your credit record. On the contrary, proper advice is what keeps you away from CCJs. If you engage with the process, defend where appropriate, and, in the extremely rare instance where you are unsuccessful defending a claim, pay any judgment within 30 days, your credit file will remain completely unaffected and no bailiff will lawfully darken your doorstep over a private parking charge.
These companies rely on being able to intimidate the low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree into paying out of ignorance and fear.