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Have they provided you with any close up photos of the signs? If so, please provide a copy.
You have already received an LoC. You are now waiting for the actual claim to arrive.
An amended LoC can be submitted.
Good that you have not responded. They have no idea who the driver is and only the driver can be liable because that Notice to Keeper (NtK) is not compliant with PoFA para 9(2)(a) as there is no period of parking noted on the notice. A single timestamp is not a "period" of parking. There is no evidence that any contract was formed with the unknown (to them) driver.
Also, the PCN is for "no parking". As this is a contractual dispute, a "Mo parking" sign cannot form a contract.
If this actually goes to court, there is plenty persuasive appellate court decisions such as Brennan v Premier Parking Solutions (2023) [H6DP632H], Thornton v Shoe Lane Parking (CA, [1971] 2 QB 163), Vine v Waltham Forest (CA, [2000] EWCA Civ 106) to name a few.
As no claim has yet been issued, upload the following as a PDF letter to BW Legal using their web portal:QuoteSubject: 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]
You have not shown the LoC, only the reminder that the 30 days expired yesterday. Not much you can do for now except to wait for the N1SDT Claim Form pack to arrive from the CNBC. You will then have a choice of whether to use the MSE or our advice on how to defend the claim.
Without having seen the Notice to Keeper (NtK) it is difficult to give much more advice on the matter for now. Based solely on the evidence you have provided of the sign at the location, assuming the NtK was an invoice for an alleged breach of contract by the driver, I cannot see how any contract could have been formed with that signage.
You would have a good defence because the law of contract needs an offer you can accept. A sign saying “NO PARKING IN THIS AREA AT ANY TIME” is not an offer at all. It is a prohibition. You can’t accept a prohibition, so no contract ever comes into existence and there can be no “breach of contract” charge.
Adding “Parking charge £100” doesn’t change that. It reads as a deterrent attached to a ban, not as a price term of a licence to park. Without a licence being offered, there is nothing to accept and no consideration moves between the parties. Contractual liability fails at the starting gate.
If anything, parking despite a prohibition is trespass. Only the landowner can sue for trespass, and only for their actual loss, which is usually nominal. Most parking companies aren’t the landowner and don’t have standing to claim trespass damages, and in any event those damages would not be a fixed £100.
The Supreme Court’s ParkingEye v Beavis case doesn’t save them. Beavis involved a valid contractual licence to park with a charge as a term of that licence. Here there is no licence at all, so the Beavis reasoning on a commercial justification for a high charge does not apply.
Judges often decide simple small claims on simple grounds. “No contract because the sign forbids parking” is a clear, easily understood point.
Have you responded to the LoC at all?
This seems quite simple; the idiot CEO has served a PCN with the wrong contravention on it, because there is no requirement for people parking to pay and display.
So submit representations saying that the contravention did not occur because there is no requirement to pay for parking at this location. You could also request that the council provide evidence of signs stating that payment must be made to park. If they show the signs you have shown us, then they shoot themselves in the foot.
I would definitely make formal representations, the council's evidence looks weak and it is quite odd that the photo of the sign was taken 30 minutes later than the photos of the car.
The one thing you must not do is alert the council to the weakness of their case. If you attack the photos or the signage in the representations, they'll know to prepare a water-tight evidence pack for the tribunal. The map you've put in post 12 is probably better evidence than I've ever seen a local council put in front of the tribunal (I suggest you delete it). While you cannot lie or mislead, you are not required to incriminate yourself (people tend to do this a lot for some strange reason).
There is a fair chance the council's evidence at the tribunal could fail to prove a contravention, though of course we can only go by past experience and cannot give any guarantee on the outcome.
Therefore whether you wish to pursue this is not is very much down to your attitude to risk.
Are you the registered keeper and do you have the V5C?
@EA_RAL any updates?
I've now received The City of Manchester (Rusholme and Moss Side Area) (Prohibition and Restriction of Waiting, Limited Waiting Parking Places and Residents Parking, Loading Bays and Amendment) Order 2023.
The use of 12 as opposed to 16 isn't a guaranteed winner IMO, I've tried this previously and the adjudicator was not persuaded(but I won on other grounds).
The single (PPA) sign as opposed to two isn't a silver bullet either, neither is the total lack of 'zone end' signs. The PCN seems compliant. I don't see that the council's photos can show much other than that the car was parked. There are 3 different entrances into this zone and you could have entered via any of them.
IMO, you should return and note the location of all PPA signs and Zone Ends signs in the area bordered by Wilmslow, Grandale, Claremont and Viscount.
To take an example from GSV, although this might not be current. You referred to a PPA sign at the other end of Hibbert. This faces into Hibbert from Claremont. So, if you are in Hibbert you are in the PPA. And if you go past this sign.....you are still in the PPA because it's not facing you, there's no Zone Ends sign and therefore Claremont is in the PPA.
But it isn't. Or, if it is, then why have the council chosen to place a PPA in a side road off a road which is already in the PPA at this location but not where Hibbert comes off Grandale?
You might need to read this a few times to get the gist!
But now I'd like to see a plan with all PPA and Zone Ends signs in the quadrant which I've set out.
@EA_RAL as per the guidance here, please re-post the PCN without redacting anything.
At the moment we don't know what evidence the council has to prove the facts.
In the meantime I have requested the traffic order for this restriction, and arguably it's the wrong contravention code as the signs say permit holders only, so it should have been 16 Parked in a permit space or zone without a valid virtual permit or clearly displaying a valid physical permit where required rather than 12 - Parked in a residents’ or shared use parking place without clearly displaying a valid permit or voucher or pay and display ticket issued for that place where required.
But we need the unredacted PCN before we can really do anything else.
