Hi All,
I received a 'Claim Form' on behalf of MET Parking Services today for parking charges issued on my vehicle at Virgin Active gym in August 2019.
Reason stated: "Failure to clearly display a valid permit and no valid E permit"
Total amount claimed: £332.80
I was a member of the gym at the time of parking my car and I may or may not have had the permit on my window. I believe I did already confirm and prove I was a member of the gym at the time of the penalty charge however this was not heeded. Considering I was a member of the gym and entitled to use the car park, how can I respond to this claim? They have provided 14 days for my response.
I've attached the Court Claim. Appreciate some advice and thanks in advance.
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Nothing to worry about. You won't be paying a penny to MET if you follow the advice.
With an issue date of 17th January, you have until 5th February to submit an Acknowledgement of Service (AoS). Follow the instructions in the this linked PDF file to submit your AoS.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xvqu3bask5m0zir/money-claim-online-How-to-Acknowledge.pdf?dl=0By submitting an AoS, you then have until 4pm on Wednesday 19th February to submit your defence. Let us know when you have submitted your AoS and we will provide you with a suitable defence and attached draft order and instructions on how to submit it.
Follow the advice and the claim will eventually be discontinued and that will be the end of the matter.
Thank you so much. I'll follow your guidance and revert back as advised
I have a question:
The claim is addressed to my wife, who is the registered owner of the vehicle. However it was myself using/parking the car on the day Do I need to do anything different here?
Thanks
Do I need to do anything different here?
The main difference is that you don't do anything, at least not in your name.
If the claim is addressed to your wife, she is the defendant, and she is the one who must respond to the claim. You can of course help her with this, including submitting things for her with her permission, but everything must be done in her name.
The one bit she'll need to do herself is a telephone mediation appointment at some point down the line. This only takes a few minutes and is nothing to fear - we can advise when we get to that stage what to say.
There is no such thing as a "registered owner". There is no official register of owners. There is only the Registered Keeper or Hirer and the Driver. They are separate legal entities. There is no legal obligation on the Keeper or the Hirer to identify the driver.
The driver will always be liable and the Keeper/Hirer may or may not also be the driver. The unregulated private parking company will have no idea who the driver is unless the Keeper/Hirer blabs it to them, inadvertently or otherwise.
The cardinal rule that every Keeper/Hirer of a vehicle should know and understand is the they should never identify who was driving at the time of any alleged contravention that results in a Parking Charge Notice (PCN). Unfortunately, most motorists don't know or understand this and usually blunder on blindly and give away the drivers identity inadvertently by using language such as "I did this or that" when appealing or contacting the operator instead of referring to the driver in the third person such as "The driver did this or that".
Unless the PCN fully complies with all the requirements of PoFA, the operator cannot transfer liability for the charge from the unknown (to them) driver to the known Keeper. The operator is not allowed to infer or assume that the Keeper/Hirer is also the driver and this has been established in several well documented appeal cases.
Thanks for your prompt responses. I have now submitted an AoS. Please let me know how to proceed and thanks in advance.
To be clear, when you say "I", can you confirm this was all done in your wife's name and not yours?
Yes sorry - all in my wife's name!
Please let me know if there's anything else I need to do at this stage?
Thanks
Have you submitted the AoS?
Yes a couple of days ago as mentioned above.
Here is the defence and link to the draft order that goes with it. You only need to edit your name and the claim number. You sign the defence by typing your full name for the signature and date it. There is nothing to edit in the draft order.
When you're ready you send both documents as PDF attachments in an email to claimresponses.cnbc@justice.gov.uk and CC in yourself. The claim number must be in the email subject field and in the body of the email just put: "Please find attached the defence and draft order in the matter of [claimant] v [your full name] Claim no.: [claim number]."
IN THE COUNTY COURT
Claim No: [Claim Number]
BETWEEN:
MET Parking Services Ltd
Claimant
- and -
[Defendant's Full Name]
Defendant
DEFENCE
1. The Defendant denies the claim in its entirety. The Defendant asserts that there is no liability to the Claimant and that no debt is owed. The claim is without merit and does not disclose any comprehensible cause of action.
2. There is a lack of precise detail in the Particulars of Claim (PoC) in respect of the factual and legal allegations made against the Defendant such that the PoC do not comply with CPR 16.4.
3. The Defendant is unable to plead properly to the PoC because:
(a) The contract referred to is not detailed or attached to the PoC in accordance with CPR PD 16(7.5);
(b) The PoC do not state the exact wording of the clause (or clauses) of the terms and conditions of the contract (or contracts) which is/are relied on;
(c) The PoC do not state with sufficient particularity exactly where the breach occurred, the exact time when the breach occurred and how long it is alleged that the vehicle was parked before the parking charge was allegedly incurred;
(d) The PoC do not state exactly how the sum claimed is calculated, including the basis for any statutory interest, damages, or other charges;
(e) The PoC do not state what proportion of the claim is the parking charge and what proportion is damages;
(f) The PoC do not provide clarity on whether the Defendant is sued as the driver or the keeper of the vehicle, as the claimant cannot plead alternative causes of action without specificity.
4. The claimant, who is legally represented, could have complied with CPR 16.4 had it served separate detailed Particulars of Claim [as it could have done pursuant to CPR PD7C.5.2(2)] but it chose not to do that.
5. The Defendant submits that as the claim is for a very modest sum, the court should consider it disproportionate and not in accordance with the overriding objective to allot to this case any further share of the court resources by ordering further PoC and a further defence, each of which will be followed further referrals to the judge for case management.
6. The correct course of action is for the court to strike out the claim due to the legally represented Claimant's clear and material failure to comply with CPR 16.4. The rules exist to ensure fairness, and the Claimant's non-compliance cannot be excused. The Defendant asserts that "rules are rules," and the Claimant has failed to follow them.
8. However, in the unlikely event that the court does not agree to strike out the claim for the Claimants failure to comply with CPR 16.4, the Defendant has attached to this defence a copy of an order made at another court which the allocating judge ought to make at this stage so that the Defendant can then know and understand the case which they face and can then respond properly to the claim.
Statement of truth
I believe that the facts stated in this Defence are true. I understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought against anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest belief in its truth.
Signed:
Date:
Draft Order for the defence
This has now been submitted. Again, thank you very much and fingers crossed!
Trust me, no fingers need to be crossed. Even in the unlikely event that the claim is not struck out, DCB Legal will not continue all the way to a trial. They will discontinue just before that have to pay the trial fee and go off in search of lower-hanging fruit on the gullible tree.
They submit hundreds of thousands of these sham claims. Sadly, we only deal with a tiny proportion of them. The vast majority are either not responded to or screwed up by the defendants and result in default CCJs.