Free Traffic Legal Advice

My daughter recently received a letter from Debt Recovery plus threatening imminent legal proceedings for a PCN apparently issued by Excel Parking Services in 2018. She had no knowledge of this and can't remember ever being chased for this alleged debt.

As she did not want a CCJ by default she contacted DRP via their website saying

"Dear Sirs,
I refer to your letter of 30 June 2023, received today, advising me that I owe Excel Parking Services Ltd £100 for a parking charge in 2018.
I have no knowledge of this incident and furthermore, despite you saying that there have been 3 collection attempts, no one has contacted me about this.
I should therefore be grateful if you could send me a copy of the original PCN together with evidence showing that the paid for parking time was exceeded and by how much time, together with copies of  your attempted collections."

She has now received a copy of the original PCN and a copy of the last debt recovery letter (but not the others). She does not recall parking there and has not admitted to doing so.

1 Do they have to respond giving proof of the overstay before taking her to court? I would have thought it would need to be evidenced somehow.

2 The IPC code of practice says that there should be a 10 minute leeway before issuing a ticket unless the parking time allowed is no more than 1 hour and the signage prominently displays that there is no leeway. The current signage makes no mention of this, although what signage was in operation 5 years ago I have no idea.

3 The distance selling regulations require certain items to be displayed on signage before a contract is legally enforceable, I understand. These include a GEOGRAPHICAL address and details of a complaint procedure if applicable. The current signage only displays a PO Box address and has no complaint procedure. Does that make the signage unenforceable?

4 Any advice on how to proceed would be appreciated.

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This is from the IPC code of practice.

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I note what you say about POPLA but I would argue that the ANPR merely records the timings, it does not operate the parking contract. There is a ticket machine which you have to pay £1 for 1 hour's parking. This is not a vending machine. I would argue that the distance contract rules apply. I'm not sure it's ever been tested.

We could do with seeing photos of the signs.

This is from the IPC code of practice.

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Indeed - this point will depend on what the signs say, it's only relevant if the maximum time that can be purchased is 1 hour, and if they do not offer a grace period.

I note what you say about POPLA but I would argue that the ANPR merely records the timings, it does not operate the parking contract. There is a ticket machine which you have to pay £1 for 1 hour's parking. This is not a vending machine. I would argue that the distance contract rules apply. I'm not sure it's ever been tested.

Just had a quick search of the other main 2 forums (PePiPoo & MSE) to see if it has been tested - there's little mention of it but I did find a thread with a post from Bargepole - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/76437908/#Comment_76437908 - who at the time of writing had tried the argument with 6 different judges without any success. It seems noteworthy that despite sporadic mentions of such arguments, there seem to be no readily available examples of success. It seems like the argument would be at best an uphill battle - your daughter would first need to convince the judge to consider CCR 2013 at all, then convince them that the machine that dispenses tickets in exchange for money isn't a vending machine, then that the use of ANPR doesn't make it an automated premises, and then that the address provided doesn't constitute a geographical address (and then that all of this means that no money is owed).

County Court can involve an element of 'judge bingo' - some will be more amenable than others to arguments that can be perceived as 'technicalities' or 'loopholes'. With that said if you can find a more meritorious defence argument it would probably be a better option.

Wouldn't this be against the Court's procedural rules?

At this point it's just at debt collection stage - if they send a Letter Before Claim and she were to respond asking for said information that may be a different matter. As I mentioned, sending a Subject Access Request ought to elicit all the information they have - sending one might be beneficial so that she isn't going into this blind.

Whether these signs were there 5 years ago I have no idea.

That's likely to be part of the issue - this from Google Street View suggests that the '1 hour max stay' may be a recent change, it wasn't on the signage in 2018 - GSV 2018 (and wasn't even as recently as last year - GSV 2022)

I'll get her to send a SAR but, as they have 30 days to respond, I fear that the imminent legal action may commence in the meantime.

It shouldn't - Debt Recovery Plus can't take legal action. They'd need to refer it back to Excel, who'd need to instruct their solicitors to issue a Letter Before Claim. Your daughter would have the opportunity to respond to this and they would need to give time to do so - at least 2 weeks but generally around 4. Then they would issue a court claim, and again there'd be 30+ days to prepare a defence, if service is acknowledged at the right time.

Send the SAR asap along with something to verify her identity - 2 utility bills, for example.

If the ! hour limit didn't apply in 2018 then that brings the 10 minute grace period into play. Do you happen to know whether it existed as part of the code back then?

Off the top of my head yes, but unhelpfully IPC don't keep previous versions of their CoP on the website - you might be able to find an archived copy with some Googling.

If they pass it back to Excel for court action, are they right in saying that her total charge may rise to £235? Is the extra the court fee for filing the claim?

Roughly - in general a loss in court costs around £200-220, comprised of the £100 parking charge, around £70 in debt collector costs*, around £50 in legal representative costs, £35 court fee, and interest**.

* These debt collector fees can generally be challenged successfully, even if you lose the overall claim (there's some discussion on this HERE - those posts focus on ones where the entire claim was dismissed as a result, to be clear it is very rare for that to happen, but fairly common for the £70 to not be awarded even if the defendant loses the overall claim).

** I'd be minded to challenge at least some of the interest here - there's seemingly no good reason why they have taken 5 years to raise a claim.

One further thing to clarify - is there a reason you know of as to why no previous correspondence was received? Has your daughter moved address between the date of the parking and now - and was her vehicle's V5C document up-to-date with the right address on the date of the parking?

I didn't realise that legal costs were given in the small claims track.

The costs allowed are very minimal.

The SAR seems like it covers the main stuff - you could check against this example here https://legalbeagles.info/library/guides_and_letters/court/subject-access-request/.

She hasn't moved and as far as I'm aware the V5C is correct.

I'd recommend she physically checks the V5C, just to make sure there isn't some sort of spelling mistake or similar that has caused post to go missing. For her only to have found out about the matter now requires multiple letters to have gone missing - this can happen, but it's worth making sure it isn't due to an error on the V5C, which could cause her similar issues in the future.

Distance selling

You must provide certain information if you’re selling goods or services through digital TV, by mail order or by phone or text message. This is called distance selling.

That quote would seem to be taken from guidance, rather than the law, and the list certainly doesn't seem to be exhaustive (although as I explained above there's still little chance that this case would be considered in scope)

Good find, cheers Sparx.

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