Free Traffic Legal Advice

I received 2 private parking charges for parking in my own bay at the development I was living in with my boyfriend at that time from Parking Control Management.  As part of his lease he was alloted one numbered parking space, and the parking space is mentioned in his deeds as him being the owner.  He allowed me to use the parking space as I was living with him, and we shared the space, although only parked one car at a time.  He was given a pass to display and mostly we displayed it but sometimes he had the pass in his car and was elsewhere sdo I had to park with no pass displayed.  This happened twice in December of 2024 and I was sent a PPN for both occasions.

I appealed the ticket and explained that the lease stated that one vehicle could be parked in space 456 and that it formed part of the leaseholders property and was marked on the deeds.  The lease mentioned no necessity of displaying a parking permit.  The signage and permits were issued after purchasing the property. I argued that the leaseholder has primary of contract for the parking space and had not entered into any contract with Parking Control Management.

Both appeals were turned down.  I then received letters from Trace Debt Recovery, which I ignored, and I have now recieved 2 'Letter Before Claim' from Moorside Legal, which simply state that I owe £170 for an unpaid invoice.  It does not state any other details and I assume each one is for the 2 charges hence £170 x 2.

I have not answered this yet but I am now buying a house and it has worried me that they may issue a CCJ which could hinder my mortgage application.  What should I do please?

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.

The lease mentions nothing whatsoever about a permit

At risk of sounding pedantic, that wasn't quite the question. Does it say anything about parking more generally - i.e. does it specify that parking forms part of the lease, and/or that a specific bay(s) is allocated, for example?

The lease mentioned a specific bay and said it was for one vehicle.  It did not specify any particular car, just one vehicle, and the only stuipulation was not a commercial vehicle, and you couldn't do repairs in the bay.

This wording is explicitly in your favour so well worth digging out.

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:

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:


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:

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.

Do I need to start a new thread for this?

Yes please, we operate a "One case, one thread" policy, as trying to offer advice on different cases in one thread causes confusion.

Hi, I have just been sent another notice of claim.  This has a different reference number but says I now owe £340 so preumably they are joining the two things together.  As this has a diferent reference number, should I just send the letter you supplied for the first one to this one with the same details?  It still just says 'unpaid invoices'.

I have scanned the doc here:  https://imgpile.com/p/rq6Um0h

Thank you for your help.

Perfect thank you.