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Hi

I am hoping you kind folk can help with this.  I am the registered keeper and owner of the vehicle and recieved the attached claim form.  This relates to an alleged incident on 22/1/2022 of stopping on private land.  I wasnt the driver.  over the years I have recieved various demands from different companies.  I notice that people talk about a letter before claim - i didnt recieve one. They went from a demand last year to this.  They have video evidence and its not me on the video. Can any one help draft a reply for a defence please.





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Video is pretty meaningless, by the way, how do they know who it is?

Given the matter has now got to court, and the OP is the defendant, video could be very much meaningful if it would be evident to a judge that the person standing in front of him in the court room is not the person seen driving in the claimant's evidence.

hi thankls for your replies.  yes that was going to be my defence.  how can I enter into a contract with the company when I was clearly (from the video) not the driver or passenger.

I was also going to point out that this kind of thing is perverse - how can anyone enter into a no stopping contract when the person has to stop to read the sign that enters them into the contract that they can now no longer refuse because they have already stopped.

I will ask them for the pcn - do i need to ask them for anything else or should I just ask for all of it under SAR?

yes that was going to be my defence.  how can I enter into a contract with the company when I was clearly (from the video) not the driver or passenger.

Remember that's only one part of the argument. Showing you were not the driver means they can't hold you liable as the driver. However you then also need to explain why they cannot rely on Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 to hold you liable as the keeper of the vehicle.

My initial observations are;

1) The NtK does not specify a 'period of parking' - Court's have held that a single timestamp is not a period of parking - therefore the NtK is not PoFA compliant. There is also other mandatory wording which is missing from the NtK.

2) If a driver pulls into a car park and immediately stops then there isn't much the parking operator can do about it since there is no contract between the driver and the parking operator at that point in time so there can be no breach of contract.

3) Under consumer regulations the consumer must be given adequate time to read and understand terms and conditions before being bound by them - this means that there can never be an 'instant contract' - the Claimant will be totally reliant on the principle of 'instant contract' in order to pursue you.


Can I ask what the video shows? And does it show how long you were stopped?

I have some other thoughts on the yellow box but I need to understand what the video shows before commenting on that.

hi

would this be a robust enough defence?

I am the registered keeper of the vehicle. I was not the driver at the material time. The claimant's own video evidence does not identify me as either the driver or a passenger. I am under no legal obligation to name the driver and I decline to do so.
The Notice to Keeper ("NTK") does not comply with the mandatory requirements of Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 ("PoFA"). In particular, it fails to specify the required "period of parking". A single timestamp, or evidence showing only a moment in time, is not capable of constituting a period of parking. Furthermore, the NTK omits other mandatory wording prescribed by PoFA regarding keeper liability. As a result, the claimant cannot rely upon Schedule 4 to transfer liability from the unknown driver to the registered keeper. Accordingly, I cannot be held liable for any alleged contractual breach by the driver.
In addition, basic principles of contract and consumer law require that a consumer be given a reasonable opportunity to read and understand contractual terms before any contract can be formed. The claimant's case appears to rely upon an alleged instantaneous contract arising the moment a vehicle stops. Such a proposition is inherently contradictory: if a driver stopped in order to read the terms displayed on the signage, that very act of stopping would itself constitute the alleged breach. This creates an impossible situation whereby compliance with the terms is prevented by the claimant's own contractual framework. Such an arrangement is unfair, predatory, and incapable of creating a binding contract.