Free Traffic Legal Advice

Subject: Your Letter of Claim – Ref: [reference number]; PCN: [xxxxx]; VRM: [ABC123]; Site/Date: [site], [dd/mm/yyyy]

Dear Sirs,

Thank you for your email of [date]. It does, however, confirm that whoever drafted it has not understood either my previous letter or the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims.

For ease of reference, I will deal with matters in short points.

1. Non-compliance with PAPDC/PD-PAC

Your response fails to comply with the Protocol and Practice Direction. You have still not supplied key documents, including contemporaneous photographs of the vehicle and signage on the material date, a site plan showing sign locations, any statement of account explaining how you leap from the original PCN to the inflated sum claimed (with dates, amounts and the alleged contractual or statutory basis of each item), or any landowner authority (even in redacted form) evidencing that UKCPM has standing to issue PCNs and litigate in its own name at Brooklands Court, New Haw.

The Protocol requires you to provide key documents so that a prospective defendant can understand and narrow the issues, not to send a template stock answer and expect blind acceptance of bare assertions. A contract, the terms allegedly accepted, and evidence of your client’s standing are not optional extras. They are central to any cause of action and fall squarely within PAPDC 3.1 and PD-PAC 6(a) and 6(c).

If you continue to refuse to provide core documents, that will be relied upon in any costs argument as unreasonable pre-action conduct.

2. Presumption of delivery and PoFA “unless the contrary is proved”

You state that it is unnecessary for your client to provide proof of delivery and then recite the well-known deemed service provision in Schedule 4 to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.

I am fully aware that PoFA provides a rebuttable presumption that a notice sent by post is deemed delivered on the second working day after posting. That does not mean that proof of posting is irrelevant, or that service can never be challenged, or that a defendant is not entitled at the pre-action stage to see basic evidence of when and where documents were allegedly sent and to what address.

“Unless the contrary is proved” is precisely the point. The presumption is not conclusive. Dates of issue, dates of posting, the method of posting and the address used are all matters of evidence. A solicitor who thinks that quoting the presumption somehow relieves the claimant of any burden of proof has not grasped even the rudiments of PoFA or civil evidence.

My original request was for copies of the NtK/NtD with all pages, dates of posting, and proof of service. The partial response you have given (a bare copy of a PCN) does not comply with that request or with the Protocol.

3. Standing and landowner authority

You say you will not provide a copy of the agreement with the landowner because it is commercially sensitive and will only be produced if the matter progresses to formal hearing at court.

That is an untenable stance and is flatly contrary to the spirit and letter of the Protocol. Your client’s locus standi is a fundamental element of any claim. A bare assertion that “our Client holds the necessary right” is not evidence and would not be accepted as such at trial.

Pre-action, the court expects disclosure of the core documents that will be relied upon, so that claims without merit can be weeded out and issues narrowed. It is perfectly possible to provide a redacted agreement, a witness statement from the landowner, or some other competent proof of authority. Your client’s insistence on secrecy at this stage is a red flag, not a virtue, and will be drawn to the court’s attention if proceedings are issued.

For the avoidance of doubt, I put your client to strict proof of their authority to operate the site at Brooklands Court, New Haw, and to issue PCNs and pursue court proceedings in their own name.

Your refusal to provide any such proof now will form part of my evidence on any application for directions or costs.

4. Debt recovery add-ons

Your paragraph about “debt recovery costs” being contractually agreed and recognised by the courts is pure assertion with no legal analysis.

You have still not identified the specific term in the alleged contract which you say permits any sum above £100, addressed the requirement that such a term be fair and transparent under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and properly brought to the motorist’s attention, or explained how any added sum is not a penalty or unlawful double recovery given that your client’s alleged “debt recovery” is simply part of its ordinary business model and already priced into the core charge.

There is now a substantial body of County Court authority that such additional sums are irrecoverable in private parking claims and amount to an abuse of process. Simply asserting that “the courts recognise” these costs, without citation, does not make it so.

I repeat my request for a full, itemised statement of account from the original PCN to the total now claimed, identifying each sum, the date applied, and the legal or contractual basis you say entitles your client to recover it.

5. Your internal arrangements and authorisation

Your letter reads like a standardised script generated by someone who has not read or is incapable of comprehending the Protocol, my previous letter, or Schedule 4 PoFA, and who plainly does not understand the issues raised.

Please ensure that any further substantive response is prepared by, or under the actual supervision of, an individual authorised under the Legal Services Act 2007 to conduct litigation, and is based on a proper review of the file and the questions put to you.

If you are unable or unwilling to engage at that level, there is little point in further pre-action correspondence.

6. Portal and method of communication

Once again, I do not consent to the use of your “Customer Portal” or any similar web platform. The Protocol does not entitle you to force defendants into your marketing systems.

All future correspondence must be sent by email to [your email] and, where required, by post to [your postal address] only.

7. Next steps

My position remains that the alleged debt is disputed in full. Unless and until you comply with your obligations under PAPDC and PD-PAC and provide the documents and information I reasonably require, I am unable to narrow the issues any further.

If you choose to issue proceedings without first providing proper disclosure of the alleged contract and terms, your client’s standing, contemporaneous photographs and signage evidence, and a coherent breakdown and legal basis for every element of the sum claimed, I will invite the court to stay the proceedings and order you to provide the same material you should have provided now, and to take your unreasonable pre-action conduct into account when considering any costs under CPR 27.14.

This correspondence will be placed before the court at the appropriate time.

Yours faithfully,

[Your name]