Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hi all,

A few months ago I was surprised to receive a “notice of intended legal action” from Direct Collection Bailiffs for overstaying in a private car park. The date of contravention was over three years ago - 03/06/2022. On the date in question I was not even present in the UK, since I was studying abroad, and I have evidence (passport stamps and bank account statements) proving that I was in a different country. I emailed the company telling them as much, and that I suspected their claim to be a scam. A month later I received a Letter of Claim, and a few days ago I received a court summons with Smart Parking Ltd as the claimant for £305.

I intend to defend this claim on the basis that I was living abroad on the date of the offence. Since I wasn’t even present in the country, I certainly had no opportunity to read the parking signs of the car park I didn’t park in, so no contract or agreement was ever made between myself and Smart Parking Ltd. The driver of the vehicle is unknown. Since I first became aware of this parking charge three years later, I had no opportunity to determine the identity of the driver. I simply have the misfortune to be the keeper of the vehicle.

Any advice or comments on this matter are much appreciated!

Before you manage to FUBAR this, please get a few things straight in your head. You have not received an "summons". This is not a criminal matter. What you may have received, and we won't know until you show us, is a civil claim for an alleged debt.

As you will have noticed, the claim will not have come from the useless and powerless debt collector but from a bulk litigator. Debt collectors are powerless to do anything and certainly have zero standing to issue instructions to anyone to start litigation. All they can do is try and intimidate the low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree into paying out of ignorance and fear.

So, from what we can make out so far, you received some useless debt recovery letters from DCBL. You then received a Letter of Claim (LoC) from DCB Legal. You have now received an N1SDT Claim Form from HMCTS (CNBC) issued by DCB Legal.

What you may not understand is that even though you were not the driver, under some circumstances, if the unregulated parking operator has fully complied with ALL the requirements of PoFA 2012, they can hold the Keeper liable if the driver is not identified. Luckily for you, (not so) Smart Parking back then never complied with PoFA, so, as long as you never identified the driver, they are suing the wrong person.

FOr now, rest assured, that if you follow the advice here, you will not be paying penny to (not so) Smart Parking. For now, all we need to see is the N1SDT Claim Form with the Particulars of Claim (PoC). We do not need to see any of the other forms or pages that came with it. DO NOT redact any dates or times. Once you have done that, I can give you the advice on how to acknowledge the claim and the defence you should use and how to submit it.

READ THIS FIRST - Private Parking Charges Forum guide

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With an issue date of 3rd December, you have until 4pm on Monday 22nd December to submit your defence. If you submit an Acknowledgement of Service (AoS) before then, you would then have until 4pm on Monday 5th January to submit your defence.

You only need to submit an AoS if you need extra time to prepare your defence. If you want to submit an AoS then follow the instructions in this linked PDF:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xvqu3bask5m0zir/money-claim-online-How-to-Acknowledge.pdf?dl=0

Until very recently, we never advised using the MCOL to submit a defence. However, due to recent systemic failures within the CNBC, we feel that it is safer to now submit a short defence using MCOL as it is instantly submitted and entered into the "system". Whilst it will deny the use of some formatting or inclusion of transcripts etc. these can always be included with the Witness Statement (WS) later, if it ever progresses that far.

You will need to copy and paste it into the defence text box on MCOL. It has been checked to make sure that it will fit into the 122 lines limit.

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 adequately 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 adequately 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 PD 16, para 7.3(1);

(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 adequately set out the reason (or reasons) why the claimant asserts the defendant has breached the contract (or contracts);

(d) 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;

(e) The PoC do not state precisely how the sum claimed is calculated, including the basis for any statutory interest, damages, or other charges;

(f) The PoC do not state what proportion of the claim is the parking charge and what proportion is damages;

(g) 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 Defendant submits that courts have previously struck out materially similar claims of their own initiative for failure to adequately comply with CPR 16.4, particularly where the Particulars of Claim failed to specify the contractual terms relied upon or explain the alleged breach with sufficient clarity.

5. In comparable cases involving modest sums, judges have found that requiring further case management steps would be disproportionate and contrary to the overriding objective. Accordingly, strike-out was deemed appropriate. The Defendant submits that the same reasoning applies in this case and invites the court to adopt a similar approach by striking out the claim due to the Claimant’s failure to adequately comply with CPR 16.4, rather than permitting an amendment. The Defendant proposes that the following Order be made:

Draft Order:

Of the Court's own initiative and upon reading the particulars of claim and the defence.

AND the court being of the view that the particulars of claim do not adequately comply with CPR 16.4(1)(a) because: (a) they do not set out the exact wording of the clause (or clauses) of the terms and conditions of the contract which is (or are) relied on; and (b) they do not adequately set out the reason (or reasons) why the claimant asserts that the defendant was in breach of contract.

AND the claimant could have complied with CPR 16.4(1)(a) had it served separate detailed particulars of claim, as it could have done pursuant to PD 7C, para 5.2, but chose not to do so.

AND upon the Court determining, having regard to the overriding objective (CPR 1.1), that it would be disproportionate to direct further pleadings or to allot any further share of the Court’s resources to this claim (for example by ordering further particulars of claim and a further defence, with consequent case management).

ORDER:

1. The claim is struck out.

2. Permission to either party to apply to set aside, vary or stay this order by application on notice, which must be filed at this Court not more than 7 days after service of this order, failing which no such application may be made.

Hi all. Firstly I hope you all had a happy parking-fine-free Christmas, and happy New Year.

Just as hope had begun to rise that I’d heard the last of this, I received (on the 5th Jan) an email from Bulk Litigation as follows:

“Good Morning

Having reviewed the content of your defence, we write to inform you that our client intends to proceed with the claim.

In due course, the Court will direct both parties to each file a directions questionnaire. In preparation for that, please find attached a copy of the Claimant's, which we confirm has been filed with the Court.

Without Prejudice to the above, in order to assist the Court in achieving its overriding objective, our client may be prepared to settle this case - in the event you wish to discuss settlement, please call us on 0203 434 0433 within 7 days and make immediate reference to this correspondence.

If you have provided an email address within your Defence, we intend to use it for service of documents (usually in PDF format) hereon in pursuant to PD 6A (4.1)(2)(c). Please advise whether there are any limitations to this (for example, the format in which documents are to be sent and the maximum size of attachments that may be received). Unless you advise otherwise, we will assume not.

 

Kind Regards,

Litigation Support

DCB Legal Ltd”

Any advice anyone can offer on the next steps is as always greatly appreciated!

Hello.

Just a quick update on this. I have now received my own N180 form, which I must complete by the 12th February. I will fill out the form online in the way advised in other threads.

As a side note, a telephone mediation call was never carried out.

Thanks DWMB.

The form online appears to be different. It’s an N181 form, not N180. Any guidance for completing this?

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/form-n181-directions-questionnaire-fast-track-and-multi-track?utm_source=Directions+questionnaire+-+fast+track%252C+intermediate+track+or+multi-track%253A+Form+N181&utm_medium=correspondence+-+call+reduction+&utm_campaign=Civil+-+money+claims&utm_id=QR+code+-+Civil&utm_term=Money+claims&utm_content=Respond+to+a+claim+online

EDIT: I am ignoring the linked N181 form from the letter and completing the N180 form linked in another thread instead.