Friday, 18 November 2016

MP Chris Evans states courts must learn from Scotland over ‘unfair’ county court judgments

Parking companies have been abusing the court process in droves and getting default judgments against people who did not even know there was a claim against them. Financially responsible people have problems moving home and even getting jobs.

As huge numbers of parking charges are not valid (around 85% of appealed charges are cancelled according to statistics provided by ParkingEye and POPLA) this means that people who have done nothing wrong have their lives ruined by irresponsible parking companies.

The Law Gazette has reported that the MoJ are now investigating the problem.

The Prankster suggests the following solutions

  • Parking company code of practice to require a confirmation of address if no reply is ever received
  • A one year time limit on parking charge claims
  • Courts to send out claim forms by registered mail
  • Set-aside fee to be set to the same as claim fee (£25) when no claim form was received
  • Courts to strike out parking claims where the particulars of claim fail to meet practice directions

The Prankster suggests that motorists contact their MPs to put forward their suggestions for modifying the claim process.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster


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8 comments:

  1. fil cad18 November 2016 at 12:16

    Spot on Mr Prankster.

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  2. Fractious Tart18 November 2016 at 14:33

    Useful link that. Keep watching as Mr Shwartz may well appear on the pages at some future time.

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  3. Anonymous18 November 2016 at 17:33

    Agree with all of the points mentioned but more is needed. There should be a single ATA/CoP with an appeals service on a similar footing to London Tribunals/TPT. The system should have teeth as its patently clear that the industry is incapable of self-regulation

    How the government ever allowed the IPC to be an ATA is beyond belief. Its tame IAS is a national disgrace.

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  4. Buzby18 November 2016 at 22:40

    Didn't 'Registered Mail' (a service from the GPO) end in the 1970's. The Courts stopped using this because defendants on being asked to sign on receipt refused to, returning the papers as unserved. This affected all actions, not simply PPC threats.

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  5. spacecadet19 November 2016 at 02:12

    I'm afraid a time limit wouldn't be on. You have 6 years to bring a claim. Reducing that to one year for a specific type of claim would offend natural justice. Applying practice directions strictly would defeat the object of small claims- to make it simple and not to allow technicalities to disallow claims.

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    Replies
    1. Unknown19 November 2016 at 06:00

      I agree - there is more mileage in pushing for an independent appeals service funded by the parking industry ala TPT.
      However, the requirement for claimants to verify addresses prior to issuing claims should be easy to create.

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    2. Unknown21 November 2016 at 00:42

      Natural justice? Not allowing companies to operate a business which relies on people being caught out would be natural justice. If the charge is to deter breach of parking conditions then waiting six years means to me that the company are not actually interested in stopping someone breaking the rules. This is not a commercial transaction, it is a punishment.

      Delete
  6. Unknown19 November 2016 at 07:23

    What about a fee of £50 paid to the defendant if it turns out the PPC has not followed the rules.

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