UKCPM representative asks not to proceed with residential case

UKCPM v Mr C.D4GF9001 Maidstone

Mr C asked Private Parking Appeals (PPA) for assistance over the weekend. Having missed the official for filing documents -  PPA engineered a fairly long and very unorthodox hybrid cross between a Witness Statement/Skeleton Argument /rebuttal to Claimant's evidence pack.

Mr C had been charged for parking on his own land.

The issues raised were that; the Contract with UKCPM claimed the company and signatory were freeholders to the land when in fact they were not (land registry document was added to support this)
The company who engaged UKCPM were a sub-contractor of the Managing Agent

The head lease and individual leases gave allocated parking with some spaces with exclusive rights.

Therefore Mr C had primacy of contract and additionally there was no chain from UKCPM to anyone who had the right to make a contract regarding parking management on the land in the first place.

PPA advised Mr C to ensure that he handed copies of the documents to the court usher ASAP to hand to the judge and the Claimant's Representative.

Mr C asked about Right Of Audience and on a hunch and (not to annoy the judge further )  PPA suggested that it would be probably best not to challenge this aspect -  not least as several hearings were listed and Mr C would not be able to probably answer the finer points of any ROA challenge.

The case was called and the judge questioned him on why he did not file the WS on time.
Mr C (client) replied he was a Litigant In Person, unsure of the court process and there was nothing new in the document that was not covered in his original defence and as stated he would be willing to go ahead today.

The judge was satisfied and asked the Claimant's Representative if he would be willing to go proceed with the document presented and submissions.

The Claimant's Representative said that whilst he had no objections to the Defendant's document,  he DID have an issue with the content raised in that he was unwilling to proceed to act on behalf of the Claimant due to the issues raised in the document and documents as he could not advocate in such a situation!

The judge agreed and made an order that the claim be adjourned until the end of September unless the Claimant made an application to re-instate the case.

The Claimant's representative added that he would be very surprised to see this case come back and would be relaying this to the Claimant.

The judge nodded in agreement and turned to the Defendant and apologised if he was a bit abrupt at the start.

Mr C was in and out the court in less than 10 minutes flat.

Outside he learned that this was the third hearing so far for the Representative; an AM parking claim was adjourned,  and another dismissed due to insufficient evidence photos in the Claimant's pack (both Gladstones claims).

There were two other AM Parking claims and two ParkingEye claims also scheduled - results unknown.

Prankster Notes

Not all legal representatives are like Will Hurley, John Davies, Helen Cook and Jamie Ashford of Gladstones, who are prepared to file claims without any due diligence and to pursue claims when there is no reasonable hope of success.

If they had done their job properly, this claim would never have been filed.

Their representative is obviously of a different opinion, and not prepared to go forward with a no-hope case, and prepared to advise his client of this. The first duty of any legal representative is after all, to the court.

Mr C was fairly lucky. Some judges would not have allowed the witness statement, or would have adjourned with a wasted costs order against Mr C.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster