The email you shared suggested one was enclosed, was it not?Please show us the N279.
Will do once received :D
If you can share once you have one (and chase if one isn't forthcoming) that would be appreciated. Our friendly neighbours on the MoneySavingExpert forum are keeping a track of DCB Legal's continuing pattern of late discontinuations.
The email you shared suggested one was enclosed, was it not?Please show us the N279.
Will do once received :D
Please show us the N279.
@b789, thanks for all your support on the matter. Received an email from DCB this morning confirming they are dropping the case!I assume I should still go ahead and submit that letter and complaint as you've advised above and ignore the WS requirement until I receive further letters?
Yes
I assume I should still go ahead and submit that letter and complaint as you've advised above and ignore the WS requirement until I receive further letters?
Don't worry to much about the WS filing deadline, It won't matter too much in this case if the claimant does comply with the court order and they are required to send you a copy of the amended PoC which you can then. use to put together a WS once you receive it, even if they only submit it by the 26th February deadline.
There is a lot of discretion by the court in small claim such as these.
The odds of the claimant fulfilling the order are extremely low and they still have the 3rd April deadline to pay the hearing fee, which is even less likely to happen, which means that the claim will be struck out anyway.
Once submitted, is there anything I need to do?
Send the following to the court manager at Nottingham County Court:Quote[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City, Postcode]
[Your Email]
[Your Phone Number]
[Date]
Court Manager
Nottingham County Court
60 Canal Street
Nottingham
NG1 7EJ
URGENT: Request for Permission to Amend Defence – Procedural Oversight in Court Order
Dear Court Manager,
Re: Case No. L0KF4D2J – Euro Car Parks Ltd v [Defendant Name]
I write in relation to the above case, following the order dated 5th February 2025 issued by Deputy District Judge Griffiths.
The order required the claimant to file further Particulars of Claim (PoC) by 26th February due to the inadequacy of their original PoC to comply with CPR 16.4. However, it does not permit me, the defendant, to file an amended defence in response to the new PoC, despite the fundamental changes this will introduce to the case.
This omission appears to be a procedural oversight because:• The court has already found that the original PoC lacked the required detail under CPR 16.4.
• My existing defence was drafted in response to the previous defective PoC, meaning I have not had the opportunity to respond to the new case against me.
• Requiring me to submit only a witness statement and evidence by 26th February (without an amended defence) is procedurally unfair and does not comply with the Overriding Objective (CPR 1.1).
• It is standard practice that when a claimant is ordered to file further PoC, the defendant should be given an opportunity to respond by way of an amended defence.
I respectfully request that the court confirms:1. That I am permitted to file an amended defence within 14 days of service of the further PoC.
2. If the court considers that an N244 application is required for this procedural correction, please confirm whether:• The court fee applies given that this arises from the court’s own order.
• The matter will be considered on paper rather than requiring a hearing.
Given the imminent deadline of 26th February, I would be grateful for an expedited response so that I may prepare accordingly.
I would appreciate a written confirmation of the court’s position at your earliest convenience.
Yours faithfully,
[Your Full Name]
Defendant
If possible, you can hand the letter in to the court personally but make sure that they give you a receipt for it. Otherwise, you send it as a PDF attachment in an email to enquiries.nottingham.countycourt@justice.gov.uk AND by first class post using free "Certificate of Posting" from any post office.
You can also send it using the online complaints form here: https://hmcts-complaint-form-eng.form.service.justice.gov.uk
Just make sure that you copy and paste the following in the appropriate boxes and then also upload the copy of the order:
Q. Your complaint:QuoteI received a copy of an order dated 5th February 2025 issued by Deputy District Judge Griffiths. The order required the claimant to file further Particulars of Claim (PoC) by 26th February due to the inadequacy of their original PoC to comply with CPR 16.4. However, it does not permit me, the defendant, to file an amended defence in response to the new PoC, despite the fundamental changes this will introduce to the case. This omission appears to be a procedural oversight because:
• The court has already found that the original PoC lacked the required detail under CPR 16.4.
• My existing defence was drafted in response to the previous defective PoC, meaning I have not had the opportunity to respond to the new case against me.
• Requiring me to submit only a witness statement and evidence by 26th February (without an amended defence) is procedurally unfair and does not comply with the Overriding Objective (CPR 1.1).
• It is standard practice that when a claimant is ordered to file further PoC, the defendant should be given an opportunity to respond by way of an amended defence.
Q: How has this affected you?:QuoteThis has caused confusion and distress.
Q. What can we do to put this right?:QuoteI respectfully request that the court confirms:
1. That I am permitted to file an amended defence within 14 days of service of the further PoC.
2. If the court considers that an N244 application is required for this procedural correction, please confirm whether:
• The court fee applies given that this arises from the court’s own order.
• The matter will be considered on paper rather than requiring a hearing.
Given the imminent deadline of 26th February, I would be grateful for an expedited response so that I may prepare accordingly. I would appreciate a written confirmation of the court’s position at your earliest convenience.
All the other questions are self explanatory.
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City, Postcode]
[Your Email]
[Your Phone Number]
[Date]
Court Manager
Nottingham County Court
60 Canal Street
Nottingham
NG1 7EJ
URGENT: Request for Permission to Amend Defence – Procedural Oversight in Court Order
Dear Court Manager,
Re: Case No. L0KF4D2J – Euro Car Parks Ltd v [Defendant Name]
I write in relation to the above case, following the order dated 5th February 2025 issued by Deputy District Judge Griffiths.
The order required the claimant to file further Particulars of Claim (PoC) by 26th February due to the inadequacy of their original PoC to comply with CPR 16.4. However, it does not permit me, the defendant, to file an amended defence in response to the new PoC, despite the fundamental changes this will introduce to the case.
This omission appears to be a procedural oversight because:• The court has already found that the original PoC lacked the required detail under CPR 16.4.
• My existing defence was drafted in response to the previous defective PoC, meaning I have not had the opportunity to respond to the new case against me.
• Requiring me to submit only a witness statement and evidence by 26th February (without an amended defence) is procedurally unfair and does not comply with the Overriding Objective (CPR 1.1).
• It is standard practice that when a claimant is ordered to file further PoC, the defendant should be given an opportunity to respond by way of an amended defence.
I respectfully request that the court confirms:1. That I am permitted to file an amended defence within 14 days of service of the further PoC.
2. If the court considers that an N244 application is required for this procedural correction, please confirm whether:• The court fee applies given that this arises from the court’s own order.
• The matter will be considered on paper rather than requiring a hearing.
Given the imminent deadline of 26th February, I would be grateful for an expedited response so that I may prepare accordingly.
I would appreciate a written confirmation of the court’s position at your earliest convenience.
Yours faithfully,
[Your Full Name]
Defendant
I received a copy of an order dated 5th February 2025 issued by Deputy District Judge Griffiths. The order required the claimant to file further Particulars of Claim (PoC) by 26th February due to the inadequacy of their original PoC to comply with CPR 16.4. However, it does not permit me, the defendant, to file an amended defence in response to the new PoC, despite the fundamental changes this will introduce to the case. This omission appears to be a procedural oversight because:
• The court has already found that the original PoC lacked the required detail under CPR 16.4.
• My existing defence was drafted in response to the previous defective PoC, meaning I have not had the opportunity to respond to the new case against me.
• Requiring me to submit only a witness statement and evidence by 26th February (without an amended defence) is procedurally unfair and does not comply with the Overriding Objective (CPR 1.1).
• It is standard practice that when a claimant is ordered to file further PoC, the defendant should be given an opportunity to respond by way of an amended defence.
This has caused confusion and distress.
I respectfully request that the court confirms:
1. That I am permitted to file an amended defence within 14 days of service of the further PoC.
2. If the court considers that an N244 application is required for this procedural correction, please confirm whether:
• The court fee applies given that this arises from the court’s own order.
• The matter will be considered on paper rather than requiring a hearing.
Given the imminent deadline of 26th February, I would be grateful for an expedited response so that I may prepare accordingly. I would appreciate a written confirmation of the court’s position at your earliest convenience.
You won't be attending any hearing because they will discontinue. However, the DDJ has made an error in the order because they have ordered the claimant to provide further detailed PoC without giving the defendant an opportunity to submit an amended defence in response.
Have you shown us ALL the pages from the Notice of Trial Date (the order)? It looks like there may be a page or more missing.
2pm on 3 April 2025 is the date for your diary, when DCBL won’t pay the court fee and the case will be struck out.Thanks, do I have to attend?
Ignore everything from DCBL. And DCB Legal’s offers to settle.
Yes. All going to plan. Is Nottingham your local county court?Thanks for confirming, and yes :)
For any claim issued since May this year, it is now mandatory to "attend" a mediation phone call. This is not part of the actual judicial process. There is no judge or lawyers involved. The only requirement is to "attend" the call.
So, you offer £0 and it is over in minutes. Do not agree to settle anything. If the mediator tries to persuade you that you should consider any offer or that if you don't you may not win, you must report that person in a complaint. They are not legally trained and must not be giving any legal advice or suggestion.
So, offer £0 and carry on with your life.
For any claim issued since May this year, it is now mandatory to "attend" a mediation phone call. This is not part of the actual judicial process. There is no judge or lawyers involved. The only requirement is to "attend" the call.Brilliant, thanks for confirming.
So, you offer £0 and it is over in minutes. Do not agree to settle anything. If the mediator tries to persuade you that you should consider any offer or that if you don't you may not win, you must report that person in a complaint. They are not legally trained and must not be giving any legal advice or suggestion.
So, offer £0 and carry on with your life.
Yes, all part of their standard procedure. Just keep going - I wouldn't bother calling them to discuss settling, you're not interested in paying anything.
You are done with MCOL and it should only be used for checking your history until it is referred to a court local to you. The only action needed to make with MCOL was the AoS.
You defence will be sent from your own email address ideally.
You can just send the defence from your email address. As long as the autoresponse is received, that’s all that matters.
If your brother completed the AoS and did it all in your name, is what is important. Did he use his Government Gateway ID or yours to access MCOL?
It matters not which email address you use to send the defence from. However, it must be an email address that you have access to and can receive and verify any auto responses and anything else sent to that address.
I don't understand why you are asking that question.
Sending your defence is not the only thing that you will have to do. Once your defence is submitted, the CNBC will send a copy to the Claimant who will respond and inform you that they have received your defence and they intend to continue (usually with a "without prejudice" offer to settle, which you ignore). After that, you will receive an N180 DQ that you will need to complete and email back to the court AND the claimants solicitor. At some point after that, if it hasn't been thrown out yet, you will receive a notification that it has been transferred to your local court and then a date with a hearing and a deadline to submit your "bundle" (Witness Statement).
If it has not already been thrown out, DCB Legal will discontinue just before they have to pay the trial fee. They will, at various stages try and make contact and try to settle for less. Ignore them and if you are silly enough to actually communicate with them about this, I guarantee that they will keep haggling down to £25 and as long as you stick to your guns, they will give up and discontinue.
You can submit the defence any time as long as it is before the deadline. There is no advantage to be gained. I predict that this will eventually be discontinued.
Welcome. ECP are on a binge at the moment. Probably doing some spring cleaning and digging loads of old PCNs that they forgot about. They can chase these forever but they can only issue a court claim before 6 years. So, four years is no biggie. It can be raised in any defence but this will never get into a court room for a hearing.@b789 delivers again! Thank you very much for taking the time to respond and draft that. Very much appreciated and again huge props for the work you do for others.
The issue of who was driving is irrelevant, as long as the identity of that person is not revealed. Not only named drivers on the insurance policy can drive the car but anyone who holds at least third party liability insurance can drive any car with the owners permission.
What is important is that ECP have no idea who was driving. They have issued the PCN to the Keeper and have asked the Keeper to pass the notice on to the driver. However, they are attempting to rely on PoFA to be able to transfer liability for the charge from the unknown driver to the Keeper. However, they can only do that if they fully comply with all the requirements of PoFA and they haven't. There is no "invitation", not any synonym of the word, for the Keeper to pay the charge in the Notice to Keeper (NtK).
On what date did you post your Acknowledgement of Service (AoS)? It is very important that the AoS is received by the CNBC no later than Monday 16th September. As long as the AoS is received by that date, you then have until 4pm on Monday 30th September to submit your defence.
You didn't have to post the AoS if you couldn't log into MCOL. You could simply have downloaded the N9 form online, completed it and then emailed it as a pdf attachment to an email and sent to to aos.cnbc@justice.gov.uk. Did you get a free "proof of posting" certificate from the post office when you sent the AoS? In fact, because it is such a shambles at the CNBC, you should email a copy now. At least you will know it has been received because you CC in yourself and you also get an auto-response email back from the CNBC.
What is going to happen next is you submit your defence. I know the template defence over on MSE is very long and I also know that many judges do not like it as they consider it a long boilerplate that tries to cover everything, including a lot of detail that isn't necessary.
It really doesn't matter as ECP have used DCB Legal to file the claim. To be honest, you could simply send in a nursery rhyme as your defence and the outcome is likely to be the same... an eventual discontinuation.
So, no matter which defence you use, the long one from MSE or the short one that has been put together by a district judge, the outcome will be the same. As long as the advice is followed, this will eventually discontinued.
Here is the suggested defence with a draft order that I suggest you use. When I say "you", I am referring to the named defendant on the claim form. It doesn't matter if you are doing this for your dad as long as it all in his name. Any documents that require a signature can be signed electronically by simply typing the defendants full name on the forum. There should be no need to print anything off. Everything is sent as a PDF attachment to an email and the claim number should be in the subject of the email. Always CC in yourself as evidence of having sent it.
When adding any defence, you have to assume that you have never had any correspondence about this allegation and the claim form is the first you know about this. With that in mind, think how you would respond to the allegation. The Particulars of Claim are woefully inadequate and fail to fully comply with CPR 16.4.
This short defence has been adapted slightly because there is a mention in the PoC that the reason for the PCN was because "The PandD/permit Purchased Did Not Cover The Date And Time of Parking."QuoteIN THE COUNTY COURTClaim No: [Claim Number]BETWEEN:
Euro Car Parks Limited
Claimant
- and -
[Defendant's Full Name]
Defendant
DEFENCE
1. The Defendant denies any liability for this claim.
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 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 CPR PD 16.7.5;
(b) The PoC do not state the exact wording of the clause (or clauses) of the terms and conditions of the contract which is relied on;
(c) The PoC do not clearly set out the reason why or how the claimant asserts that the defendant has breached the contract;
(d) The PoC do not state with sufficient particularity (i) exactly where the breach occurred, (ii) the exact time when the breach occurred and (iii) how long it is alleged that the vehicle was parked before the parking charge was allegedly incurred;
(e) The PoC do not state exactly how the claim for statutory interest is calculated;
(f) The PoC do not state what proportion of the claim is the parking charge and what proportion is damages;
(g) The PoC states that the Claimant is suing the defendant as the driver or the keeper. The claimant obviously knows whether the defendant is being sued as the driver or the keeper and should not be permitted to plead alternative causes of action;
(h) In the Notice to Keeper (NtK) received after the claim was issued, the Claimant has failed to fully comply with all the requirements of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (PoFA). Specifically, the Claimant failed to include the required "invitation", or any synonym of the word, for the Keeper to pay the charge as mandated by PoFA paragraph 9(2)(e)(i) and therefore, there can be no Keeper liability.
4. The Defendant has attached to this defence a copy of an order made at another court which the allocating judge ought to make at this stage so that the Defendant can then know and understand the case which they face and can then respond properly to the claim.
Statement of truth
I believe that the facts stated in this Defence are true. I understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought against anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest belief in its truth.
Signed:
Date:
Here is link to the draft order which should also be attached to the email with the defence:
Short Defence Draft Order (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/yjj8nwoc6sknmc9uawecf/short-defence-order-copy-3.pdf?rlkey=y3xyz2s8vumu0k3webocx9sza&st=66sobk5r&dl=0)
All the defendant has to do is edit their name and the claim number in the defence and type their name for the signature and date it. There is nothing to edit in the Draft Order.
Both documents should be saved in PDF format and attached to the an email addressed to claimresponses.cnbc@justice.gov.uk. Make sure the claim number is in the subject of the email. In the body, simply state that attached is the defence and a draft order for claim number [Claimant name v Defendants name]. Also CC in yourself.
When it is emailed, you must receive an auto-response email back from the CNBC. It should be almost immediate but could take a few minutes. If you do not receive the auto-response, try again and if no luck, try sending from a different email agent.
Please keep us informed if you choose to use the above defence.
Welcome. ECP are on a binge at the moment. Probably doing some spring cleaning and digging loads of old PCNs that they forgot about.They seem to go through phases of doing this.
Do you guys have a donations pageNo, advice is offered for free, and the costs of setting up/running the site are generously covered by Southpaw82, the owner. I do sometimes suggest to people that if they wish to and can afford to, that if they win their case they could donate some of the money they saved to a charity of their choice.
IN THE COUNTY COURTClaim No: [Claim Number]BETWEEN:
Euro Car Parks Limited
Claimant
- and -
[Defendant's Full Name]
Defendant
DEFENCE
1. The Defendant denies any liability for this claim.
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 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 CPR PD 16.7.5;
(b) The PoC do not state the exact wording of the clause (or clauses) of the terms and conditions of the contract which is relied on;
(c) The PoC do not clearly set out the reason why or how the claimant asserts that the defendant has breached the contract;
(d) The PoC do not state with sufficient particularity (i) exactly where the breach occurred, (ii) the exact time when the breach occurred and (iii) how long it is alleged that the vehicle was parked before the parking charge was allegedly incurred;
(e) The PoC do not state exactly how the claim for statutory interest is calculated;
(f) The PoC do not state what proportion of the claim is the parking charge and what proportion is damages;
(g) The PoC states that the Claimant is suing the defendant as the driver or the keeper. The claimant obviously knows whether the defendant is being sued as the driver or the keeper and should not be permitted to plead alternative causes of action;
(h) In the Notice to Keeper (NtK) received after the claim was issued, the Claimant has failed to fully comply with all the requirements of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (PoFA). Specifically, the Claimant failed to include the required "invitation", or any synonym of the word, for the Keeper to pay the charge as mandated by PoFA paragraph 9(2)(e)(i) and therefore, there can be no Keeper liability.
4. The Defendant has attached to this defence a copy of an order made at another court which the allocating judge ought to make at this stage so that the Defendant can then know and understand the case which they face and can then respond properly to the claim.
Statement of truth
I believe that the facts stated in this Defence are true. I understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought against anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest belief in its truth.
Signed:
Date: