Free Traffic Legal Advice

Paying £27 trial fee is nothing to them. They push this all the way to the limit in the hope you are too gullible to understand there process. We only get to dal with a tiny number of these cases. Remember, these firms issue over 40,000 PCNs a day.

In the vast majority of these cases, the recipients just pay at the mugs discount rate or appeal and then pay. Tens of hundreds of thousands of these go all the way to a claim every year. Sadly, the vast majority of these recipients are too ignorant or fearful and end up paying these firms, what is by then an inflated sum when, if they did actually go to court and were unlucky enough to lose, they would not pay the fake added on fees.

In this case, you followed the advice, stood your ground and they folded at the last minute. A win and hopefully a life lesson.

Please show us the N279 Notice of Discontinuance.

Nice first attempt. However, it is all over the place and the single most important thing is that you have not identified the driver and because the location is subject to byelaws, it is not relevant land for the purposes of PoFA which means that you cannot be liable as the Keeper. That should be the very first point. Additionally, if you want to argue other procedural failures, then these should also be right at the beginning. The rest of the narrative can follow.

You want the judge to look at it and before having to trudge through the rest of it, decide whether there is a case for you to answer. If there isn't, because they agree that the location is no relevant land and the driver is not identified, then there is nothing else other to deal with and they can finish early and go haver a cup of tea, or whatever. Judges want an easy life. Especially in the small claims track, they don't need overly complex argument for a simple matter.

Before you do any more, wait to see if they submit their WS by the deadline.

Having reviewed the court order against, I note so many inconsistencies and errors:

1. Contradictory deadlines and sequencing
The trial fee deadline is set as 14 November 2025, but the hearing date is listed as 12 December 2025 — less than a month later. That’s unusually tight and inconsistent with the usual 21–28 day minimum gap courts maintain between a trial fee deadline and the hearing date.

It leaves no practical time for the court to process a potential strike-out and notify parties before the scheduled hearing.

2. Inconsistent timeline for evidence exchange
The order requires parties to serve and file witness statements by 30 December 2025 — after the hearing date (12 December 2025). That is a fundamental procedural error.

Witness evidence obviously must be served before the hearing, typically 14 or 21 days in advance under CPR 27.4(3). Having a filing date after the hearing invalidates the order’s practical effect.

3. Possible clerical or cut-and-paste error
The text appears to be a hybrid of two separate orders:

• A trial fee order (about payment by 14 November 2025), and
• A directions order setting the evidence timetable (dated 30 December 2025).

This likely indicates the court staff used a template from another case or reused an earlier draft without adjusting the dates to fit this specific hearing.

4. Lack of consistency between hearing listing and directions
The “Notice of Allocation to the Small Claims Track (Hearing)” dated 2 October 2025 confirms the hearing on 12 December 2025.
The subsequent order dated 10 September 2025 (an earlier date) contains post-hearing directions (filing by 30 December 2025).
Chronologically, a 10 September order could not refer to a 12 December hearing set later in October.

Therefore, the two documents are out of sequence — the later “allocation” notice appears to supersede the earlier general directions, yet the later one doesn’t correct the erroneous post-hearing dates.

5. Failure to specify service method and compliance under CPR 27
The order requires that parties “serve and file” witness statements but omits:

• The standard requirement that they be exchanged simultaneously.
• Any reference to CPR 27.4(3) or Practice Direction 27A para 7.3 (which normally govern small claims evidence).

6. Ambiguous consequence wording
It states: “If your claim has been struck out, it will no longer exist. The hearing will be vacated unless a counterclaim survives.” While legally correct, this wording is non-standard and confusingly placed before the payment instructions rather than after the consequence section, which may confuse litigants in person.

I would suggest you take the initial five in this and send the following to the court and CC the claimant and yourself as follows:

Quote

Subject: Claim [NUMBER] – Order (two pages) – URGENT clarification/correction under CPR 40.12 and CPR 3.1

Dear Listing Office,

I refer to the single two-page Order in this matter. The Order is internally inconsistent and incapable of compliance unless corrected. In particular:

1. Internal dating conflict
The Order’s heading states 2 October 2025, whereas the signature/footer states 10 September 2025. Please confirm which is the date of the Order and which governs the timetable.

2. Witness statements due after the hearing
The Order requires parties to “serve and file” witness statements and documents by 4:00 pm on 30 December 2025, i.e. after the listed hearing at 10:00 am on 12 December 2025. That is impossible and contrary to the small-claims regime (CPR 27.4; PD 27A para 7.3), which requires evidence in advance of the hearing.

3. Mediation extension that defeats the listing
The provision extending filing to seven days after any mediation would, in any scenario, push filing beyond the listed hearing. As drafted, the timetable cannot be complied with.

These are not trivial slips. Left uncorrected, they invite ambush, adjournment and wasted court time, contrary to the Overriding Objective.

Relief sought:

A. Identify the correct date of the Order and amend the document accordingly.
B. Vary the directions so that witness statements and documents are exchanged simultaneously no later than 14 days before the hearing (i.e. by 4:00 pm on 28 November 2025). If preferred, a 21-day timetable (21 November 2025) is also workable.
C. Disapply the “+7 days after mediation” filing provision as incompatible with the fixed 12 December hearing.
D. Direct that any party wishing to rely on material served after the corrected deadline must apply for relief, with costs consequences reserved.

Case-management notice:

Absent prompt clarification, the Defendant will proceed on a 14-day pre-hearing timetable to minimise prejudice. If the current defect necessitates an adjournment, the Defendant will invite the Court to give appropriate directions and deal with costs on a neutral basis (no order, or reserved), as the situation arises from the Order’s wording rather than any party default.

Given the proximity of the hearing, I request that corrected directions issue urgently.

Yours faithfully,

[Full name]
[Address]
[Email]

Personally, I would have just gone for a strike out application with costs. Had you gone for a summary judgment before allocation, you could have had £750 fixed costs plus the application and then an additional hearing for unreasonable behaviour costs on to of that.

The claimant does not have a case against the keeper if the driver is not identified.

For now, do nothing. Let's see if the Claimant notices and makes a request to the court to correct the deadline dates. On Monday 17th November, call the court and see if the claimant has paid the trial fee. If they have, you can start preparing your own Witness Statement (WS) but don't submit anything until you've seen the claimants WS first, if at all.

If you hear anything else about the hearing in the meantime, come back and let us know.

Quote from: Tronster321 on October 16, 2025, 03:16:38 pm

Hi again, after a long wait, they finally sent the court order but i'm confused by it, it says we have to file evidence AFTER the hearin date though, or am i reading it wrong?

Show it to us perhaps?

I notice that the CEO has seemingly avoided showing the area beside your car in any of the photos.

Is there a painted over or burnt-off DISABLED legend on the carriageway beside the bay? Are you able to get a photo?

Yes, that is another option. However, do you really want the claim 'stayed'. Requesting a stay of proceedings (instead of immediate strike-out) can serve as a strategic move in certain situations. In your case, it would primarily be used to pause the case and force the Claimant to explain and correct procedural failings — rather than asking the court to dismiss the claim outright.

A strike-out application is cleaner and more final. If the court considers the late Reply to Defence as harmless (which can happen in small claims), a stay might just delay the inevitable. If you don’t make the stay request through a formal N244 application, the court is unlikely to act on it.

Are you eligible for assistance with court fees? If you are, then you should definitely make an N244 application for strike out. You could incorporate all of the arguments into a single N244 application, asking for:

• The claim to be struck out under CPR 3.4(2)(a) as disclosing no reasonable grounds (due to PoFA not applying and no driver pleaded), and/or
• The Claimant’s Reply to Defence to be struck out or disregarded due to late filing and failure to comply with CPR 15.8 and PD15 para 6 and/or
• A stay of proceedings pending clarification or permission from the court.

This all has to be done before the claim is allocated to track otherwise it is not likely to be considered within the time constraints of an actual hearing. Once it is allocated, you can please everything in your WS but most judges will not have the time or inclination to do more than skim read it.

This is the reasoning for making the application:

The 14-day expectation for replying to a defence comes from Practice Direction 15, paragraph 6. The requirement to include the Directions Questionnaire is found in CPR 15.8(a). The ability to file further pleadings after a Reply is restricted under CPR 15.9.

So, if ParkingEye waited 63 days to file their Reply to Defence without applying for an extension and without complying with CPR 15.8, they have breached procedural expectations and potentially the rules.

The second option is to do nothing for now, wait for the court to set a hearing date, and defend the claim at the final hearing. You’ll be able to raise all the same points — that PoFA doesn’t apply, that you haven’t been identified as the driver, and that there’s no valid claim. Small claims hearings are informal, and costs are limited, so this route avoids the upfront cost and still gives you a good chance of winning. The downside is you’ll need to prepare a witness statement and attend a hearing, which might take a few months.