My partner had received a parking fine from Euro car parks for a car park where the machine was out of order for a couple of months and wrapped up in plastic bags. He has photos of dates before and after the alleged parking incident of the machine like this. There was no app pay for parking available at that time. The vehicle was shared with his ex so it is unclear who was driving as it was a while ago.
He wrongly ignored it but when he was told it was going to court he submitted the defence. He wrongly sent this to the legal firm DCB that Euro car parks use instead of direct to the court. Instead of doing the decent thing and forwarding it to the court, DCB told him they had destroyed the documents! He was out of the country at the time they responded which he can prove. As soon as he returned he submitted defence against the parking fine and also why he had been late in responding.
However, he has now received a CCJ which looks like it was made before they had received the appeal. Obviously he could just suck up the fine to make it go away but it is now £500 for £2.50 worth of parking which he could not pay for.
The options appear to be: appeal CCJ which could cost over £300 and be unsuccessful, appeal to Euro car parks or just pay it.
Does anyone have specific advice on dealing with DCB/Euro car parks and how we should proceed in this case?
If we apply to appeal the CCJ and loose, could we still pay the debt within a set time from the appeal and have it removed from records the same as if you had paid within the first 30 days?
You're coming to us rather late in the day, and it seems the defendant has made something of a hash of things, but what's done is done and we can try to salvage things.
To give us the best chance of doing so, please provide as clear a version of events as possible.
We could do with a timeline of events, with exact dates where possible, of what happened when, and ideally with copies of documents (uploaded via Imgur as per the "READ THIS FIRST" guide).
You don't "appeal" a CCJ, you apply to have it set aside. Unfortunately, it is not the claimants fault that the claim wasn't defended properly.
There are two options to consider when applying for a set aside. If the claim was not served correctly of deficiently, i.e. to the correct address, then a set aside under CPR 13.2 is mandatory. In this case, the claimant hasn't done anything wrong and the clam was served to the correct address.
However, there is CPR 13.3 which is a discretionary set aside. There is no guarantee that it will be successful but one of the reasons that can be applied for is the defendant has a real prospect of successfully defending the claim.
Ignorance of what should have been done is no excuse but if it can be shown that there is a real prospect of successfully defending the claim, then there is a fair chance that the court will allow the set aside. At the end of the day, it is the Overriding Objective (justice is seen to be done) that is important.
If an application is made, there are two possible routes. One is an application with consent (of the other party) and one without consent. An application where both parties agree costs £119 and does not require a hearing. If the other part does not consent, then an application without consent costs £303 as it requires a hearing.
I doubt the climate will agree to an application with consent as they did nothing wrong. Even if they did consent, they'd expect you to pay for the application and probably also their costs and at least the initial principal of the PCN.
If you apply without consent, aside from the £303 for the application, there is no guarantee that the court will grant the set aside but if a good argument is put forward, they generally do. It is likely that the court would order the defendant to re-submit their defence and for the case to be heard at a later date. The court could order that costs are reserved until after the outcome of the hearing or simply expect the defendant to bear the cost of the £303 application fee.
If costs are reserved, it is essential that they are protected as it is almost certain that they would discontinue before any hearing and then the matter of recovering costs is down the drain.
Then again, the court could take one look at the claim and strike it out there and then at the set aside hearing.
Not doing anything is an extremely bad option. If it is less than 28 days since the CCJ was issued, the total amount can be paid and that is the end of it. There will be no CCJ on your credit record for the next 6 years. It is completely expunged.
If more than 28 days have passed and you pay it, then it remains on your credit record but marked as "satisfied". That is about 1% less financially painful than having a unsatisfied CCJ.
So, choices, choices, choices.
Apply for a set aside or pay the CCJ or do nothing?
There is also a matter where the documents were sent to his old address initially, which is why it got quite far down the line before he responded. He did eventually get the documents to the new address, but by then, it had already been passed to a debt collection agency. Would this be taken into account?
There is also a matter where the documents were sent to his old address initially, which is why it got quite far down the line before he responded. He did eventually get the documents to the new address, but by then, it had already been passed to a debt collection agency. Would this be taken into account?
Which documents? At a guess, I assume you don't mean the claim form, as he seems to have managed to submit a defence (albeit to the wrong place). The original parking charge notice being delivered to an old address is unlikely to be of much relevance, especially if this was due to the vehicle's V5C not being up to date.
In order for us to help we need to be very clear as to what has happened, and this requires specificity on your part.
You don't "appeal" a CCJ, you apply to have it set aside. Unfortunately, it is not the claimants fault that the claim wasn't defended properly.
There are two options to consider when applying for a set aside. If the claim was not served correctly of deficiently, i.e. to the correct address, then a set aside under CPR 13.2 is mandatory. In this case, the claimant hasn't done anything wrong and the clam was served to the correct address.
However, there is CPR 13.3 which is a discretionary set aside. There is no guarantee that it will be successful but one of the reasons that can be applied for is the defendant has a real prospect of successfully defending the claim.
Ignorance of what should have been done is no excuse but if it can be shown that there is a real prospect of successfully defending the claim, then there is a fair chance that the court will allow the set aside. At the end of the day, it is the Overriding Objective (justice is seen to be done) that is important.
If an application is made, there are two possible routes. One is an application with consent (of the other party) and one without consent. An application where both parties agree costs £119 and does not require a hearing. If the other part does not consent, then an application without consent costs £303 as it requires a hearing.
I doubt the climate will agree to an application with consent as they did nothing wrong. Even if they did consent, they'd expect you to pay for the application and probably also their costs and at least the initial principal of the PCN.
If you apply without consent, aside from the £303 for the application, there is no guarantee that the court will grant the set aside but if a good argument is put forward, they generally do. It is likely that the court would order the defendant to re-submit their defence and for the case to be heard at a later date. The court could order that costs are reserved until after the outcome of the hearing or simply expect the defendant to bear the cost of the £303 application fee.
If costs are reserved, it is essential that they are protected as it is almost certain that they would discontinue before any hearing and then the matter of recovering costs is down the drain.
Then again, the court could take one look at the claim and strike it out there and then at the set aside hearing.
Not doing anything is an extremely bad option. If it is less than 28 days since the CCJ was issued, the total amount can be paid and that is the end of it. There will be no CCJ on your credit record for the next 6 years. It is completely expunged.
If more than 28 days have passed and you pay it, then it remains on your credit record but marked as "satisfied". That is about 1% less financially painful than having a unsatisfied CCJ.
So, choices, choices, choices.
Apply for a set aside or pay the CCJ or do nothing?
Thanks so much for the helpful advice. If we were to ask for it to be set aside there are two further questions: Can you claim on both reasons: it not being delivered to the correct address and also not defending it properly. There was a period when the letters from Euro Car Parks and DCB were delivered to the wrong address. This was the correct address for the parking ticket when it was issued and the vehicle was driven by two people both living at the address. My partner then moved out and the vehicle was sold and the address of the keeper updated. However, by the time his ex had told Euro car parks he no longer lived there and his new address and DCB had contacted him, it had already got as far as court proceedings, so the delay was crucial.
My second question is that if we ask for it to be set aside and are unsuccessful, would he then have a further 30 days to pay the original CCJ and not have it on his record?
Can you please answer the other questions already asked before we move onto your other questions.
We can't answer your question about the address without you being more specific about what happened when, and exactly which documents were delivered to where, and when.
As I suggested further up, a timeline would be helpful. Details often matter in these cases, it's hard to offer you meaningful advice without them.
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