Free Traffic Legal Advice

This CCJ must be set side mandatorily under CPR 13.2 as the claim was never properly served.

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part13

1. As you did not receive the original claim, you had no opportunity to respond to it.

2. You are completely wrong on this point. Just rolling over and accepting that you had to pay the original PCNs and now are liable to pay the CCJ is exactly what these unregulated private parking companies want you to believe. They rely on the low-hanging fruit on the gullible tree to fall for their scams and capitulate and pay up.

Once the CCJ is set aside, the original claim will either be thrown out or allowed to be re-served, depending on several things that we will come to.

3. The additional charges in the CCJ will be made up of fake damages/debt collector fees that, ordinarily, would not be allowed in a "small claims" case, together with the court fee and fixed legal costs. Unfortunately, in a "default" CCJ, there is no human intervention and these fake add ons, which would ordinarily not be allowed, are included.

You have two options to get this set aside. The first option is to get in touch with the solicitors who filed the claim on behalf of the unregulated private parking company. You need to find out who this was by contacting the CNBC and asking them for the details of the claimant and their representative. You also need to tell them to send you a copy of the Particulars of Claim (PoC). Be prepared for a long wait on the phone but persist and wait on the phone until they have emailed you the PoC and you have the claimant/solicitor details.

You can either request that the clamant agree to a set aside which will not involve a hearing and will cost £108. However, most claimants are greedy thugs and intellectually malnourished enough not to consent, thereby risking them being to being liable for the full costs. They hope most defendants aren't clued up enough to know how to go about this procedure.

The clamant may only agree to a set aside with consent as long as the defendant pays the £108 fee, which you should not agree to.

The second option is that you go for a set aside without consent which will involve a hearing and will cost £275. However, you can request that the clamant refund the fee. The judge may decide that the fee is "reserved" until the original claim is decided. The problem with this is that, depending on who the claimant/solicitor is, they may then decide to discontinue the claim, leaving you with an uphill struggle to get the set aside fee back.

Fist things first... which PPC issued the PCNs? Do you still have them? Phone the CNBC first thing in the morning, preferably exactly at 8:30 to try and avoid a long telephone wait and get the details of the claimant and their solicitor, if they used one and, importantly, you need to wait on the phone while you get them to email you the PoC.

Once you've got those details, we can advise on how to move forward. It is important that you act promptly as no judge likes to find out that you sat on this information once you found that you have a CCJ.

Regarding #2, assuming the CCJ is set aside and another hearing takes place, it would be for a judge to decide whether or not you had to pay (and if so, how much). Even if you lost at that stage, there's a fair chance the figure demanded would be less than the current one, as some of the debt collector charges etc. they add on can be challenged.

I have now been sent the following by CNBC.

Claimant: DISTRICT ENFORCEMENT LIMITED
 
Claimant solicitor: GLADSTONES SOLICITORS LIMITED (7372)
Telephone:
Reference:
 
Judgment amount:£685.93
 
Particulars of claim:
THE DRIVER OF THE VEHICLE WITH REGISTRATION  ..... (THE 'VEHICLE') PARKED IN BREACH OF  THE TERMS OF PARKING STIPULATED ON THE       SIGNAGE (THE 'CONTRACT') AT B5 CENTRAL, ON   12/04/2022, 15/04/2022, 29/03/2022,  THUS    INCURRING THE PARKING CHARGES (THE 'PCN'S'). THE PCN'S WERE NOT PAID WITHIN 28 DAYS OF    ISSUE. THE CLAIMANT CLAIMS THE UNPAID PCN'S  FROM THE DEFENDANT AS THE DRIVER/KEEPER OF   THE VEHICLE. DESPITE DEMANDS BEING MADE, THE DEFENDANT HAS FAILED TO SETTLE THEIR         OUTSTANDING LIABILITY. THE CLAIMANT CLAIMS   £100 PER PCN, £60.00 PER PCN CONTRACTUAL     COSTS PURSUANT TO THE CONTRACT AND PCN TERMS AND CONDITIONS, TOGETHER WITH STATUTORY      INTEREST OF £39.75 PURSUANT TO S69 OF THE    COUNTY COURTS ACT 1984 AT 10.25% PER ANNUM,  CONTINUING AT £0.13 PER DAY.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

To reiterate:
- I was NOT aware of "the contract" and had been issued NO parking permit
- I DID receive the tickets and WAS aware at the time that the 28 day period had passed (during this time, I was pursuing guidance)
- The second and third tickets were issued WHILE I was still disputing the first and WHILE I was still waiting to receive my permit.
- I was then under the impression that the charges had been withdrawn, so was UNAWARE of continuing charges and, consequently, any interest due
- I NEVER received any further communications that it was going to court; I did NOT receive an invitation to appear at court; I did NOT receive communication that a judgment had been made against me.
- I have NEVER at any point received any contact from Gladstones Solicitors of any kind.

Don't worry. This is going to go away if you follow the advice.

For information, Those PoC are woefully inadequate and there is a very good chance e that the claim will be fully dismissed at the set aside hearing. This is because there is no mention in the PoC of what terms, if any the defendant is supposed to have breached.

This was shown in an appeal court ruling a year or so ago, CEL v Chan, that because the PoC fail to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4 and Practice Directions Part 16. The claim (and many others since) have been thrown out because of this breach of the rules.

Additionally, Gladstones have mendaciously claimed interest at 10.25% which is a violation of Section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984. Section 69 of the County Courts Act 1984 permits interest to be added to most non-commercial debts at the rate of 8% per year. This is a statutory interest rate and can usually be claimed from the date the debt was due up to the date the claim is issued.

At the point of issuing court proceedings, other court fees and costs can also be added to the amount that is being claimed. However, that as with any other element of a claim, interest can only be claimed at 8% and is awarded at the discretion of the court. Gladstones should be reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority for this embarrassing breach of the County Courts Act 1984.

From what you have told us about the AST and the little that it mentioned about parking, it does not appear that DE never had any right to impose parking charges and there was no requirement to display a permit. These things will be part of your draft defence and also mentioned in your Witness Statement for the set aside order.

It may be worthwhile trying to get a copy of the Head Lease for the property from the landlord, just in case there are any items in there about parking that could supersede your rights in our AST.

The first thing you should do now is email Gladstones with the following information. They need to be informed that you intend to have the CCJ set aside and give them an opportunity to do so at their expense. The nest steps will depend on their response to this letter. I suggest it is written and saved in a PDF format and the emailed to Gladstones as an attachment to the email. This will serve as proof of delivery.

Dear Sirs,

DISTRICT ENFORCEMENT LIMITED (THE 'CLAIMANT')

V

[                        ] (THE 'DEFENDANT')

CLAIM REFERENCE [             ]

In April 2024, I noticed that my credit score was in decline and had no idea why, so I requested a statutory credit report. On it, I saw a CCJ and a £685 charge. This came as a tremendous shock as it is the first and only communication I have received from the Claimant or any organisation representing the Claimant in relation to this claim.
   
I made immediate enquiries of the CNBC from which I was able to establish that:

1. the claim relates to alleged parking events in March and April 2022;
2. the claim form was sent to an old address at which I no longer reside; and
3. if I had been given the opportunity to do so, I would have successfully defended the claim.

I did not receive any pre-claim correspondence, not even a letter of claim as required by the PAP. Nor did I receive the claim form or any particulars of claim and was thus deprived of the ability to defend the claim. The Claimant is well aware that people move home from time to time. They also know that I did not respond to any communications sent to me at my old address.

This situation is explicitly dealt with in the Civil Procedure Rules which provide at CPR 6.9(3):

(3) Where a claimant has reason to believe that the address of the defendant … is an address at which the defendant no longer resides or carries on business, the claimant must take reasonable steps to ascertain the address of the defendant’s current residence or place of business (‘current address’).

The Claimant is a member of the International Parking Community (the ‘IPC’) and is bound by the IPC’s Code of Practice which states the following terms:

22.1 Operators must take reasonable steps to ensure that the Motorist’s details are still correct if 12 months have passed from the Parking Event before issuing court proceedings.

Also:

25.1 The Code complements the relevant legislation and related guidance, which will define the overall standard of conduct for all Operators. Operators must be aware of their legal obligations and implement the relevant legislation and guidance when operating their businesses.

Civil Procedure Rule 6.9(3) is relevant legislation and has not been implemented as required by the IPC Code of Practice.

If the Claimant had taken the actions required by the Civil Procedure Rules and the Code of Practice, my current address would have been found easily.  If those actions had been performed at the correct time, I would not have been deprived of the ability to defend the claim.

By reason of the Claimant’s breach of the Civil Procedure Rules, which amounts to an abuse of the process of the Court, the claim form was never properly served and the judgment must be set aside at the Claimant’s expense and the claim dismissed.

In view of the foregoing, I invite the Claimant to join with me in an application to set aside the judgment and dismiss the claim, with the Claimant paying the court fee and no order as to costs.

Please respond to the above offer as soon as possible so that, if the offer is acceptable to the Claimant, we can work together to right the wrong that the Claimant has done to me.

To give the Claimant a reasonable time to take instructions and for us to agree a suite of documents for the Court, I am willing to defer making a unilateral application to set aside the judgment until 4 pm on Wednesday 22nd May 2024. If a joint application has not been made by that time, I intend to apply to the Court unilaterally for an order setting the judgment aside, striking out the particulars of claim, dismissing the claim and awarding costs against the Claimant on a full indemnity basis.

Pease respond by immediate return.

Yours faithfully,

Can you please find out the date the claim was issued as there could be other points to have the claim dismissed if more than 4 months have passed since the issue date of the claim.

The OP has stated:

There was a double parking spot allocated to our house with the house number clearly signposted

Although it may be useful to know in what document was this "allocation" stated.

Seems I have an issue date of 31 March 2022, with the first 'offense' being listed as 29 March. Note, in case this matters, no ticket was actually attached to my vehicle. I received the initial letter on around 4 April. The date of the court judgement is 11 April 2023.

Also, looking at my own correspondence from the time, it appears that they wrote the wrong post code in the initial letter, which I informed them of when I wrote to them. I do not have the original letter as evidence of this.

Note that they had an email address and phone number for me as well as the mailing address, and the mailing address they got from DVLA. So there were plenty of ways for them to contact me.

Unfortunately, I do not have the owner's lease, and I do not have contact for the owner anymore.

To DWMB2's point, I don't believe there is anything explicitly written anywhere that describes the parking space allocation. I was simply told by the letting agent when I viewed the property and moved in, and the space was visibly numbered. This was also visible in photos that District Enforcement attached at the time.

Please clarify exactly what you are referring to in your posts and but exact dates including the year if we are taking about something that has been going on for over a few years.

This - a simple timeline list of what has happened when (including exactly what you have received and from whom) might be useful here, so that we know where we stand.