I have just sent a test email to help@moorsidelegal.co.uk and it has not bounced. I received their usual auto-response rubbish.
Can you please show us the content of the message/reason in the bounced emails.
They’re not entitled to force you onto a portal. The PAPDC requires proper engagement and disclosure. If you expressly asked for non-postal correspondence and supplied alternative contact details, they should use those details for the Letter of Claim, and if documents are requested they must provide them (or explain why not) within 30 days. Blocking your email address instead of engaging points to non-compliance.
Bocking emails is not, by itself, “unlawful”, and email is not a valid method of service unless consented to under PD 6A. But this is pre-action correspondence, not service. Using a published email address then deliberately blocking you frustrates the objectives of pre-action conduct and can attract sanctions (stay, costs adjustments) if they issue the claim without first engaging.
From a regulatory angle, an SRA-regulated firm must have effective systems and controls and act fairly; publishing contact routes and then obstructing communications may raise issues under the SRA Code of Conduct for Firms (e.g., maintaining trust, not misleading, and keeping effective systems).
What this gives you if they sue anyway, is that in the Defence (or early application), you can plead PAPDC non-compliance: (i) failure to use the non-postal contact route expressly specified, (ii) failure to provide requested documents within 30 days, and (iii) obstructing pre-action engagement by blocking the your email. Seek a stay and costs for unreasonable conduct under PDPAC paras 13–16.
Do not rely on “deemed service” by email; PD 6A requires prior written agreement for electronic service. Keep the point strictly as pre-action non-compliance, not service.
When the time comes, you can use something like this in your defence:
The Claimant’s solicitors failed to comply with the Pre-Action Protocol for Debt Claims. The Defendant requested documents and clarification. Contrary to PAPDC paras 5.1–5.2, the Claimant failed to provide the requested documents within 30 days and then obstructed communication by blocking the Defendant’s emails to all published contact addresses, despite the Defendant’s express preference for non-postal contact per PAPDC para 3.3. Any proceedings should be stayed under PDPAC paras 13–16 pending full compliance, with the Claimant bearing the costs of this non-compliance.
Other options open to you are to send anything to them by post with a free certificate of posting from any post office and require them to only communicate by post. Whilst they are not required to use proof of posting, you can rebut any presumption of delivery should you not receive it.
Finally, you could just get yourself a new, free email address, such as a gmail one, that you use only for communication with the firm of incompetents. If the subsequently block that, you can add to your SRA complaint, especially if this happens after a claim has been issued.
