With an issue date of 19th July, you have until 4pm on Monday 28th July to submit your defence. If you submit an Acknowledgement of Service (AoS) before then, you would then have until 4pm on Monday 11th August to submit your defence.
If you want to submit an AoS then follow the instructions in this linked PDF:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xvqu3bask5m0zir/money-claim-online-How-to-Acknowledge.pdf?dl=0Normally, we would advise that a defence be submitted as an attachment to an email. However, due to a systemic failure in the CNBC, defences are getting lost and default judgments are being issued which are a procedural nightmare to get set aside, even when you have evidence of having submitted the defence in the first place.
So, we are, for the time being, advising that you use the MCOL to submit the defence. The reason we don't normally advise this is because there are some formatting a character count limitations with the MCOL. However, I have adapted the defence and draft order to fit and, hopefully retain most of the necessary formatting for clarity.
If you follow this advice, you will not pay a penny to ECP as the claim will either be struck out or discontinued before the claimant has to pay the £27 trial fee. So, copy and paste the following into the defence text box on MCOL as your defence and do not remove the line breaks:
1. The Defendant denies the claim in its entirety. The Defendant
asserts that there is no liability to the Claimant and that no
debt is owed. The claim is without merit and does not adequately
disclose any comprehensible cause of action.
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 adequately 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 16.7.3(1);
(b) The PoC do not state the exact wording of the clause
(or clauses) of the terms and conditions of the contract (or
contracts) which is/are relied on;
(c) The PoC do not adequately set out the reason (or reasons)
why the claimant asserts the defendant has breached the contract
(or contracts);
(d) The PoC do not state with sufficient particularity exactly
where the breach occurred, the exact time when the breach
occurred and how long it is alleged that the vehicle was parked
before the parking charge was allegedly incurred;
(e) The PoC do not state precisely how the sum claimed is
calculated, including the basis for any statutory interest,
damages, or other charges;
(f) The PoC do not state what proportion of the claim is the
parking charge and what proportion is damages;
(g) The PoC do not provide clarity on whether the Defendant is
sued as the driver or the keeper of the vehicle, as the claimant
cannot plead alternative causes of action without specificity.
4. The Defendant submits that courts have previously struck out
similar claims of their own initiative for failure to adequately
comply with CPR 16.4, particularly where the Particulars of
Claim failed to specify the contractual terms relied upon or
explain the alleged breach with sufficient clarity. In
comparable cases, judges have found that requiring further case
management steps in claims of modest value would be
disproportionate and contrary to the overriding objective.
Accordingly, strike-out was deemed appropriate.
5. The Defendant submits that the same reasoning applies in this
case and invites the court to adopt a similar approach by
striking out the claim due to the Claimant’s failure to
adequately comply with CPR 16.4. In those cases, the court
further observed that, given the modest sum claimed, requiring
further case management steps would be disproportionate and
contrary to the overriding objective. Accordingly, the judge
struck out the claim outright rather than permitting an
amendment. The Defendant proposes that the following Order be
made:
Draft Order:
Of the Court's own initiative and upon reading the particulars
of claim and the defence.
AND the court being of the view that the particulars of claim
do not adequately comply with CPR 16.4(1)(a) because:
(a) they do not set out the exact wording of the clause
(or clauses) of the terms and conditions of the contract which
is (or are) relied on; and
(b) they do not adequately set out the reason (or reasons) why
the claimant asserts that the defendant was in breach of
contract.
AND the claimant could have complied with CPR 16.4(1)(a) had it
served separate detailed particulars of claim, as it could have
done pursuant to CPR PD 7C.5.2(2), but chose not to do so.
AND upon the claim being for a very modest sum such that the
court considers it disproportionate and not in accordance with
the overriding objective to allot to this case any further share
of the court's resources by ordering further particulars of
claim and a further defence, each followed by further referrals
to the judge for case management.
ORDER:
1. The claim is struck out.
2. Permission to either party to apply to set aside, vary or
stay this order by application on notice, which must be filed at
this Court not more than 5 days after service of this order,
failing which no such application may be made.
