3. If I dispute a money claim and lose, am I likely to have to pay more than the original claim?
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If I dispute a money claim and lose, am I likely to have to pay more than the original claim?
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So a PCN I received back in august last year has escalated through the legal department and they've issued me a money claim for £255 inc. £35 for court fee and £50 for legal representative's cost.

I didn't actually personally receive the original PCN until about 3 months after it had happened due to the fact the vehicle I was driving wasn't mine and the owner of the vehicle had recently moved house so the PCN went to his old house.

I emailed the manager of the land where I was parked (car park for flats) asking if he could request to cancel the ticket as I was in a parking bay paid for by the person I was visiting and had permission to park there. I hadn't realised/been told I had to display a permit while I was parked which is why received the ticket.

The manager agreed and emailed the ticket company (Vehicle control services) requesting they cancel the ticket. They refused on the basis that it was not asked within 14 days of the notice, which I never received. I tried contacting them multiple times with no response.

This is the basis of why I want to dispute it.

However, I really cannot afford to pay any more and I don't know how much it could go up by if I do dispute it.


Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks
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Re: If I dispute a money claim and lose, am I likely to have to pay more than the original claim?
« Reply #1 on: »
It can't go up now they have issued the claim. Even if you lose, with the right arguments, you should pay less than that in the end. You haven't mentioned how that sum is broken down. But from what is normally seen, the original charge would be £100. They can really claim only that plus the court fee and legal costs capped at that £50, and maybe another few small sums such as interest, which should see the total around £200. They cannot claim any further legal costs.

As for the extras, and guessing that they are trying to claim other "admin" costs or "debt collection fees", these are all bogus, and have been seen to be in many court cases.

There are many such cases if you search. MoneySavingExpert has a huge history of such things, as well as a guide for going through the process of defending. First thing is to acknowledge the claim on the online portal without submitting any defence at this point (leave it blank). That gives you additional time to do some research. Don't miss any deadlines.
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Re: If I dispute a money claim and lose, am I likely to have to pay more than the original claim?
« Reply #2 on: »
The claim is capped and would be transferred to the small claims track at your local county court. As already mentioned by @The Slithy Tove, if you were so unlucky as to lose the claim in court, you'd likely pay less than the amount claimed. If you don't defend it, it will cost you more than if you don't.

VCS are a vexatious firm of ex-clamper thugs and are worth fighting. You have several good defence arguments. There is a robust Template Defence which would also include several preliminary matter points that would see to get the claim dismissed before it even gets to court.

Please show us the claim form, only redacting your personal details, the claim number, the MCOL password and the VRM and PCN number. Leave everything else visible. The Particulars of Claim are likely to be woefully inadequate.

Which roboclaim firm of solicitors are representing VCS?

Regarding the original PCN, what does your friends lease/AST say about parking? What it doesn't say is equally important. In many of these cases of PCNs issued at residential locations the PPC has no legal right to issue PCNs. Management companies bring these vermin firms in without following the law. In a majority of cases, the leaseholder/tenants lease/AST has supremacy of contract.

In simplistic terms, if the lease only mentions the the leaseholder/tenant has the right to park a car that is taxed and in roadworthy condition in the allocated parking space and there is no mention of a requirement to display a permit mentioned, or there is no mention on the lease about a third party being able to issue their own invoices for whatever reason to the leaseholder, then they have no right and the PCN should never have been issued and the claim is thrown out.

For now, please tell us the "Issue date" of the claim. Have you done the Acknowledgement of Service yet? If so, on what date? Do not use the MCOL to actually submit the defence. You will  do that as a PDF attachment by email.
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Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience” - Mark Twain
Re: If I dispute a money claim and lose, am I likely to have to pay more than the original claim?
« Reply #3 on: »
Thanks for the replies and advice. I've attached a photo of the claim as requested.

I've not yet done the Acknowledgement of Service but I'll do it now.

I can try to get ahold of what their lease says but it was my partner's roommate's parking spot(they have to pay extra for it) at the time, who has since moved out, but I'll see if she can get any details.

How come it is better to not use MCOL to submit the defence, and how it is done by email instead? Could you point me in the direction of the Template Defence you mentioned also, that would be ace.

Thanks

https://imgur.com/a/yJ0nIz4
« Last Edit: June 06, 2024, 06:42:45 pm by woody »
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Re: If I dispute a money claim and lose, am I likely to have to pay more than the original claim?
« Reply #4 on: »
You have until Tuesday 18th June to submit your AoS which you can do on the MCOL website. There is no advantage to delaying it.

By submitting your AoS in a timely manner, you then have until 4pm Tuesday 2nd July to submit your defence. As mentioned, your defence should be submitted as a pdf attachment to an email to claimresponses.cnbc@justice.gov.uk and you put your claim number in the title of the email.

Below is the Template for this defence with just the bits you need to edit pointed out. When you have edited your bits, just show us the first 5 paragraphs (we don’t need to see the whole template as nothing else in it should be changed).

Remember that paragraph #4 which you put your facts, should e short and concise and is only answering the alleged cause of action in the PoC. The PoC are woefully inadequate and so there is no need to go into detail that isn’t alleged in the PoC. You can expand on your version of events etc. when the time comes to do your Witness Statement.

Here is a link to a pdf version of the Defence Template with the instructions on what to edit:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/xz3mzavzfsnbdm1yd36f3/Amended-defence-template-Jun24.pdf?rlkey=r6r55ug1yu032ef1xeglvu8dm&dl=0

Please show us the first 5 paragraphs before you submit the whole defence anything so we can check it for you.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2024, 01:41:53 am by b789 »
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Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience” - Mark Twain
Re: If I dispute a money claim and lose, am I likely to have to pay more than the original claim?
« Reply #5 on: »
Thanks b789. I submitted my AoS last thursday but been working away this past week so just been able to edit that document with my details.

Here is a link to the first 5 paragraphs: https://imgur.com/a/3iC262O

I think all the information I've entered is relevant/will help my case, but let me know.

I appreciate you taking a look
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Re: If I dispute a money claim and lose, am I likely to have to pay more than the original claim?
« Reply #6 on: »
So a PCN I received back in august last year has escalated through the legal department and they've issued me a money claim for £255 inc. £35 for court fee and £50 for legal representative's cost.

I didn't actually personally receive the original PCN until about 3 months after it had happened due to the fact the vehicle I was driving wasn't mine and the owner of the vehicle had recently moved house so the PCN went to his old house.

Let's look at this pl.

You received a PCN. Really?

Let's see it and confirm that it is addressed to you.

You are not the registered keeper so how did you get a PCN in your name? Did the owner name you as the driver or did you simply respond to a PCN not addressed to you and own up to being the driver? 

And how did you receive this in Aug 2023 when the claim refers to a breach in September 2023?
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Re: If I dispute a money claim and lose, am I likely to have to pay more than the original claim?
« Reply #7 on: »
You have a spurious paragraph #3 which should be a part of para #2.

As the PoC do not show any cause of action, you should add the following paragraphs as #2 and #3 under the "Preliminary Matter" sub-heading and then embed the 4 jpg images of the transcript in the link below, then what is currently para #3 becomes paragraph #4 and then the "Facts known to the Defendant", making sure that all subsequent paragraphs are renumbered:

2. The Defendant draws to the attention of the allocating Judge that there is now a persuasive Appeal judgment to support striking out the claim (in these exact circumstances of typically poorly pleaded private parking claims, and the extant PoC seen here are far worse than the one seen on Appeal).  The Defendant believes that dismissing this meritless claim is the correct course, with the Overriding Objective in mind.  Bulk litigators (legal firms) should know better than to make little or no attempt to comply with the Practice Direction.  By continuing to plead cases with generic auto-fill unspecific wording, private parking firms should not be surprised when courts strike out their claims based in the following persuasive authority.

3. A recent persuasive appeal judgment in Civil Enforcement Limited v Chan (Ref. E7GM9W44) would indicate the POC fails to comply with Civil Procedure Rule 16.4 and Practice Direction Part 16. On the 15th August 2023, in the cited case, HHJ Murch held that 'the particulars of the claim as filed and served did not set out the conduct which amounted to the breach in reliance upon which the claimant would be able to bring a claim for breach of contract'. The same is true in this case and in view of the Chan judgment, the Court should strike out the claim, using its powers pursuant to CPR 3.4.

Then add the 4 images of the CEL v Chan transcript from this link:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/xy54utt9djv55xitfp7lk/CEL-appeal-transcript.pdf?rlkey=304syf9czf5arl3i1u1ircjln&st=bz1qlr0s&dl=0

They are PDFs so you will have to convert each page into a JPG so you can embed them into the page.

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Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience” - Mark Twain
Re: If I dispute a money claim and lose, am I likely to have to pay more than the original claim?
« Reply #8 on: »
IMO, the main problem with the PoC is that it is at variance with the OP's account. Without evidence we don't know who's right and who's wrong. Once we know we can examine the details.
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Re: If I dispute a money claim and lose, am I likely to have to pay more than the original claim?
« Reply #9 on: »
You're correct. The incident occured in September, not August - dates mixed up.

Stupidly, I contacted the parking company and claimed I was the driver which is why the PCN is in my name..

These images show a PCN - final reminder, which was addressed to the registered keeper, issued on 20/10/2023(this wasn't got hold of however until sometime in late November), and a new PCN - Notice to Driver which is issued to myself on 14/12/2023 after I'd been in contact:

https://imgur.com/a/KK2uQTd


b789, to be clear do you mean replace the new paragraph #2 with the current one or add it on to the end? Like this?: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/uwo5wp0twz5haqdm7zv6n/Amended-defence.pdf?rlkey=al3y0u1n9jcixpyfmv20ll4zt&st=smbp0yw1&dl=0
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Re: If I dispute a money claim and lose, am I likely to have to pay more than the original claim?
« Reply #10 on: »
Where is the other preliminary matter about PoFA 4(5) and the abuse of process by claiming more than the original £100 on the PCN? That should go in with the preliminary matter items of the CEL v Chan. After those comes the Facts known to the defendant and then the rest of the template defence.

para #1 unchanged from the template.
Preliminary Matter
paras #2 and #3
embedded pics of Cel v Chan
para #4 should be the PoFA 4(5) abuse of process
Facts as known to the Defendant
para #5 is the bit where you declare whether you are the keeper, driver, both or neither.
para #6 is your version of events
para#7 onwards as per the template.
« Last Edit: June 14, 2024, 04:33:39 pm by b789 »
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Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience” - Mark Twain
Re: If I dispute a money claim and lose, am I likely to have to pay more than the original claim?
« Reply #11 on: »
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Re: If I dispute a money claim and lose, am I likely to have to pay more than the original claim?
« Reply #12 on: »
Unfortunately, PoFA does not apply for the following reasons:

OP, you're the gatekeeper of info, we're on the outside and not blessed with the gift of clairvoyance.

How about going back to the start?

The registered keeper was sent a Notice to Keeper in ** 2023.
They did not respond;
The creditor subsequently issued them with a 'reminder' in Oct. 2023;
As far as we know, the keeper did not respond;
Somehow these came into your possession in Dec. 2023;
You contacted the creditor but I would guess there is no verbatim record of this contact;
You were issued with a so-called 'Notice to Driver' dated 14 Dec. 2023.

If correct, you did not receive a statutory notice to driver by post because..there isn't such a beast! *

PoFA does not apply.

The letter dated 14 Dec. states that the keeper gave your details to the creditor.  But your account suggests otherwise. Where does the truth lie?

You've only posted the front of the 'notice', where's the reverse? I want to see if they refer to PoFA. They may not because it doesn't. Ifthey claim you were the driver then PoFA cannot apply for the reason that it does only apply when the creditor doesn't know the drover's details.

Now to the claim.

Firstly, IMO it is wrongly made out. According to you, they know you are not the keeper. Why have they not made this point clear to you and the court?
If the claimant was prepared to waive the charge had a request been made as follows - 'The manager agreed and emailed the ticket company (Vehicle control services) requesting they cancel the ticket. They refused on the basis that it was not asked within 14 days of the notice, which I never received.- then why was this not offered after they issued the correct notice to the driver'.

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Re: If I dispute a money claim and lose, am I likely to have to pay more than the original claim?
« Reply #13 on: »
Thank you for pointing out that the OP is not the keeper of the vehicle. In which case para #4, the PoFA 4(5) abuse of process point shouldn't be included in the defence, at least in the way it is worded. As there is already argument in the template about this point, insofar as the claim should not include any added charges is already made, remove that para.
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Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience” - Mark Twain
Re: If I dispute a money claim and lose, am I likely to have to pay more than the original claim?
« Reply #14 on: »
I'll compile a good list of all the details I have alongside photos of all communications etc. when I return home tomorrow.
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