Advice please over 1 year down the line.

Coupon-mad

Personally I would treat the letter as a very non-compliant solicitor's letter (pretending to be a LBC) and would reply to the solicitor (not DRP!) with a really scornful debunking of it, as per zzzLazy Daisy's thread - 'LBCCC Fightback' near the top. And you may find other versions of her letters if you read through her post history, look at cases where UKPC tried a rubbish solicitor's letter in late Autumn. Daisy has torn into some letters on here before and there are some great examples on other people's threads from October time.

She doesn't post here much right now for personal reasons but I will send her a link to this thread in case she wants to add anything.

Redx

panzza wrote: »

I too have received one of these letters almost exactly one year later. Any advice/information greatly appreciated.

starting your own topic (thread) would be an excellent start

ie:- not hijacking somebody elses thread which is disrespectful and was a condition of your signup

regards

minniemoo

Excellent CM! Thank you for looking at the letter and the advice. I will do that in a day or so after I sort my tax returns.

Coupon-mad

I have emailed zzzLazyDaisy to see if she is able to pop in and comment on this here.

minniemoo

Thank you.

Coupon-mad

You gave me the address on that letter as '24 Martin Lane, London' but that's the address of the Solicitors' Regulation Authority!

http://www.sra.org.uk/find-us/london.page

Are you sure the letter doesn't say 'regulated by the SRA' and then that address?

minniemoo

The exact wording at the bottom of the letter is

24 Martin Lane London EC4R oDR https://www.thesmallclaimsservice.co.uk
Small Claims Service is a trading name of LPC Law Ltd a limited company registered in England and Wales Reg No.2955453 which is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Now, it is written exactly like that with appalling punctuation and not an apostrophe in sight! No wonder they do not want me to contact them at that address!
There is absolutely nothing else there in terms of a contact number or address to contact them. The only way to contact them if they do exist is (you've guessed it) through DRP.

HO87

If the letter refers you back to DR+ then in all likelihood the letter has been bought by DR+ as a one-off service (quite common - probably costs a few quid). If it was intended to have real teeth and they were actively representing DR+ then you would be given a deadline (usually 14 days) to contact them - the solicitors.

IMO it is also unlikely that DR+ have actually "bought" a PCN debt which they would need to do to pursue it themselves.

EDIT: I see that the so-called "Small Claims Service" (Is that business name intended to confuse/distract or what?) is actually a branch of LPC Law who we all know as friends/representatives of ParkingEye. And guess what? They share their registered office with the SRA and a considerable number of other companies.

minniemoo

There is the 14 day deadline alright but it is a deadline to make payment to DRP. It is the usual stuff, 'Unless our client receives full payment from you within 14 days, we shall advise them to issue legal proceedings against you and obtain a County Court judgement against you for the sums owed, plus legal costs'.
LPC Law's website (whoever they are) shows them based at that address too. Thanks for shedding some light on the machinations of how they operate.

minniemoo

HO87 wrote: »

If it was intended to have real teeth and they were actively representing DR+ then you would be given a deadline (usually 14 days) to contact them - the solicitors.

IMO it is also unlikely that DR+ have actually "bought" a PCN debt which they would need to do to pursue it themselves.

I have just come back to this and am giving some thought as to what to do. So the 14 days that Small Claims Solicitors (as they call themselves) have 'kindly' allowed me is to contact DRP and not them (calling DRP their client). I have in the past had 4 DRP letters and two from Zenith, the last being in August.
Now there this one which points to it being a solicitor's letter but tells me to contact DRP. Do I go with the sharp rebuttal (as in Daisy's post) or wait to see if they go any further? Since SCS have given me the Martin Lane address, I am thinking of taking the approach given by CM and will wait to see if she hears back from Daisy. So grateful for all your assistance and expertise.