County court letter for excel parking fine - pls help!

sammybibi

I have now received the N180 directions questionnaire and about to complete it. I am going to have to send a scanned copy of the documents to my husband to post offto the county court in Northampton as I am currently away abroad on maternity as my baby's due in 4wks and I won't be back home until mid September.

I have also received a copy of the questionnaire from Excel and they have requested for the small claims hearing to be held at Sheffield county court. Do I need to send a copy of my N180 to Excel as well.

When completing my form can I ask for the hearing to be held at my own local court. Also in section D4 I am going to advice that I will only be available from 1st October. Should I attach a cover letter explaining the reason why I will be unavailable or should I write a brief explanation at the bottom of the form?

bod1467

Re. your local court - Yes. Except in very rare cases, if one party to the claim is an individual and the other is a company, then the hearing will be at the court of the individual's choosing.

Coupon-mad

Make sure once the N180 is sent off, allocating YOUR local court not theirs, you then follow that with a letter asking for the case to be stayed for POPLA (see the NEWBIES thread post #5 which has a link to the letter to use to ask the court to use their discretion and allow POPLA instead!). Very important as if the court agree, you could avoid a hearing and using POPLA instead, with our wording, you would win.

By the way one of the links in post #5 of the Newbies sticky also has info from bargepole about how to complete the N180.

sammybibi

Just about to send off the N180. I have read Bargepole's info on completing it and his advice is to tick 'No' to question A1 which asks if I agree to the case being referred to the small claims mediation service and 'Yes' to question C1 asking if I agree that the small claims track is the appropriate track for this claim.

Their argument though will be that I overstayed the time paid for in a pay and display car park. Although all 3 times, I paid for 10hrs which was the maximum time I could pay and didn't realise there were charges for overstaying. Should I therefore opt for mediation in question A1 and will this affect the chances of it going to POPLA?

Also I wrote a 1 for question D3 asking for number of witnesses including myself I hope this is right.

Coupon-mad

There's no point using court mediation IMHO, because they exist to try to get both parties to agree on a settlement and that won't happen because they want £silly money and you say their charge is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss and so it is unrecoverable and you owe nothing.

Saying no to 'court mediation' is not the same as POPLA. POPLA is the bespoke ADR so follow the N180 with the letter which asks the court for POPLA, or a stay for the Beavis case.

sammybibi

A date has been set for the hearing at my local court for sometime this month (don't want to be specific as I know Excel spy on these forums)and I am trying to prepare my defence and witness statement.


The court have requested copies of all documents. In preparing the court bundle, how do I get transcripts of the cases quoted in my defence? Also Excel have not sent me their bundle, would I need any information in it to prepare mine and should I contact them to request it?


I know including mitigating circumstances in my defence is pointless but how do I explain my understanding of the signage and that it was misleading if I cant include this in my defence.


My understanding is I should send my defence, witness statement and the transcripts to the court with copies also to Excel not later than 14 days before the hearing. Also plan to include my parking tickets showing I had paid for the max 10hrs on each occasion. What else should it comprise of pls?


Can the experts help me out pls.

Umkomaas

I'm not a 'court' expert, but I'll try and help with some of your points until any of the legal brigade come along.

The Parking Prankster's website contains a growing number of case transcripts that you can freely copy and paste. The acquisition of these is funded via the sale of PP's 'Guide to Defending a ParkingEye Court Claim' which costs peanuts. It's specific to PE, but there's plenty of generic stuff that will help you. You might want to get yourself a copy.

I'd recommend scouring PP's website - there's a specific Excel section in it for example. From the Home page click on the 'down arrow' to reveal details of all sections of the site.

http://www.parking-prankster.com/home.html

My understanding is that mitigating circumstances can be used, obviously provided there are also legal and technical points used in addition. I think a Judge would listen carefully to what you might have to say.

Sorry, but I'm starting to step outside of my pay grade on this, but I hope the above helps. Good luck with your case, by the way.

jojo01

If you take a look at the Parking Prankster website, there are quite a few court case transcripts available there to download. There's also a section on Excel Parking which can help you. Baili.org also have transcripts of cases but it's worth having a bit of a Google too. It's worth you making a start now on downloading everything as it sounds like you don't have long to prepare your bundle of documents.

Excel will also need to submit their defence bundle to you and the Court no later than 14 days before the date of the hearing.

Others will be able to advise you best on constructing your defence documents. Hope this helps in the meantime.

ETA: I've been beaten to it!

Coupon-mad

Did you do this?

Coupon-mad wrote: »

POPLA is the bespoke ADR so follow the N180 with the letter which asks the court for POPLA, or a stay for the Beavis case.

As explained here:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=64350600&postcount=5

If not I assume you want to go to the hearing and aren't bothered about trying to get it stayed? Or did you try and got knocked back or ignored by the Court?

Which local Court please?

sammybibi

I had requested POPLA in my initial defence but planned to also write the judge after submitting the N180. Unfortunately things didn't go to plan as my health took a turn for the worse.


TBH the thought of going to court is daunting and the last thing I want but by the time I returned home last month the Notice of Allocation had arrived.


I am slowly putting my defence together but with a 12wk old constantly strapped to me it seems so stressful. It is Leeds County Court.


Would you advice I ring/email Excel to request their bundle